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The State of the Homebrew Games Scene In 2009
Craig writes "DCEmu has released an article detailing the current state of the homebrew scene on all game consoles, from the Sega Dreamcast to the Nintendo DS to the Nintendo Wii. It even covers unreleased consoles such as Pandora and GP2xWiz. The article explains what is needed to run emulators and games, and whether or not it's worth bothering for each console."
of Phantom ports i'd like to share...
That which does not kill us makes us... st
One FPGA.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's just a list of platforms and their homebrewability. How about a list of games that are fun to play? Is there a Rockband clone that lets me play with my entire mp3 library?
There was no mention of the Genesis, which has been getting some impressive indie games. There's a brand new RPG being released this spring, and there was one released last December.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
From the AtariAge Homebrew forum I see Ballblazer, K.O. Cruiser, KITE!, Jack and the Beanstalk and others in progress.
The AtariAge Store currently has 61 homebrews available for purchase in cartridge form so you can play them on a real console.
Who cares what they're playing in Israel.
Oh, HOMEBREW.
There's no home brew better than PC home brew
- I can legally run software others wrote, even contribute to a commerical game (which I have done as a content author though not as a programmer). The mods for PC games are much more extensive and varied.
- No semi-legal or legally grey mod chips or other workarounds. Game playing is not worth even a tiny risk of going to jail for some sort of copyright infringement
- The most accurate true to life simulation - eg. flight simulation - compared to arcade games on most consoles
- I can take my laptop complete with 17" screen and mobile Nvida 8800GT, and it's not just good for games and media. I can develop code, run scientific apps...the sky's the limit
Pity new games releases for the PC are dying off. Fortunately there are still lots of games released in the last 15 years that I haven't explored. I dread "upgrading" to Vista though because I know that will kill off some of the games I now enjoy using.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I'm surprised that all people care about running on PS3 is Linux. Sure, you can load up apps within Linux, but nobody has created software from the ground up to run specifically on the hardware using the "Other OS" function, such as a game or something. The GPU is locked out, but you can still display something. Surely someone out there must be tinkering with something you can just install and run on the PS3's bare metal.
Twinstiq, game news
Here are a lot of TG16/PCE creations http://www.zeograd.com/creation_download.php unfortunately the scene seems to have died off, the last file uploaded is from 2007.
Working with the older consoles is a treat lately because of the availability of flash cartridges and the like. Code can be assembled and tested on a PC using an emulator and copied to flash for running on the real hardware. Other than the handhelds, the newer consoles are kind of a turn off for me with all the manufacturers' efforts to lock them down. (Plus I always liked to program in assembly and hit the hardware)
not technically a console, but I know that MSX Dev '08 homebrew competition recently finished also http://msxdev.msxblue.com/
Am I the only one who thought this was going to be about beer?
Goofy, Geeky Gifts and More!
No mention of tabletop games in the article what-so-ever. While the big companies are releasing more and more (Fight Klub, MTG2010, Celestial Edition, 4E PHB2), there are a slew of independent tabletop designers who have begun to take it upon themselves to grasp what they believe is a hobby dying in the unfortunate grips of economic woes (its generally more expensive per-game to produce an individual unit of a tabletop game as ink, cardstock, paper, plastic, lead and paint are more expensive than a CD). More and more of the big tabletop gaming companies are trying to integrate new technology and break into new markets but risk losing their diehard fans as a consequence of both the limitations of new mediums and the lure of designing exclusive content for these mediums that leave out those who prefer not to touch them (Warhammer Online; Magic for Xbox; Magic Online; Dungeons and Dragons 4E's online content).
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
It's what I use my Wii for mostly. Homebrew Channel and Browser make the whole thing very comfortable.
Mostly, I use it for Gameboy games (not on virtual console) - there's a port of VisualBoy Advance. There's also a NES, SNES, and 64 emulator - along with ScummVM and Genesis, and others.
Frankly, it's great. I know that I could get it off Virtual Console, but this is actually more convenient.
After you get out of emulation (other people's work), there's a really good Mahjong game, and a few cheating programs (infinite bee power in Super Mario Galaxy), as well as Quake and Doom ports.
It's great. Much like the iPhone, all the cool stuff is unsanctioned.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
The bricking chance for installing The Homebrew Channel on a Wii is essentially zero. I have never heard of it ever happening. It's about as likely as getting bricked by buying a WiiWare game from the shop.
On the other hand, the bricking chance is fairly high if you subsequently install random packs that you can find on the Internet that mutilate, modify, and break your wii's firmware in several ways with the purpose of playing copied games without a modchip.
If all you want to do is run homebrew applications from an SD card (emulators, media players, etc), you're golden. The only ones who often brick their Wiis are the clueless newbies who NEED TO HAVE custom Wii Menu graphics (even though they don't really understand what they're doing to their firmware) and the people who install the aforementioned soft-mod packs or otherwise mess with critical parts of the Wii's firmware.
Most TVs sold in the last year are HDTV
Most TVs in homes are not sold in the last year. Instead, they are CRT SDTVs, possibly up to a decade old. My aunt's TV, for instance, is so old that it doesn't even have composite in; she has to use an RF modulator to watch DVDs or play PlayStation 2.
most high end video cards have s-video out
Most video cards in homes are not high-end. In fact, no desktop PC sold in Office Depot has S-Video out; instead, you get a VGA port and if you're lucky a DVI port. (I guess nobody has to make a presentation and display the slides on a big-screen SDTV.) I couldn't even find a VGA-to-S-Video scan converter in Best Buy or Office Depot; a Best Buy sales associate told me to try online.
shouldn't you invest $300 and upgrade?
Most people don't open their PC to upgrade the video card. They need something external. Should I just make a game for Windows and point customers who own an SDTV to PC to TV on sewelldirect.com?
But even a scan converter won't help with the all-too-common case where the family TV and the family PC are in separate rooms.
I don't understand how they define homebrew and what they mean when they say that XNA is not free at all. It seems like downloading and using the XNA tools are free and it has a good sized community for learning how to program. It allows you to transfer your games to the 360 and to publish them on Xbox Live if you want. Once on Xbox Live, people can download timed demos and creators can set prices at 2, 5, or 10 dollars for the full versions of games. You can also easily distribute full versions of your games for free for PC if you want. What am I missing?
While the article is good information, the article is poorly written. There are a lot of run-on sentences, and multiple typos in every paragraph. The most glaring example is that each time the author means "you're", he writes "your" without fail.
I don't understand how they define homebrew and what they mean when they say that XNA is not free at all.
XNA isn't free in almost exactly the same sense that iPhone SDK isn't free. XNA Game Studio's documentation states that it requires Windows, a DirectX 9-class video card, and a PC capable of running Visual Studio 2008 (recommend >2.4 GHz, 1 GB RAM). Mac owners, Ubuntu PC owners, and low-end laptop owners need not apply. In addition, you need an active XNA Creators Club subscription to test your software on an Xbox 360. The price of an XNA Creators Club subscription ($99 per console per year) can add up if you're trying to develop games that work over a LAN or the Internet.
No dispute that a pc in the living room is good, but gaming? Consoles are every bit as good
Every bit? What game for still-sold consoles can be total converted in the way that PC games can?
On PSP, some homebrew were so good that they went commercial
I need a Sino-Logic 16. Sogo-7 data-gloves, a GPL stealth module...
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