id's Carmack Bemoans Lack of Support for DS Homebrew

November 11, 2007 -
So... explain to me again why homebrew can't be supported?

Oh, right... it's DMCA thing...

Still, famed game designer John Carmack (Doom, Quake) recognizes the homebrew potential the Nintendo DS and seems to wish that all of those creativity-killing IP restrictions weren't in place.

In a lengthy interview with IGN's Craig Harris, Carmack said:
[The Nintendo DS] was probably the most fun platform that I have personally worked on. The early consoles that I worked on (SNES, Genesis-32X, and Jaguar) had fun hardware and full documentation, but a lousy development tool chain. A lot of later consoles had much better development tools, but they started playing secretive with the exact hardware specs, at least around console introduction time.

While there are a few nooks on the DS that aren't documented, they weren't things I cared about, so to me it was almost perfect. It is a shame that homebrew development can't be officially sanctioned and supported, because it would be a wonderful platform for a modern generation of programmers to be able to get a real feel for low level design work, to be contrasted with the high level web and application work that so many entry level people start with.

Carmack's made his homebrew remarks while speaking to IGN about his upcoming DS game, Orcs & Elves.

Via: Next Generation 

Comments

@pandralisk

yeah, and the day that happens, all the lawyers on the earth are killed simultaneously from spontaneous combustion, and hell freezes over.

@neospider
A miracle?

At least Microsoft is attempting to allow homebrew games. Heck, if homebrew games were allowed for DS I might even take a crack at it,provided the development tools are simple to use.

At least a year ago, the homebrew stuff for DS is suppose to be pretty easy (that was last time I was around anyone who was messing with it). I personally have only worked with homebrew for GBA, which my first time working on an embedded system. It was fun and challenging and highly recommended to anyone wanting to take their hands at console/handheld development. Especially considering half of DS programming is using the ARM7 processor used by the GBA (DS uses it and a ARM9 processor).

I would hardly call XNA homebrew. No love for C# from this man.

We've endowed console and OS makers with far too much copyright protection. Copyright, especially for consoles and handhelds, should read as follow:

You produce machine. You sell machine. [RIGHTS OVER].
------------------------------------------------------------------
IMMEDIATELY FORFIETED: Intellectual rights, property, licensing agreements, hardware modability.

Interesting the "homebrew" issue-if the Nintendo Wii supported Adobe Flash 9, I'd buy one, because Flash 9 can do 3D, and nice simple web based games that could be played with the Wiimote...

If I may say, from my understanding, they only have rights on the software that makes the console work. Really they don't have any control over the hardware.

If you can write an OS, or a game that has its own os, you can put it out for the console.


However they have hardware barriers that make it hard to do that. However you are within your rights to remove the things that make it hard.

They have control in 3 ways.

The software to run the hardware.
Control of the networks the hardware can connect to.
The gray area illegality of devices that can open up parts of the hardware.

2 of which I have no problem with, because they can be bypassed... eventually.
The third one I don't like.


Lisencing agreements are legal, get over it, its not going to change, least not anytime soon.

Wouldn't it be great if Tom Hall (or whoever owns them now) re-released Commander Keen 1-6 on DS?

They don't allow homebrew because it would be an open invitation to not pay them royalties anymore. Same reason Sony and Microsoft put limits on homebrew to keep you from making a full game.

bleh...Carmak only can make a engine..no strike that ID can only make a engine, they don't make games anymore they make a 5+ hour demo the engine runs.

@ ZippyDSMlee

Reasons like that I would love to see the two Johns together again (thats John Carmack and John Romero, for those who don't know). I don't think it would work out though, them working together as well as the project but whatever. It would still be cool.

Actually, it'd be great to get all the big named id guys together (Tom, Adrian, American, etc) just to see what would happen.

@ DCOW

What do you call 200 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

neoSpider
ya Romero had the creativity (Daikatana is still mroe fun than q4 and D3..put togather) and Carmack has the mad skills, its a shame their planarity alignment clasped , great egos and all.

I wish ID would invest in a good team of writers and map builders and expand the normal design staff.....if anything get back to the old level design I so hate bland gun and run designs >

@ rdeegvainl

A good start.

Nintendo ditched the "SEAL OF QUALITY" in favor of just "OFFICIAL NINTENDO SEAL" for this kind of reason. People making unsigned software passing it off as legit commercial games.

@JustChris

Then there should be stipulations, like, well, not passing it off as a Nintendo sponsored product.

I've been fooling around in the PSP homebrew/modding/hacking scene lately and I can agree that companies like Sony and Nintendo would probably get a sales -boost- from officially supporting homebrew. What's the point of spending money on firmware development to lock out modders when that firmware gets cracked the very day it's released? Further, many people, like me, bought the PSP for it's homebrew capability (as well as emulation of games that I've owned in the past: Nothing beats a re-translated (and non-sanitized) FFVI-J for killing wait times!). Yes, piracy is and always will be an issue. However, I believe that the possible gains would more than outweigh any projected losses (if any) from officially supporting homebrew.

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