A Brief History of Downloadable Console Games 53
Ant sends in a story at CNet about the evolution of downloadable console games, ranging from Intellivision's PlayCable in 1981 to the modern systems we see today. Quoting:
"Intellivision was the first home console to let users download games via a coaxial cable line. Subscribers rented a special cartridge that hooked up to local cable and would be able to download single games that could be played until users decided to download new titles. The service's downfall was a result of innovations to Mattel's Intellivision game system, which began using cartridges with ever-increasing amounts of memory. The PlayCable service could no longer keep up, since the special cartridge could hold only a fourth of the total space that newer games required."
Re:A Homebrewer's best friend (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't homebrew code speak for pirates these days? I think the idea of homebrew is great, but it seems like it's the pirates that use that as the skirt to hide their true meaning much more often than actual homebrew use.
Re:A Homebrewer's best friend (Score:4, Insightful)
Yup, "homebrew" has become the new "backup copy" as a euphemism for "pirated games". Pretty much anytime someone says something like "but how will I run my homebrew" or "what about my right to run backup copies", they really mean "pirated games".
It sort of annoys me, because the intellectual dishonesty is so blatant. Especially when I see someone complaining that they can't make (and especially run) a backup copy of something like a DS game.
Re:Crappy article (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The console Catch-22 (Score:4, Insightful)
You develop a game on the PC, and put it on NewGrounds or some similar site. Duh. This is the sort of closet piracy BS that the GP is talking about.
Re:A Homebrewer's best friend (Score:3, Insightful)
Not at all, homebrew is programmers who want to play with their new hardware toy and want to write code on it.
Pirates often benefit from the homebrew community since they have similar goals -- running unauthorized code on the platform.