The NeXT Open Console? The iPhone SDK and Games

[Cross Posted from IShotTheCyborg]

Oh dear. XNA (and the more closed DS and PSP) might actually have a run for its money, in the form of an "open" game platform on the iPhone. Admittedly there are all sorts of less than open issues associated with the iPhone, but for $99.00 you get registered and make games for the iPhone. The same price oddly enough for full XNA tool usage on the Xbox 360.

While the development environment forces you to use Objective-C, you can use OpenGL ES and OpenAL, which is also more open than DirectX 10 on XNA. So there are some interesting aspects to this device. I've also heard people making jokes about it being a Wii that you can make phone calls on.

Gamasutra - Apple Unveils iPhone SDK with Spore, Monkey Ball

Using the iPhone SDK, “third party developers will be able to build native applications for the iPhone with a rich set of APIs, including programming interfaces for Core OS, Core Services, Media and Cocoa Touch technologies,” leveraging iPhone aspects such as its Multi-Touch user interface, animation technology, storage, three-axis accelerometer and geographical location technology.

Also important is the new store aspect. It makes it easy to get applications onto your iPhone, something that most mobile carriers still seem completely unable to comprehend. I went looking for downloads for my Motorola RAZR the other day, and after 30 minutes gave up. I was not just a potential lost sale, but a LOST sale. I was ready to buy some stuff.

John Carmack on Slashdot

Just based on the blurbs, it looks very good -- a simulator plus debugging on the native device is the best of both worlds, and a 70% royalty deal for apps over iTunes is quite good.

The iTunes distribution channel is really a more important aspect than a lot of people understand. The ability to distribute larger applications than the over-the-air limits and effectively market your title with more than a dozen character deck name, combined with the reasonable income split make this look like a very interesting market. This type of developer / customer interaction is probably the wave of the future for mobile devices, it will be interesting to see how quickly the other players can react. Based on our experiences with the carriers, I am betting not very quickly.

Also based on the early comments from developers, it appears to be a fairly powerful device, and the debugging and profiling tools that developers have access to will give them the ability to squeeze a lot out of the device.

TUAW.COM - Apple Shows of iPhone Gaming Chops

Finally, Ethan Einhorn from Sega showed off a build of Super Monkey Ball, naturally also using tilt controls. What's interesting there is they actually underestimated what the iPhone could do, and ended up having to bring in another artist to upscale the art from what they had anticipated. Again, the take home message: the iPhone is a real platform for game development.

But I really think there is potential for interesting new things with this device. Like the DS, there are just so many options available that developers can think about deploying in their games.

Gamasutra - Analyst Talks Apple's iPhone Games Strategy

With recognition of the upcoming announcement of the SDK, Williams added, "The most viable market opportunity for Apple is undoubtedly the mobile space with the iPhone and iPod touch. With hardware features such as multi-touch, tilt monitor, networking capabilities, a microphone and a camera, the iPhone has the potential to be a revolutionary mobile gaming device."

Finally, and perhaps most interesting was the introduction of a fund of $100 Million to encourage new development on the iPhone. This is something that even MS hasn't endevoured to do on XNA in any large scale fasion.

TUAW.COM - iFund: $100M for iPhone/iPod touch devs

This $100 million fund will invest in companies, large or small, that want to develop innovative apps for both the iPhone and the iPod touch.

The iFund will invest anywhere from $100,000 to $15 million in funds for iPhone development.

Coverage on Develop - Carmack Praises iPhone Development Plans

Shameless Plug: DIY Console Game Development

Well, it probably isn't as cool as Hector's self promotion, but I recently did an interview which has become a two-part podcast. The pages linked have both the actual podcast and associated transcripts. Wes Unruh of Alterati ran the interview. He's recently developed an interest in DIY (Do it Yourself) forms of media production. In this case he and I are talking about DIY game development, particularly on consoles.

Part 1 and Part 2.

Here are the introductions of each of them to give you a flavor of what we talked about.

Casey O'Donnell on DIY Gaming (Part 1):

I talking with Casey O’Donnell about his research into game development, both to get a better understanding of the tools available to the DIY gamer intent on creating their own games and modifying the platforms they own. We sat down with a list of topics from modding all of the popular platforms out there and the attitudes those various companies have toward the modding and homebrew community, as well as the various legal issues that crop up when you are taking apart the gaming platforms and software you own. There’s a lot of material ahead, I’ve broken the discussion into two parts so look for the second half of this interview very soon.

Casey O'Donnell on DIY Gaming (Part 2):

This part of the interview continues, with discussion about how the game manufacturers have alternately reached out and clamped down on hobbyists. DIY Gaming - is it viable, how does one go about it, and where’s the line between free expression and protected code? This is the second part of an interview with Casey O’Donnell.

At Least I've Got Carmack On My Side

[Cross Posted from Over at IShotTheCyborg.Com]

IGN had an interview recently with Id's John Carmack on bringing Orcs & Elves to the Nintendo DS. I was particularly interested in a comment he made about homebrew development on the system.

IGN: Since this is your first Nintendo DS project, what was it like poking at the hardware?

Carmack: It was probably the most fun platform that I have personally worked on. The early consoles that I worked on (SNES, Genesis-32X, and Jaguar) had fun hardware and full documentation, but a lousy development tool chain. A lot of later consoles had much better development tools, but they started playing secretive with the exact hardware specs, at least around console introduction time.

While there are a few nooks on the DS that aren't documented, they weren't things I cared about, so to me it was almost perfect. It is a shame that homebrew development can't be officially sanctioned and supported, because it would be a wonderful platform for a modern generation of programmers to be able to get a real feel for low level design work, to be contrasted with the high level web and application work that so many entry level people start with.

Having just written about the interesting catch-22 which developers are put in (in the US at least) of being expected to know how to do things that they don't have access to. I've said for a long time that the N64 would be a great platform for developers to learn on, and it's not like it's making Nintendo any money on licensing any more. But opening up the DS to sanctioned homebrew development a la XNA Express sounds like an even better idea to me.

I got a chance to play with DS development while in India and it was a fun system to work with. I also think it's a great platform for designers, engineers, and artists to cut their teeth on, because it provides interesting design elements (two screens, one touch sensitive) with pretty capable hardware. I also imagine that Nintendo could make a lot of money on some sort of cart+memory system that allowed people to both do sanctioned homebrew, and could download games from some homebrew repository and upload them to the DS, or even a DS downloadable content "store".

My only hesitation really is that US publishers really haven't figured out the DS. So would the opening up of homebrew just be an excuse for them to continue offloading their R&D onto those with no budgets or experience? What's the logic to innovate if you can get it for free? I know I'm being a bit cynical, but I've been watching publishers kill innovative DS titles for four years now, so that cynicism is rooted in experience not just dogmatism.

Of course they're concerned about piracy now. They used to be worried about production, and they're probably worried about branding a bit still. They don't want porn games on the DS. But ultimately I think they've moved on to being concerned about piracy. But isn't that happening already? Is that fear worth the continued infancy of production methods in the industry? Didn't they just say that they use "natural selection"? It's kind of hard to have natural selection when you have legally backed up birth control flowing through the water system. Wouldn't this encourage greater species diversity?

On a related note... I've recently imported from Hong Kong one of these "unofficial homebrew solutions" for the DS. In part because I fear that Nintendo will attempt to wipe them off the face of the planet with recent efforts. Why? Because part of my dissertation is going to be interactive and on the DS. Homebrew needs to start pitching itself as speech, and if my dissertation is illegal, then so be it. It's also going to be Creative Commons and the source code is going to be in the appendix.