Homebrew independent games allowed on PS3

[mckmas8808]

Thanks to Linux being provided by Sony. Read.

As you probably know, the PS3 will ship with the latest linux kernelinstalled on the HDD. There has been a lot of debate in here to decideif linux will be open to users. But thankfully Ken has really beenpushing to open up the platform. They plan on releasing this infoduring E3, but I knew how important it was to you guys. I can onlygive you the basics. You can find out the rest of the detailsin may.Phil released a lot of details about the Playstation Network at GDC,but left some details out.

In addition to thesocial-networking stuff like IM, voice and video chat, Playstation Network will let users upload their own content to sell to the community. But what is really great is that the platform will be open, so that you can develop games on linux, then upload andeven sell them. We're going to open up the full micopayment systemto everyone. Guys like you will be able to develop mini gamesand sell them for 10c each.

I did some checks with a couple of people before posting this, and I can 100% confirm that it is legit! There was also the following slide displayed at GDC showing the open internet business philosophy. From what people tell me, it seems they can offer these features because linux allows them to lock down some parts of the Playstation 3. All I can say is, thanks Sony for finally realising the importance of homebrew.

Link http://ps2dev.org/News/PlayStation_Network_to_support_homebrew.

So basically small time devs and regular folks that know how to program can design games and sell them on the PNP and make a few bucks. It would be nice to see a game as nice as Geometry Wars be downloaded like 1 million times.

Thoughts? Anybody want to be rich?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Sounds fun. As I suggested yonks back, it's in Sony's interest to do this if all content goes through their portal and they get a slice of payments. It's also important if PS3 is to get the wealth of productivity software Ken wants it to have.

I'm very please at this. A large user-base, closed box development platform would be a great machine to develop for. There's some real potential here. Maybe we'll see a reemergence of bedroom development, like in the 80's when computer owners used to dabble in programming rather than always just play games? I'll definitely pay money for a realtime wave-modelling synthesiser!

 

[rabidrabbit]

10 cents? So I'd have to be able to sell it 1000 times to make €100.
That'd be if my game was a million seller I'd earn €10 0000!!
A good opportunity for those talented enough.
I just hope it isn't Monopoly money you "earn", that is the current wil only be spendable inside the PS3 marketplace.

 

[MrWibble]

I hope this is what people are assuming it to be.

It's not like Sony haven't opened up their platforms in the past - both PS1 and PS2 had bedroom-coding environments for them (albeit slightly expensive ones - Yaroze machines for PS1 and Linux kits for PS2). I'm actually surprised PSP doesn't have something already, but maybe the amount of hacking has put Sony off from opening it up themselves.

 

[GregLee]

It does sound like fun, except for that bit about locking down some parts of the PS3. Will users get the same access to the hardware that commercial developers have? Will they get programming library support -- e.g., an OpenGL library optimized for the PS3? Information about the hardware?

-
Greg

 

[Bohdy]

This news was posted on April 1st, FYI. I'm still waiting for some collusion before I take it to heart.

 

[SPM]

I hope this is what people are assuming it to be.

It's not like Sony haven't opened up their platforms in the past - both PS1 and PS2 had bedroom-coding environments for them (albeit slightly expensive ones - Yaroze machines for PS1 and Linux kits for PS2). I'm actually surprised PSP doesn't have something already, but maybe the amount of hacking has put Sony off from opening it up themselves.

This is what DRM will allow. Sony may be allowing official games and applications to run with full access to all hardware recources (except the one SPE which is reserved for the "OS" which I speculated may be reserved for the DRM code), and limited hardware resources for homebrew and Linux games (in order to prevent the authors of major titles bypassing Sony's commission from PS3 games). The question is where will Sony draw the line? I hope that homebrew and Linux will have access to the PPE resources and one or two SPEs at least so individuals can at least gain experience programming the SPEs. Sony may of course just allow PPE access to Linux and homebrew games in order to prevent them competing with official games.

 

[nintenho]

This news was posted on April 1st, FYI. I'm still waiting for some collusion before I take it to heart.

Wasn't this announced at GDC and this is just a confirmation?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It does sound like fun, except for that bit about locking down some parts of the PS3. Will users get the same access to the hardware that commercial developers have?

Could users actually make use of all that access? There's a serious amount of HP there. Even limiting bedroom developments to half of PS3 would be fun and productive. The actual capacity for Indy development to invest in creating games is much more limited than larger studios. That's why Indy abounds with webgames, 2D games, and simpler games, and you don't get God of War or SOTC calibre games from Indy devs! A fraction of PS3 would be plenty enough for the sorts of games I'd expect to see, if that's what 'locking down the hardware' means.

