Homebrew Games & Licensing Fee

[Griking]

I love all of the new original games that are being released for the Atari systems recently. My question is whether anyone expects there will be problems for perople who want to create homebrew NES, SMS, etc... games since many of these consoles required that developers had a licensing agreements before they were allowed to make games. We all know how possessive Nintendo is about their intellectual property.

[Raccoon Lad]

I think the reason you haven't seen any NES/SMS homebrew operations is that the cartridges are more complex. Paging chips, mapper chips, extra ram, lockout chips, mmc3's and what-not. It's too much bother to build carts for these systems, plus seeing as the games would be bigger, homebrewing games for them would take longer.

[Bratwurst]

Methinks the technical problems will be more of an issue than one of any legality. There were so many mappers and variety of circuit boards for the NES, it's not as simple as slapping a 4k rom on an Atari board and calling it a day.

Color Dreams got away with producing NES carts without being a licensee, they just didn't use the proprietary software and bypassed the lockout chip through other means. Current homebrew developers I wager would simply recycle pre-existing carts, and with them, the NES chip on the boards. Nothing illegal about that, it's something you already 'own'.

[Sylentwulf]

Honestly, I'm surprised we haven't seen more PS1 homebrews with the net yaroze, Easy and cheap CD burning, and compatability.... Seems like we should be or have gotten flooded with homebrews by now.

[newcoleco]

My question is whether anyone expects there will be problems for people who want to create homebrew NES, SMS, etc... games since many of these consoles required that developers had a licensing agreements before they were allowed to make games. We all know how possessive Nintendo is about their intellectual property.

I know, my message is not about NES/SMS but I like ColecoVision and making new games for this game system is more easier than ever. Programming brand new ColecoVision games is a very cool experience. I writed a document about programming ColecoVision games in C language and I'm sure this will help new game designers to start releasing more games very soon.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Honestly, I'm surprised we haven't seen more PS1 homebrews with the net yaroze, Easy and cheap CD burning, and compatability.... Seems like we should be or have gotten flooded with homebrews by now.

** prays for a PS1 version of MAME **

I know that such a beast would open up large, industrial-sized, food-service-pack-volume cans of worms, but I still fervently hope for PS1 MAME. Soon.

[Captain Wrong]

I dunno if the PS1 could run MAME. Having seen the SMS emulator for PSX and seeing how the DC can only play the most basic of MAME roms, I just don't think the PS1 has enough horsepower for it. Plus there's that whole small memory bit with the PSX...

Still a fella can dream I guess...;)

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Oh, I do continue to dream of a PSX arcade emulator. Frequently. And on some occasions, wetly.

Whoops. Too much info. Sorry. LOL

[Bratwurst]

Oh, I do continue to dream of a PSX arcade emulator. Frequently. And on some occasions, wetly.


You are a sick, sick man.

*resumes grinding baby into burgers*

It would be reasonable to argue a port of Mame that could handle the early games on a PS1. Just very slow and without sound. :D

[Anonymous]

I dunno if the PS1 could run MAME. Having seen the SMS emulator for PSX and seeing how the DC can only play the most basic of MAME roms, I just don't think the PS1 has enough horsepower for it
The Nintendo Family NES emulator that my friend got in Costa Rica runs NES games at about 5 frames a second. I'd shudder to see even Toobin' run on the PSX.

[bargora]

But Toobin' DOES run on the PSX at an acceptable framerate--if you have the Arcade Party Pack. Is the problem that the PSX has to run a couple of interface layers to get MAME running a Toobin' ROM, whereas the Digital Eclipse emu/port was somehow optimized to run on PSX?

[Captain Wrong]

the Digital Eclipse emu/port was somehow optimized to run on PSX?

That's the key right there. Digital Eclipse works magic with their console based emulators. I don't know the full details, but they are optimized. It's not something like the Sega Smash pack that could be hacked and made to run more games.

The problem as I understand it has to do with running the MAME program and having enough memory left over for the game rom and getting everything working at a good speed. Running MAME DC and seeing how anything newer than about 1984 runs like ass if you can run it at all and knowing that's a more powerful maching leads me to believe the PSX couldn't handle much more than Space Invaders.