Quote: Original post by Riviera Kid
I just looked at a psp homebrew site.

There were over 200 homebrew games / ports. I think they are all legal, i.e. doom ports dont contain doom content, just binary.

Yeah I've seen a lot too. You wouldnt be able to sell the ports though (license problems) nor could you with emus. Only original content. Still, there's still quite a handful! I'm not saying some of them aren't good enough to be sold (I'm sure some are for a few dollars), but that I think it would be unlikely to make a realistic profit that would make up for the risk (what Sony considers a risk, mind you) of opening up the hardware even more and letting more piracy in.

I guess what I find weird is:

If you can find excellent independant media players, simple drum machines, FTP programs, homemade games and other software for free for Windows, Mac, Palm, Linus and others, why would PSP be the only platform where nearly all of it's better software (as in, Sony-approved) cost something? Granted it would only be a few dollars, people are lazy, or don't have the capability to pay stuff online. On the right you see all this free software on the other platforms, and on the left you need to pay for it for the exact same quality of software. Sony have shown they're pretty serious about keeping homebrew off the PSP, using firmware "upgrades". They desperatelly want control, and a public domain SDK won't prevent the illegal homebrew from being released underground, under the legal homebrew.

Then again, maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about. It's just my gut feeling, as a 1.5 PSP owner, and needing to avoid all the firmware updates which prevent more and more homebrew from being used.

You can't make a console title purely on an emulator. You can maybe get an initial prototype up and running, but the massive advantage of a console over the PC is your ability to tune your title directly to the (fixed) hardware.

Quote: Original post by Riviera Kid
i didnt say the homebrew would be free.
Terms and conditions, you make your silly 2d side scroller, submit it to sony, they release it for $x, at very little cost to them.

I think you need to redefine 'very little cost'.

There is both a real money cost and a serious business risk to that proposal.

Quote: Original post by Riviera Kid
Im talking about little things which are good for a laugh. Imagine channel4 games available on your ps3 for download. Its a reason to subscribe to an online service.

Imagine a game that (intentionally or accidently) floods or otherwise degrades their online service. Imagine a rogue game that exploits a hardware flaw. Or that accidently hits a flaw that fries the unit. Imagine a game that (intentionally or accidently) formats or corrupts the memory card. Imagine the support calls they are going to get when your indie game has problems. Imagine the testing they will have to do (the QA list is rather big) to make sure it works on all versions of the platform. Imagine the risk of their DRM system breaking because some smart people sent in a few games specifically for a cryptanalysis attack.

Those are all fairly expensive and risky to the company.

Quote: Original post by Riviera Kid
If sony feel the game is too good and compromises existing titles, they dont release it. Simple. Sony control the homebrew. Free developers.

The emulator would be debug and slow and awkward. Basically, the system doesnt harm anyone but removes irritating indie hackers who want to develope for consoles.

No, it's not just about the existing titles, and those 'irritating indie hackers' aren't a problem, the problem is the people who break the DRM and release it to the pirate community, or manufacture mod chips for the pirate community, and (most specifically) those who pirate copies of games.

They would need some way to allow indie games to run, without giving the ability for the commercial games to have something stripped off or decoded and being pirated and run. The profit margin is very small, and the risk of increased piracy means less games will be made.

They have to test those indie and homebrew apps. Sony does *significant* QA on everything they put their name on, and the book of requirements to pass QA is this thick (holds fingers apart). They can't simply control the homebrew, as you put it, because they would have to pay a small fortune in QA. The last thing Sony wants is to have their reputation tarnished by a few stupid hackers that exploit a flaw and get the bad code distributed by Sony.

They will get support phone calls. Even if the box has big bold warning "UNSUPPORTED -- CONTACT Riviera Kid at email@example.com" they will still end up fielding some support calls. Part of the expense and royalties cover that.

They aren't going to risk a program accidently (or intentionally) corrupting a memory stick or hard disk, or accessing a flaw on a specific version of the hardware.

They aren't going to pay the money to test the game on new hardware/software updates.


There are countless other business risks that they would be taking, and expenses that you didn't consider. I don't see anybody doing this any time soon.

