The DCEmu Interview - Question 14 - How Excited Are You In Todays Homebrew Scene ?

[masterchief929]

as far as the ds hombrew scene goes, its slowly going dead...

[____anders____]

yeah it's too bad the ds scene slowly draws to an end, maybe cus it doesn't really have that impressive hardware specs like the psp does, i think that's why the psp scene have a really long life.

[NoQuarter]

The PSP homebrew is all I actively deal with at the moment.Honestly there is so much stuff now it's a bit overwhelming :P

It might seem like a boring time for psp homebrew but that's when things come and surprise you.I'd love to see psp linux continue development as well as lua( some people knock it but scripting can definitely be useful for quick coding).DAX never fails to impress me,Art and ZX's programs are among my favorite.Patience definitely pays off.
Particularly exiting is the emerging wii scene,gonna have to get one now.
We actually have a couple of dreamcasts hanging around,I might check those out when I'm not so busy.

[Cast128dreams]

So many years have passed but Dreamcast scene has more to show.
Iam still excited,well not as i was,but everyday iam checking dreamcast.dcemu.co.uk for news.


Anders yess its a bit dissapointed.Dreamcast scene its not so stong as it was.But it has more to offer.Full playstation emulation,Full genesis emu and you never know Sega cd emulation.

As the years are passing by maybe the above emulations will be forever DREAMS.

[SSaxdude]

The PSP scene has slowed down a ton. Everything we dreamed of back in 2005-2006 is possible on the PSP. Playstation emulation, unbricking, the ability to downgrade any firmware, Sega CD emulation, to name a few. Commercial games for the PSP aren't as good as they were.

The Dreamcast scene has been quiet for a while. However, the new Genesis emulator Gens4All has me excited. Even without homebrew, the commercial games for Dreamcast keep me playing the DC.

I've never paid much attention to the DS scene, so I can't really say how it's doing. I don't own a Wii or a iTouch/iPhone, so I'm not interested in those, although they seem to be doing well.

The biggest flaw I see in the scene is that there aren't any huge advances for Xbox 360/PS3 homebrew. I can't blame the devs, I'm sure MS/Sony have done much more to combat hacking now than last generation. But if there was homebrew on these two consoles, there would be some sweet emulators and applications.

[Aryn]

As far as excitement goes, I can only give a mixed response.


Short Answer:

The homebrew scene does expand the functionality of game systems but it could use some fresh content in emulation and game ports to liven it up a bit.


Long Answer:

I do find the ports of classic games to be fun and still play some of them, but the most prominent games that are ported are doom, quake, heretic...games that we played to death already before they were ported to the console systems they were played on, and then played to death on those systems before being ported to more current systems. Seriously, this is getting boring, and I would be willing to donate money to anybody who ports a different 3D PC game to console systems.

However, the homebrew scene is a bit exciting if you like mini games, since there are tons of them available for each game system (except for the recently hacked systems) nowadays. Sure, most of them are not entertaining for more than a few seconds, but I have found dozens of them available for each game system that manage to be entertaining enough to keep me playing them over and over again, and keep checking web sites in hopes of hearing news about the next new mini game that becomes available.

If you are interested in emulators that allow you to play games from older console systems, then I suppose that the scene is exciting as long as you are after games from the 16 bit era. As for higher end game system emulators, well, you are pretty much out of luck (at least in the portable gaming scene). There is a SEGA CD emulator on the GP2X but not much else, and I have not heard news about an N64 emulator or an emulator for another post 16 bit era system for ages. And the ones that were under development still can not play 3D games at a proper frame rate yet.

In the category of applications, the Nintendo DS and PSP seem to excel in this category. For the PSP, you have a wide range of applications ranging from instant messenger programs that use a PDA keyboard (unless you are using the PSP Slim, of course) to conversion software for PS1 games to use them on the PSP, to internet radio clients. In fact, most of the PSP's non-gaming features were carried out through homebrew programs before the ideas were copied and added to firmware updates. As for the Nintendo DS, there are a good number of programs that allow you to use most features on a modern PDA on your DS. The only problem there is the DS has a somewhat low compatibility rate with wireless routers and hotspots. At any rate these applications help to unlock a bit of the true potential in game systems.

[the_eternal_dark]

Bring on Pandora. I will then be happy.

[psp411]

i was more excited in the psp homebrew scene during the 05-06 year... hat was when i was spending countless hours up tryna get the latest releases of the best things... my personal favourite(that i could remember) was the 2.5/2.6 downgrader.... i remember staying up till 2:30 just to get it and waiting till the next day just to execute it.... tha good old days
... too bad the scene isnt as fast paced and as exciting as it is now... guess its starting to show some age=\

[Shadowblind]

I was pretty bored until Wii homebrew came along. Now I can't wait to see whats coming

[robman84]

To coin a phrase, "I'm super excited" about DS homebrew (the only scene I am into). Having been into homebrew since about 1980 I can honestly say things are just getting better all the time. Some things currently floating my boat are:

* Pocket physics: The DS was just MADE for this, and the new version is fantastic

* The myriad WIFI Midi apps coming out. Whilst stability needs some work, the creativity afforded by the touch screen is cool. We're now even starting to see people make use of the pressure sensitivity of the touchscreen for Midi stuff.

* Colors. The pressure-sensitive drawing app.

In fact, most of the homebrew I love on the DS makes good solid use of the touch-screen.

The only bummer I guess is that the emulation-side of things has definitely seemed to slow down. A few (ZXDS, ScummVM, Lameboy) are being updated, but quite a few lovely ones seem to have been abandoned a bit too soon. The PSP definitely has the significant edge here.