My guess is that the full Cell and RSX resources would be avaialble. Limiting those makes no sense when you're trying to show off your Cell processor and want devs to create video editing apps etc. But I guess they'd force devs to use the official system APIs rather than banging the metal, to avoid Linux developments hacking games. It's what I'd do if I were Sony. Have a protected mode that limits which areas of system, memory etc. that users can access, but let them be free to work with those areas how they want, which would mean full PPE, 6 SPE, and RSX access. This is also important in encouraging Cell experience to further that platform if Sony are ever to manage to get Cell as widespread as they want. Cell in every mobile phone would be a nice earner, for example. In fact, that might be reason to lock devs to the API as well, for theoretically portable code. Geometry Wars on PS3 linux could be ported to PSP2 if that's a cut-down Cell/RSX system, so new platforms would inherit the software library from PS3.

 

[Bohdy]

Wasn't this announced at GDC and this is just a confirmation?

I'm pretty sure that Sony has not explicitly confirmed that PS3 linux will be open.

 

[one]

This news was posted on April 1st, FYI. I'm still waiting for some collusion before I take it to heart.

It seems so

 

[nintenho]

I'm pretty sure that Sony has not explicitly confirmed that PS3 linux will be open.

oops, read through it fast and just saw "open internet" & "GDC".

 

[Platon]

Wll Sony be testing those games though before they are allowed to be sold? Is there a risk for virus makers to tke advantage of this...

 

[Titanio]

Smells too much like April's fools to me. But if PS3 Linux is open i.e. I can run your code and you can run mine, it's kind of moot.

It would indeed be nice to distribute your code via the main, 'massmarket' PS3 network, though.

This is what DRM will allow. Sony may be allowing official games and applications to run with full access to all hardware recources (except the one SPE which is reserved for the "OS" which I speculated may be reserved for the DRM code), and limited hardware resources for homebrew and Linux games (in order to prevent the authors of major titles bypassing Sony's commission from PS3 games). The question is where will Sony draw the line? I hope that homebrew and Linux will have access to the PPE resources and one or two SPEs at least so individuals can at least gain experience programming the SPEs. Sony may of course just allow PPE access to Linux and homebrew games in order to prevent them competing with official games.

I'd certainly hope they won't do this. Homebrew coders are already at a massive disadvantage versus actual big studios, I don't think they need to uneven the playing field in terms of hardware access.

Wll Sony be testing those games though before they are allowed to be sold? Is there a risk for virus makers to tke advantage of this...

If Sony provided mechanisms for distribution of user's games over PNP..well, they could either centralise distribution and provide their own QA, which might be monstrously time-consuming, or they could do it based on 'trust', where content got distributed out via networks of friends and the like. So you're my friend, and you can buy my game from me, and then your friends can buy it and so on and so on - and that's how it's distribution would spread out, truly leveraging the network. The game would actually get copied over to you, peer-to-peer, directly from my PS3. Rather than having everyone having access to everything all at once via a big centralised database with lots of servers. Maybe also, a piece of content could have a 'home page' served off the creator's PS3 that described the content and provided mechanisms for people to rate it and leave feedback. That would absolve Sony of some QA responsibility, since the idea would be sharing content amongst friends. Both ways have different advantages and disadvantages for different parties.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'd certainly hope they won't do this. Homebrew coders are already at a massive disadvantage versus actual big studios, I don't think they need to uneven the playing field in terms of hardware access.

Honestly, why does that matter? Do you really think homebrew will ever be challenging full-time development studios? Do you honestly forsee a time when a handful of people in their spare time manage to produce 'professional' quality games? That's madness. It takes like 30+ people a year of fulltime employment and a lot of investment on tools to create your average game. Homebrew isn't about that. It's about satisfying a smaller gaming experience, where quirky, innovative, or 'cheap and cheerful' is the basis of the design. I think roughly speaking, Indy is 5 to 10 years behind the leading edge of game development, so what studios were producing in 1995, Indies can produce now thanks to greater computer power and better entry-level tools. There's still a market for this, as retro, remakes, and back-catalogues testify. An Indy 'Turrican 4' or 'Shadow of the Beast' is plausible and would probably do very well. Indeed I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a glut of 16-bit remakes. For these you don't need 6 SPEs! Tetris clones and Balderdash clones don't need 24 pixel pipes! Even then the effort needed to create content is quite substantial. The tools available to homebrew for content creation aren't fanatistic by any stretch. To recreate Alien Breed for example, you'd need comparable art assets to those that game had, and that's a lot of effort. I don't think many if any Indy developers will be in a position of having too much to fit into PS3 even if only a 10th the resources are available.