OTOH, there are several active indie groups that you should check out, each with fairly big customer followings, as posted on this and other threads.

Quote: The problem is that Sony make money off the licensed games, not free/unlicensed homebrew.

You also need to understand that Sony et al. are creating an entertainment experience and are putting a lot of branding and development efforts behind a console for it to reach what we call a "tipping point". There is thus an incentive to protect that investment through DRM, UMD, and other proprietary mechanism for at least through that crucial period. If you freely open a platform to any and all developers, you are basically surrendering your entertainment experience value, and your console becomes a brandless commodity item. That's one reason why they are very selective in the titles they pick and support on their platforms, at least initially. The other reason is purely economical. If there is too many game suppliers chasing around a finite number of consumers, sooner or later each supplier sees its share of the whole pie drop and so are its incentives to deliver proper games or even support the platform at all.

All these ports and emulators get boring quick :P Take it from me, ive been in the pocketpc area for a while.

Playing Chrono trigger 30 times or Doom for the nth time gets really boring!

Quote: Original post by Riviera Kid
i didnt say the homebrew would be free.
Terms and conditions, you make your silly 2d side scroller, submit it to sony, they release it for $x, at very little cost to them.

Im talking about little things which are good for a laugh. Imagine channel4 games available on your ps3 for download. Its a reason to subscribe to an online service.

If sony feel the game is too good and compromises existing titles, they dont release it. Simple. Sony control the homebrew. Free developers.

The emulator would be debug and slow and awkward. Basically, the system doesnt harm anyone but removes irritating indie hackers who want to develope for consoles.

I don't think it's Sony thinking the game is "too good", it's that they don't want their system littered with crap.

They already plan a system for what you're talking about, they unveiled it at GDC, but it's not just "any homebrew crap can be released". It's "quality indie titles can be made for download".

And as far as removing "irritating indie hackers", I don't think Sony gives two shites about these people... let them do their silly hacking, but if you push it too far they have to crack down (if you don't protect your copyright, you lose it).

Why don't simply get a GP2X?

You can make anything you want with it, it's only like $190, and it has Linux. Excepting the 'official' basic libs that I've downloaded from the official SDK, all my SDK (compiler, additional libraries) was cross compiled by myself unsing the devkit script. It's simply so easy to begin developing things on it, and you get a mp3/movie/ebook player and picture viewer along with all. I've even ported the Chicken Scheme runtime to it, so I can use a functional language to create apps on it.

Superpig hit the nail on the head. With an outdated system like the PSP I could see how you could MAYBE create your game on an emulator, but with next-gen systems like the 360 and the PS3, there is no way to do it on your home pc with some emulator and expect it to perform well once dropped onto the actual system.

The reason that console developers charge lots of money for their devkits is not especially because they want more money, but mainly because it costs shitloads to manufacture a devkit in the first place.

Quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Superpig hit the nail on the head. With an outdated system like the PSP I could see how you could MAYBE create your game on an emulator, but with next-gen systems like the 360 and the PS3, there is no way to do it on your home pc with some emulator and expect it to perform well once dropped onto the actual system.

The reason that console developers charge lots of money for their devkits is not especially because they want more money, but mainly because it costs shitloads to manufacture a devkit in the first place.

A huge chunk of it (probably not all, but a part of it) is not so much the development costs (it's a glorified console for the most part) but the fact that they don't want the kits in the hands of just anyone.

It's like the MPAA, who charges something like $10k to nominate your movie for an Oscar. Yes, you have to pay to have your movie even considered.

This isn't to suck your money dry (though it does pay for the ceremony). It's there to keep Joe Nobody from making Serial Thrillaz on Acid III and submitting it, wasting the judges time.

Likewise, to a major publisher, the $10k cost of a devkit is pocket change. To a smaller developer, they usually only need a few devkits. Sony and M$ don't care about the homebrew hacker, they don't want Find the Cheese IV wasting their time.

Nintendo has been hinting a lot about "small size developers" and "developers of any size" so I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo had a system like this. Again, thier idea is to reach everyone. Why not include hobby game developers in there?


EDIT: Fixed spelling

[Edited by - Mr_Fhqwhgads on April 22, 2006 11:13:43 AM]