I have mixed opinions on which game console is best to develop for, so I'm turning to here for more opinions.

I've dabbled a little bit with GBA development in the past using devkitPro and libgba, but it just doesn't seem 'exciting' and rewarding to me anymore. You see, I have this problem that when I begin something I end up wanting to do something else because what I'm doing isn't good enough... at least that's my mindset.

I'm currently looking at NES development and learning Assembly, but I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble. I'm mainly wanting to just develop for a console and possibly set myself up for some kind of a future in game development, so I'm just not sure of what I should do here. PC development is fine and all, but developing for a console just seems to be more rewarding because everyone and their mother's brother isn't doing the same thing (or at least not to my knowledge), among other things.

But will developing things for older, unsupported consoles actually be worth the trouble? Will the experience in doing so actually help later on down the road?

Main question: I want to develop for a console for the experience, but which one should I develop for? I'm not looking for the ease in doing so, nor do I want to know how, I just want opinions on which to choose.

Edit: Changed the topic title to be more descriptive since descriptions apparently aren't shown.

You can develop (and release) games for the Xbox 360 with XNA. That's about the closest you'll be able to get to developing software for a relatively modern console without having to resort to hackery.

That said, I wouldn't say that developing for older consoles is especially useful but it is fun.

Although I've never actually worked in the game development industry, nor even seen a console dev kit, I've basically seen it claimed that Microsoft's consoles are the easiest to develop for (XNA is a good example, but I believe the development for XBox / 360 is very similar to Windows development). Supposedly Nintendo's consoles are the worst, although I don't know if this is because of poor quality tools or bad / esoteric APIs.

I would say that if you're trying to do this to pad your resume, then developing for older consoles probably isn't a complete waste of time, but it won't necessarily help you much. Modern game development studios probably won't care too much if you spent the time to learn NES assembly and hacked together a game from it. It shows you're smart and dedicated, sure, but having the needed skills counts for a lot these days.

Developing for the XBox would probably be the easiest to break into and remain applicable to a modern studio. I have no idea how many game development studios actually use XNA, but I suspect that they exist (I actually don't know for sure how the XBox is developed for outside of XNA, but I believe I've read it's basically C++ or C# with DirectX). Even if they don't use XNA for games directly, showing that you understand how it works means that you probably understand how modern development goes and have some of the needed skills. If nothing else it might get your foot in the door doing tool development in C# or something.

Main question: I want to develop for a console for the experience, but which one should I develop for? I'm not looking for the ease in doing so, nor do I want to know how, I just want opinions on which to choose.[/quote]

You want to know which you should choose, but not for ease? What is your determining criteria then?

If you're just looking to develop for *A* console, I can't see a good reason to choose anything other than Xbox 360. It's not only the easiest to publish on, but XNA is really simple to develop games with. Unless you enjoy pain it is the clear choice for amateur developers.

Hacking an old SNES or Dreamcast might be a fun project, but you're not going to transfer that knowledge into any modern day game development scenario. The tools today are too high level for that kind of information to be useful.

I I was reviewing resumes and I saw any kind of hobby programming, that's great. If I see XNA I'm interested since it requires a bit more effort. If I see someone doing something unusual like learning assembler for NES development, I want to know more - the skills are less directly transferable but the person behind the skills interests me.

Just my personal opinion, I don't speak for the industry!

But will developing things for older, unsupported consoles actually be worth the trouble? Will the experience in doing so actually help later on down the road?

It depends on what you're looking for.

If you're looking for console experience, usually recruiters only count experience using official APIs in an indie, budget or AAA level game. Most AAA level. The only one that is remotely close is XboX's XNA.

If you're looking to pad your resume with projects, it's important to finish and have something to show for your work. Whatever accomplishes that goal is what you should be doing. Being highly productive is a good trait to have.

As pretty much all the above posters said XNA for Xbox 360 is probaly your best choise.. Also if you want this there is a contest for best game of the year or something and there is a grand price of $40,000, you can read more about that here: Dream Build Play