I would like to get into programming games for older game consoles. I collected a lot of my consoles years ago when prices were cheap but now I see things getting expensive. Sadly I didn't think of collecting Dev kits back in the day. Just wondering can all game development be done with emulation etc. Are you guys also using the original OS like win95 that the original dev tools came with etc. My development focus would be the early cd rom based consoles.
You can use emulators or modded retail consoles for most stuff. For Saturn, you could take a look at Jo Engine. You can use it on a modern OS. For GameCube, you could take a look at devkitpro. You can use it on a modern OS. For PS1, you could take a look at PSYQ. I believe that needs 32bit XP or lower.
I would recommend setting up a virtual environment with VirtualBox or VMWare Player (both free) so you can isolate the dev environment (and possibly run another OS).
Sound advice guys. ill skip looking for dev kits for now and go with emulation and a virtual environment and see how well that works. On the console front I am looking for SD/hard drive mods so I can at least test on real hardware without having to burn a cd/dvd
What consoles are u looking into developing software for? ODE solutions for the some cd consoles are either very expensive (3DO, PS1) or non existent (Sega CD). So be prepared to buy stacks of CDRs or rely on emulation.
As mentioned above, the ODE devices can be fairly expensive. If you are just looking to develop something for a CD based system without spending much money, you could use a cartridge based solution such as Caetla on an Xplorer cartridge for PS1 or Pseudo Saturn on an Action Replay cartridge for Saturn.
ya I agree. not having much look sourcing a PSIO for the ps1 I am looking at working with the dreamcast first and see how that works out. have a GDEMU modded dreamcast
Dreamcast has KallistiOS which is less powerful than the official DevKit softwares, but doesn't require a Dev Kit and should be more modern in a way. Most commercial unlicensed games use it at their core.
The original Xbox is worth looking at too - a modded retail unit running PBL and a hacked debug BIOS is effectively the equivalent of a debug kit except for the RAM size, and will work with the official SDK. With a modded PS1 you can use a hybrid approach where the data files are burnt to a CD and the code is uploaded via Explorer/Caetla - this can save a lot of CD-Rs if you don't have an optical disc emulator.
If you are also interested in DVD based systems and are looking for a very easy/cheap route to console development, I would recommend a Wii. They can be found for as little as £10-£15 and can be softmodded very easily using only an SD card. They can be used for GC/Wii development with devkitpro, so there is no need to use official SDK's. Elf files can be uploaded over wifi, so there is no need to burn discs or use network cables. Devkitpro runs on modern versions of Windows, is well documented and there are many open source GC/Wii applications that you can learn from. The Wii also has a wide variety of peripherals to experiment with such as the wiimote, nunchuck, classic controller, balance board etc.
gamecube is on my todo list. I remember getting a gamecube game working on the wii via the SD mod. Devkitpro sounds good will check it out.
Hello brother. If you like developing games for older consoles, without the need for a devkit, and something very easy to do, without relying too much on programming languages, rather focus more on the game design itself, take a look at my modified edition of UDK Engine (Unreal Engine 3) witch exports the game for both PC/Xbox360/PS3 and you can play test the game on any Custom Firmware PS3 and XBOX360 RGH/JTAG (modded consoles). Take a look: https://sites.google.com/view/udkultimate/
will check it out. i remember making levels for the first unreal game engine back in the day. but in the end moved over to the half life engine.
I agree that the original XBox would be a good idea for anyone familiar with the PC, since it's basically a PC (albeit one with a tiny memory pool: 64MB, including GFX memory, though of course most other consoles have even less than that), but ultimately it depends what machine you most want to run your end products on.
I was lucky enough to get a PlayStation 1 development console with software development tools all factory sealed for £800. I'm still after a snasm mega cd for sega md development but I think these are very rare and expensive. I have been making do with vm's, emulators and everdrive carts which seems to work reasonably well for now.
