Lamothe Develops New Open Console
Andre Lamothe issued a press release today announcing his successor to the XGameStation videogame development kit: the HYDRA system. The Hydra is a console which is open to anyone, which means beginning to intermediate programmers can develop games for it.
Lamothe, for those of you who don’t know him, is widely considered to be one of the foremost experts on videogame programming in the field. He’s insanely smart (seriously, the guy was programming by the age of ten and working for NASA when he was 20), and his books on programming are considered to be some of the best on the market because of his informal writing style… not to mention he’s pretty pleasing on the eyes as well.
Anyway, back to the HYDRA: unlike its predecessor, the system seems to be more focused on homebrew games (the XGameStation required a lot of electronic knowhow, as well) and uses the newly-released Parallax Propeller processor. Also, it’s got NES compatible game ports and comes with a keyboard and mouse for your programming ease.
While I’m not at into programming, I always think it’s a good thing when people try to make getting involved with game development an affordable venture. Hey, maybe if your game is good enough, it’ll get licensed by Lamothe himself and we’ll be writing about you someday.
Become a Video Game Developer with the Propeller Powered HYDRA
Boy of Tomorrow
Posted to on 20 November 2006
· Comments (7)
Other stuff like this: Andre lamothe, homebrew, hydra, propeller processor, xgamestation
i somehow like the idea but would be really surprised if this project has any success, homebrew developers already have found a way to do this on existing consoles and i honestly doubt that this console would be selling that well.
you can still develop a game for windows or linux and make it available to far more people. developing a game just for yourself doesn’t sound fun to me.
i could think that the possibility to run linux on a ps3 could make it a homebrew paradise. you wouldn’t get such beefy hardware for that price with a homebrew-only console.
Yeah, too bad that linux on PS3 runs on a virtualized HW (the hypervisor) and you actually have no real contact with what’s below. And this sucks mostly especially since video card 3D features won’t be available.
Anyho, the guy is indeed a dream hottie!! :))
Hmmm sexy… gifffff
T.
-Insert random rude comment about laptop, hardware, or GUI – YUM!
Hes hawt! :P
As a programmer, I can say I LOVE his series. They may not be 100% perfect, but from personal experience, are FAR better than any other book I read.
I could see him selling this console to colleges with video game design curricula (just so they don’t end up making it a “Playstation class” or a “NES class”) but really, the main advantage of coding for a console vs. a PC is knowing exactly what hardware your audience has, and I think it’s safe to assume there are more people running, say, Linux with GeForce 3 and 256MB of RAM or higher than there will be people who buy Lamothe’s consoles.
Plus, now you have the GBA, DS, Wii and especially XBL to code for without having to invest tens of thousands of dollars. It’s not a bad idea, but it’s definitely quixotic.