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[choc_cake]

I love the DS and all that. However with sales for so many to nerds like me, I want to be able to code on this cool machine and take advantage of the neat stuff that this platform can offer.

Why is it closed to non-professional developers. No, I am not talking about piracy, that surely can be locked up without killing off open development. I am talking about coding on it as an open platform out of the box.

Kind of like XNA for the DS (yes, I do think it would be nice to have Microsoft and Nintendo work together on a next gen DS) and also Xbox Live Anywhere for the DS as well.

 

[Tain]

This could go for every console ever.

 

[Xeke]

I love the DS and all that. However with sales for so many to nerds like me, I want to be able to code on this cool machine and take advantage of the neat stuff that this platform can offer.

Why is it closed to non-professional developers. No, I am not talking about piracy, that surely can be locked up without killing off open development. I am talking about coding on it as an open platform out of the box.

Kind of like XNA for the DS (yes, I do think it would be nice to have Microsoft and Nintendo work together on a next gen DS) and also Xbox Live Anywhere for the DS as well.

Dude, if Nibris can code for it, you can too!

 

[choc_cake]

Dude, if Nibris can code for it, you can too!

yeah, if I got the hardware hacks that are out there. I want everyone to be able to download my game/app and not just 100 people.

 

[choc_cake]

This could go for every console ever.

yeah, true. The 360 is going to start to open up more next year.
I think that the cool thing is that it would be portable and you can have two screens with touch (which would be sweeeet!).

The only portable that is open to everyone is Windows Mobile right now and that is PDA/Mobile phone stuff. Imagine if the DS was programmable for everyone out of the box and maybe even an SD memory card out of the box to store your goods as well.

 

[Deku]

choc returns!

It's Nintendo. There's your answer.

 

[trancejeremy]

Well for one, they would have had to include either some sort of storage, or a memory card slot. Which would have raised the cost of the DS.

For another, what is Nintendo's motive for allowing that? The XNA works for MS because they want to sell $100 a year memberships. The DS already prints money, and one of the first things people would write for it would be emulators*, which would conflict with Nintendo's VC on the Wii and their own line of $15 NES games on the GBA.

* Hentai games would probably be the 2nd thing

 

[Tain]

Well for one, they would have had to include either some sort of storage, or a memory card slot. Which would have raised the cost of the DS.

It would be a pretty damn awesome Play-yan style cart. Hell, I'd buy it. Limited enough audience to make the emulator issue not matter that much, too.

 

[choc_cake]

Well, I am really talking about the future of the DS. I know you can say Nintendo but it would be nice to have an open environment so we can make our own games and programs.

It would seem to be better to be open about game development and be open to the future stars out there that have little money but can do great work and for open source programs on the DS.

 

[davepoobond]

Well, I am really talking about the future of the DS.

it doesn't need whatever you're talking about to be successful, obviously.

 

[Campster]

Well, I am really talking about the future of the DS. I know you can say Nintendo but it would be nice to have an open environment so we can make our own games and programs.

It would seem to be better to be open about game development and be open to the future stars out there that have little money but can do great work and for open source programs on the DS.

I am so in favor of game design and development being democratized it isn't funny.

But it's not practical to have the DS be an open platform. First of all, you instantly lose licensing money. Nintendo gets royalties off of every DS game sold whether they're the publisher or not.

Second, how will you support the environment? Why would Nintendo pay technical support for a platform which anyone could write code for? Do they really want to be helping some hacker kid set up his own divx player so he can watch Naruto on the DS?

Third, who is this platform aimed at? Will it be a powerful and extensive programming environment with a ton of built in libraries like XNA, or will they simply release the technical standards to the public and let them worry about compiler configurations and getting a working 3d engine off the ground?

An open development environment would be unbelievably awesome, but it isn't realistic or feasible with the DS.

 

[choc_cake]

it doesn't need whatever you're talking about to be successful, obviously.

I don't mean it that way. I mean a future (next generation) version of the DS.

Yes, the DS is selling well and it doesn't need this to sell, but it would be nice for the consumers to be able to create their own software and have people download it.

 

[choc_cake]

I am so in favor of game design and development being democratized it isn't funny.

But it's not practical to have the DS be an open platform. First of all, you instantly lose licensing money. Nintendo gets royalties off of every DS game sold whether they're the publisher or not.

Second, how will you support the environment? Why would Nintendo pay technical support for a platform which anyone could write code for? Do they really want to be helping some hacker kid set up his own divx player so he can watch Naruto on the DS?

Third, who is this platform aimed at? Will it be a powerful and extensive programming environment with a ton of built in libraries like XNA, or will they simply release the technical standards to the public and let them worry about compiler configurations and getting a working 3d engine off the ground?

An open development environment would be unbelievably awesome, but it isn't realistic or feasible with the DS.

I don't agree with this. You can make it open for small developers. For big developers it is a different world.

I want to see it like XNA where you can download the libraries, compiler, etc. and run it off your Windows PC and compile programs to work on your DS with a built in SD card reader.

You can already do development, but you have to buy something like the M3 Lite, A passcard, and a MicroSD memory card. People use this for more than piracy and a dev world already exists for the DS.

Would you rather have more people pick up these things for piracy or would you rather them program their own stuff and not worry about it.

See what is happening right now is that these same tools that are used for development are also the same tools used for piracy and that is wrong.

I think if Nintendo was open for indie developers and open for normal folks that buy the DS like you and me, then it would cause less of a problem in piracy as Nintendo could also make it hard to pirate dumped roms. Carts are protected, but stuff on memory cards wouldn't have to be (optional).

 

[elhh82]

GP2X

 

[trancejeremy]

I think if Nintendo was open for indie developers and open for normal folks that buy the DS like you and me, then it would cause less of a problem in piracy as Nintendo could also make it hard to pirate dumped roms. Carts are protected, but stuff on memory cards wouldn't have to be (optional).

Well, I think it would make it much much easier for pirates. As it is now, pirates have to buy hardware which costs as much as the DS itself in order to play games (and presumably isn't sold in normal stores). If it simply had a memory card slot, and could run programs from that, pirates would figure out how to hack the firmware to pay games from it. (See the PSP for how this worked - they wouldn't need to figure out how to hack the encryption on programs, they could just change the firmware so it doesn't matter).

Anyway, I agree it would be cool, but given how the DS is doing, I don't see why Nintendo would ever vary from the way they handled it.