Looking for a Console which is ideal for starting Game Development.

Hi there, I hope this is the correct forum for this type of topic, basically I'm looking for a console/handheld to start developing little games on. I'm not the greatest programmer in the world, hence why I'm looking for a console to start up on. Ideally I'm looking for a console which is emulated well on Windows/Linux and also has good documentation as well as easy to read tutorial on guides just so I can get the basics.

Anyone got any ideas which they would advise me to have a look at?

 

My recomendation would be iPhone. Its easy (C++, Java etc.) and for 99 USD (or how much is it now to get the SDK) you'll get the SDK and "support". When you handle that you can pick up NDS/PSP if you want to program for current platforms.

 

I don't have any money for an iPhone nor any money for a SDK, so that would be out of the question. Any other ideas, though?

 

The iPhone SDK, including the iPhone emulator is free. You only have to register as an official developer and pay if you want to be able to test your code on real hardware, and eventually submit/publish to the App Store. But as the SDK only runs on OS X you won't be going very far unless you currently own a Mac anyway.

DS is a good choice. There's quite a lot of reference material available and developent toolchains like devkitPro. It's also easy to test code with an emulator or on a retail unit with a flash cart.

There's also XNA Game Studio for the 360. That's all nice and official and everything, but it also costs money. However, if you stick to PC development and don't involve an actual Xbox in the equation I think you can do it for free.

You could also consider the PSone or the Dreamcast....

 

Mega Drive / Genesis

simple, fun, not much to worry about, lot of info, 68000, yay

 

Here's a second vote for the DS. The toolchain is available for Linux, Mac and Windows. The build process is well understood. There are libraries for the wireless access, basic sound access, touchscreen, button input, and basic output. Coding is done in a modern compiler (GCC 4.?) and supports ASM, C and C++. If you are JUST starting and haven't done embedded, the DS is still doable as there is a very active homebrew userbase and everything has been figured out before.

 

I'd say PC. Sure this goes against how I learned (GBA) but that wasn't the easiest way to get into development.

I highly recomend simple PC via opengl (nehe.gamedev.net) or C# route through XNA which is pretty easy to get going on.

If you really really really have to work on a console, You can go DS if you want to do simple 2D but if you want to do 3D PSP is better but PSP emulation has a way to go before it's ideal for development. There is also XNA which can be run on a retail xbox 360 (have to sign up and pay for the XNA creators club).

I still say your best bet is a PC since you'll have access to tons of information online and you can debug your work in real time. Hell a sizable chuck of commercial game development is actually done on a PC even when the target platforms are consoles. It just is much faster and easier to progress your work.

Consoles are far from forgiving and if you don't have a lot of pacience you're going to deal with a lot of headaches. Take it from me i've worked on ps1, ps2, ps3, psp, gba, ds, & wii.

 

I'll second XNA.

It's 100% totally free if you work solely on the PC.

If you want to deploy to the Xbox 360 it'll cost you the price of a retail 360 (which has been selling for as cheap as $100 for an arcade recently) plus $100 for a year of XNA Creator's Club.

Creator's Club allows you to deploy to a retail Xbox 360 (no need for a debug). If you are a student you can get a 1 year Creator's Club subscription for FREE with Dreamspark.

-hl718

 

XNA

 

That'd be Gameboy :thumbsup:.

 

Looks to me like the iphone SDK is now $99 and you need an intel based Mac to start developing. I've got some free time and would like to try my hand at an iphone app. Assuming I can find a dirt cheap intel mac is there any way I can still get the SDK and emulator free?

 

The iPhone SDK is free, just register as a developer on Apple's site. It's only $99 when you want to submit your App to Apple for publishing.

You should be able to find an '06 or '07 model Mini for quite a reasonable price now.

 

I've done a little on the GBA and found everything to be fairly straight forward and as DragonMinded said about the DS it has already been figured out.

Though XNA would be another good route.

 

psp. cheap, plenty of resources, infos etc.

 

Thanks _SD_.

It really pisses me off that I can't use my G4 or G5 Mac for this. Does anyone know if it is possible to use these tools with a copy of OSX force installed onto a PC?

 

If you're open to jailbreaking your iPod/iPhone you can do development on Linux/Mac/Window (using cygwin). Although if you want to release your app through the app store you may still have to pay the $100 or whatever it is. This is what im doing since i can't afford a Mac. The only drawback is you have to design your UI programmtically because obviously you cant use the interface builder although I find it much better and more flexible to do it in code. You can find pretty cheap Mac minis online though if you really want a Mac.

 

Psp, because theres so much help and programs available.

xbox 1, because you can use the Microsoft sdk, which gives you all the tools to help make a game

 

XNA also, but sadly PC only.

I did subscribe to XNA on my 360 just to test it out for a couple of months which was pretty fun to see my code run on tv, but when trying to unsubscribe it seemed that the xbox helpdesk had never heard of it and it took me months and many mail/phone calls and what not to cancle that crap, and surprise even after the cancle they tried to bill me for another year eventually I made my credit card company block these morons.

 

Your best bet is to grab some books and begin developing simple applications to sharpen your programming skills. Then it would be best to develop some 2D applications to practice timing and the basics of whichever graphics library you choose to use. DirectX is nice if you want to jump right in, but it's a big world. Microsoft's XNA is great because you can rapidly develop applications in C# for both the Windows platform and for the Xbox 360. Personally though, I like C++ and DirectX and that's how most games are developed.

Edit: This is a book that I've been reading. It's very thorough as far as introducing basic 3D concepts such as Vectors and Matrices. It also shows you many graphics techniques and applications. It's intended to be used with C++ but the DirectX libraries can be used on a number of languages (C++/VB/C#).

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-...=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260785732&sr=8-4

 

why not a dreamcast, it's like an old PC ;-)