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Two-Player Pong Homebrew Arrives On PS3

Posted by timothy on from the overqualified dept.

Croakyvoice writes "Dragula96 has released the first 2 player Homebrew Game. Using the Blue Disc Java runtime on the PS3 and the Minimal BD-J (Java) Devkit, this will run on any PS3 on any firmware — Pong finally arrives on PS3."

9 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Pong finally arrives on PS3! by 4D6963 · · Score: 4, Funny

    OMG! Can you say killer app?

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    1. Re:Pong finally arrives on PS3! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      in soviet russia, meme repetitions YOU

    2. Re:Pong finally arrives on PS3! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      I, for one, welcome our meme repeating overlords.

  2. FormerComposer by FormerComposer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While not wanting to take away too much from this, in the early 80s, Radio Shack released a version of Breakout (the ball and bricks game) that had nine modes including 2-player versions in both cooperative and competitive modes. You could put English on the ball (square) because of the 2-D paddle motion (not just 1-D). In some modes (bricks at top of screen), gravity also affected the trajectories.

    For the Color Computer ("CoCo") -- 1K of RAM (included the screen memory) and 4K of ROM for the program. Don't remember if there was anything like a BIOS but I believe not. No OS, no virtual machines, or any of the fun things available nowadays.

    I spent many long nights squeezing my code into that tight shoe -- and along the way fell in love with the Motorola 6809 as probably the best designed microprocessor ever made. (I haven't seen anything since then to change my opinion on that.)

    The more things change, the more they stay the same ....

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    For most purposes, 355/113 is close enough.
  3. more importantly by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unless I missed something (which is entirely possible), I think the more important story here is that someone has found a way to be able to load what appears to be ANY Java-compatible code on the PS3 via nothing more than a USB memory stick. At the moment, this has manifested itself in the form of Pong. But it'll be exciting to see what else people come up with in the coming weeks and months.

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    This guy's the limit!
    1. Re:more importantly by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's not news. It's by design -- BD-J allows you to put executable Java on a Blu-Ray disc, much like HDi allows you to put executable JavaScript on an HD-DVD. The news might be that a dev kit makes it easier than burning a disc...

      If BD-J is anything like HDi was, it'll be crushingly limited, compared to what the PS3 can do. You're not really going to get a lot more than Pong and Space Invaders out of it. You'd be much better off developing for PS3 Linux, if you're so determined.

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      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  4. Oh Yes by dunezone · · Score: 4, Funny

    Remember how Sony said to give them another year? The wait is over, maybe they will release an extreme version with multiple colors?

  5. Gah.... by Akir · · Score: 5, Informative

    As typical on Slashdot, anything that relates to technology in a game system is attributed to the game system itself. BD-J is Java for Blu-ray disc players. It's not PS3 homebrew - It's Blu-ray homebrew.

  6. Not really the first homebrew game... by ranulf · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is hardly the first 2-player homebrew game on the PS3.

    I released my Puzzle Bobble clone pubble almost a year ago. That actually supports 2-5 players.

    What's more, it's open-source and written in Python using my PS3 2D sprite library, python-ps3 which has a good library of SPU-accelerated sprite and alpha-blending routines, wireless sixaxis support and rumble support on a dualshock 3. I'm currently working on 3D rasterisation too, although that will be some months off yet...