 

[mckmas8808]

I just can't wait to see the day when some guy on the internet makes a game that many people love from his basement and ends up making over one million dollars. I would love to see this same guy at that next year's E3 being appluaded for his great work.

 

[SPM]

Smells too much like April's fools to me. But if PS3 Linux is open i.e. I can run your code and you can run mine, it's kind of moot.

It would indeed be nice to distribute your code via the main, 'massmarket' PS3 network, though.

I'd certainly hope they won't do this. Homebrew coders are already at a massive disadvantage versus actual big studios, I don't think they need to uneven the playing field in terms of hardware access.

What I am suggesting is of course 100% speculation of course, but the reason I am suggesting it is that it would make perfect sense.

Sony is going to be heavily subsidizing the hardware costs of the PS3, especially since Blu-ray's inclusion and the need to be price competitive with Xbox 360 and Revolution. Sony is going to be expecting to recover these subsidies from the charges made to the big game companies for official games distribution. If Sony were to allow homebrew games, or games running under Linux to be distributed without payment of the charges, then what would prevent the big games developers distributing their games as homebrew?

Answer: If there was a performance penalty for homebrew games and games running under Linux (ie. can't use the SPEs or restricted to one SPE) then the big games houses would pay Sony's charges, and homebrew games and programs could be run free of charge with lesser resources, or if they wanted, homebrew programmers could pay Sony's charges to turn it into an official game running on the full resources.

 

[Titanio]

What I am suggesting is of course 100% speculation of course, but the reason I am suggesting it is that it would make perfect sense.

Sony is going to be heavily subsidizing the hardware costs of the PS3, especially since Blu-ray's inclusion and the need to be price competitive with Xbox 360 and Revolution. Sony is going to be expecting to recover these subsidies from the charges made to the big game companies for official games distribution. If Sony were to allow homebrew games, or games running under Linux to be distributed without payment of the charges, then what would prevent the big games developers distributing their games as homebrew?

Answer: If there was a performance penalty for homebrew games and games running under Linux (ie. can't use the SPEs or restricted to one SPE) then the big games houses would pay Sony's charges, and homebrew games and programs could be run free of charge with lesser resources, or if they wanted, homebrew programmers could pay Sony's charges to turn it into an official game running on the full resources.

I think publishers would find sufficient motivation to remain under Sony's licensing umbrella beyond just technical reasons. In fact, I don't think performance would hold back a publisher, or all publishers, from moving to an 'open' model if that were going to be the only difference. But of course, it wouldn't be, and there would be more pressing differences - the market size would likely be a small subset of the total market, you wouldn't benefit from the association with the 'Playstation' platform etc. If you as a publisher are going to invest a lot in a game, you'll want the totality of the market available to you, and the licensing cost and physical distribution costs aren't likely to put you off (and you may have the option to distribute 100% digitally also, over the PNP). IMO.

 

[darkblu]

I'm actually surprised PSP doesn't have something already, but maybe the amount of hacking has put Sony off from opening it up themselves.

very likely. the way i see it, sce were absolutely not ready with the software platform when they released the psp, and have been directing their effort in a completely wrong direction ever since - trying to make the psp more and more 'safe' for their handheld DRM distribution plans. instead of embrasing the homebrew and turning the device into the pc of the handhelds. i think sce were originally not sure what to do with the device (or there were different pulling forces within the company), and the initial homebrew success of the device may have influenced them the wrong way.

 

[Sis]

Let me play a bit of devil's advocate here and ask the obvious question: why is homebrew important at all? Other than being really cool for geeks, do you believe it will drive sales of consoles? Will it drive software profit for Sony?

And mckmas, what you're asking for already exists. There are many small, independent studios building games on the cheap, and if Sony has something similar to Xbox Live Arcade--which they will--then this is covered. Basically, you just have to make a PC game first (which has free tools available today) and then pitch it to the content managers at the respective console manufacturers.

The reason why the lone coder was left behind in the 80s was primarily because what the lone coder could produce was no longer desirable. Once art and music became important, the programmer who could do it all no longer could and either joined a bigger team or dropped out of the industry. Moving 20 years into the future does not make this basic problem go away.