I've heard that to crate game on XBox a special license is needed but I think that Xbox and Linux are good choise.

(01-08-2010 06:16 PM)Harry Wrote:  I've heard that to crate game on XBox a special license is needed but I think that Xbox and Linux are good choise.

Yes you need a special XBox Development Kit for developing games for XBox 360. Does anyone know the pricing of this? And how much does a license for XBox Live Arcade games cost?

A number of other game libraries have asked the same question to their members about what new platforms to support .... etc. I am sure a proper google search should bring these posts to light.
I remember on one of them (Leadwerks I think it was) there was some discussion that the library developer may have to rewrite the game library back to Forward Rendering, instead of deferred rendering, because of some sort of problem with the Xbox360 environment.
As EE is run mainly in Deferred Rendering mode, the full implications of how to port the library to Xbox360 should be looked at very carefully, and see if it is practical.

I wouldn't consider X360, PS3, iPhone.
For the two consoles, I'd wait for their next version.
And an iPhone version doesn't make much sense, there are already ways to get stuff working on the iPhone (Java, iPhone SDK).

And Mac/linux port might be difficult since everything is dx based right now.

I wouldn't consider adding support for more platforms a high priority task.

Right now I'm doing some testing of the OpenGL + CG on Windows
I'm at an early stage, so can't say much.
if porting to OpenGL and CG will succeed, I can consider porting EE to Mac first.
if it will take too much time, I'll put it on hold.

as for the X360 and PS3 I was thinking the same things lately, I've did more research on those platforms, averagely 256 ram + 256 vram, relatively old gpu's (in terms of power) and possibly in 1-2 years, more recent versions of the consoles will appear.
so right now I'm not pushing X360 and PS3 support (although that depends on interest from potential clients), but I'm planning to play some more time with OpenGL, and see if it makes sense to port EE on Mac.

I hope your testing goes well, it sounds like a good starting direction.

With an OpenGL port, wouldn't it be easier to port to linux first, since mac development is primarily in objective-c (I think)?

Well, I guess the market for linux is more limited, compared to mac, but most mac's also use older gpus if I am not mistaken.

Personally I voted for linux, but I think money/market wise the best bet would be the XBox, because from what I read it's not so different from PC development. I believe the source engine comes with some XBox defines and headers, so I'd guess they reuse big chunks of the engine. And if Valve does it...

I don't really think about porting to Linux.

As for Mac:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xcode
from what it says it supports both C++ and Objective-C
so I hope there won't be any problems with that.

X360 it is similar to PC, it also uses DX9 (SM3.0+)
but it has some downsides:
-it has big-endian cpu (not little endian like all PC's)
-has only 512 MB total ram (averagely giving you 256 for gpu and cpu, this is small amount)
-no support for custom sound codecs (no OGG)
-and what was mentioned before, in 1-2 years possibly it will start dying, because new consoles will appear

Mac's will still be available and with newer GPU's

Makes sense.

Although from what I've been reading, the xbox might have a longer lifespan than you expect. I agree it's crappy hardware, and I hate PC games that are mangled just so they can fit inside the puny xbox requirements.

I guess Mac is the better mid/long-term investment, yes.
Mac users will certainly be happier, they will buy almost any game that's released, since there are so few

lol, nicely said, only if the porting will succeed, there are many issuess under GL+CG..

Sorry for the bump.

Valve (half life 2, team fortress 2, portal) will be releasing Steam for the mac, so it makes even more sense to make the engine mac friendly.

Steam is indie developer friendly and will open up the mac market because of the sheer number of installs that it will have from valve games alone. Apart from that, it's also a good online store with a large install base, so having your engine work on macs will probably bring more people into esenthel because developers will be looking at the new market opening up.

My priority of choice is
iPhone > Mac > Linux > anything else.

here little references for platform market share

http://www.koonsolo.com/news/linux-users...ndie-game/
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/...gaming.ars

Mac platform support is important for indie.

I recently bought an iPod touch and iTunes is really amazing.

If Esenthel has any other platform and DX10, I will be very happy

DX10 & 11 are coming pretty soon.
Unfortunatly other platforms will most likely require OpenGL rendering which may not support all engine fetures and functions.

big up for mac support even if linux would be a big plus.. I know that it's not really commercial friendly but it's a great platform that just need more support from us developers!