Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Homebrew Community Blends Gamers and Hackers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the do-it-yourself dept.

MSNBC is running an article on the gaming homebrew community. They examine the 'do it yourself' attitude of the folks that make mods, knockoffs, and emulations possible. From the article: "So lively is the homebrew scene that some PSP fans -- it's impossible to say how many -- say they don't buy or play new games because they don't want to upgrade their gadgets and lose their homebrew software. There's even a circulating joke slogan: 'Friends don't let friends upgrade their PSPs.' Unable to break through recent versions of the Sony software, PSP homebrewers have moved on to another trick: downgrading their PSPs to earlier versions."

3 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Not just PSP by Megane · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It should probably be pointed out that PSP is only one of the many systems that can be homebrewed for. There are many other systems, such as the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, ColecoVision, with a pretty strong homebrew community, and within the next year or three, the NES and Sega Genesis will probably see a rise in homebrew programming.

    --
    #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  2. Ultimate Handheld Game Device by nodnarb1978 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'd love to have one unified, well-designed, attractive and ergonomic handheld game unit preloaded with a lightweight, unlocked, extendable OS and emulators for every system ever made.

    I'd pay a lot of money for that.

    But that won't happen in my lifetime, because of the approach the game companies take to copyright law and the razor-and-blades marketing approach.

    --
    (Waves Hand.) There is no sig here.

  3. OH NOSE, THEY DON'T FOLLOW TEH GPL!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    I have to ask, will you slashbots remove the sticks from your asses over stuff like this? A company tries to make something that appeals to homebrewers and open source fans, and you turn your noses up at it because of a simple mistake(not giving the source on a MPEG decoder chip, lest I remeber it). Another question, do all those bitching actually going to use the feature or will greatly benifit from it? I always get the feeling those scraming about it won't really use it, it isn't necessary for the main stuff(running emulators), and those complaining won't contribute much back besides making a fuss about it.

    I do find it funny that all the people bitching and yelling about how EVIL Sony is, for stuff like locking down the PSP, don't get a "open" device like this. You would think that after all the raving about running homebrew applications and games they would get stuff designed for this stuff, and not give Sony any of your money or support.

    Humm, maybe people here are not being honest about the kinds of "homebrew" they REALLY run on the thing... Warzed ISOs count as "homebrew" these days, right? I know that at least "homebrew" now means lots of emulators running zillions of ROMs of games people probably don't own or have the right to play.

    Oh well, I feel the overzealous of Open Source supporters and the GPL 3.0 is going to kill stuff like this system anyway.