ROLL BOSS RUSH (PSX)

[rainwarrior]

They can already sue for what's available now, I don't see why putting it on a disc would make much difference.

[tepples]

Some companies have a written or unwritten policy of tolerating fan works that stay non-commercial. Once you're selling discs, on the other hand, you leave this gray area.

[isufje]

Megaman x Street Fighter was a fan game that capcom published as a free download for Megaman and Street Fighter's 25th anniversary... Capcom seems to be very Fan game friendly... at least that's what it appears to be

[isufje]

Alright, let me rephrase the question to you guys then... Would you purchase an original concept self bootable ps1 homebrew game that was fun and already free for download without purchase. And if so, what price would be fair?

[tepples]

Would you purchase an original concept self bootable ps1 homebrew game that was fun and already free for download without purchase.

Yes. I bought a copy of the first Action 53 volume, even before the compo started handing out carts for free to entrants who win, place, or show. There are probably people who would buy a copy of 240p test suite if that ever gets ported to the PlayStation.

And if so, what price would be fair?

I guess it depends on what it costs to manufacture self-booting PlayStation discs, and whether it's been tested on both the "green" and "blue" variants of the GPU.

[thefox]

This forum is probably not the best place to gauge general interest (very development oriented, as opposed to gaming/collecting forums).

[lidnariq]

The more I'm looking into this, it looks like it should be possible to make a PS1 game that just used the parallel I/O port without needing to defeat the disc wobble signature.

Looks like you should be able to address 8MiB of data (on an 8-bit wide bus...) this way.

[tepples]

Even if there's just 8 KiB on an 8 bit wide bus plus a microSD interface, that's still probably enough. But it won't run on SCPH-9000 series or PSOne.

[Memblers]

I have a question for you guys... if i could make this game into a self bootable disc, would you buy it even though it was readily available to download for free... and if so, what price would work for you?

Personally, i would like to own a playstation 1 homebrew game that was self bootable, even if i didn't program it, just because of what it represents. It has never been done before, at least that i know of, and it would be a great item to own.

Do you guys remember when Last Hope came out for the Dreamcast? I was so going to buy it but ended up not only because i didn't like it. I downloaded the iso when it became available and test played it and i hated it. It was nothing like r-type and it wasn't even fun... but people still bought it...why? Because of what it was... the first production style homebrew game for the Dreamcast... but in the end i should have bought it because now it's worth $250+ on eBay

I'd probably lay out $30 or so for something for this. I'm not much of a collector anymore, but I do find unique homebrew stuff hard to resist. I'm sure people who collect for PS would be very interested.

My little advice.. even if you find a way to produce these for $1.50 each (not likely), there's no shame in charging $50 or whatever else you feel it's worth for the game. I released Garage Cart for NES back in 2005 for $35 for those who got on the reserve list, then $40 for the few left-overs at the end and I felt like I was practically price gouging at that cost because they only cost me about $3 each to make (not counting labor), and it's only games that can be downloaded for free, just with a menu. Now it shows up on price lists as valued at $1500, and I've met people who have paid more than that for it. Of course the high price is because I only made like 24 of them, and it was relatively long ago, but a lot of collectors tell me they want one not as much for the rarity but because it's considered to be the first homebrew NES release.

[MottZilla]

You also would not be able to use the official SDK if you were to sell your game. You could bundle it however with a GameShark type cartridge that uses the program I mentioned so that you could boot it without modding your console. But again you would have to use an open source/freeware SDK.

That's total bullshit. Does anyone remember those final fantasy silver bottoms from China!?

No, it's not. If you want to "legally" sell your game in territories such as North America or Japan you cannot be violating copyrights. Well you could but there are hefty penalties if you get caught.

lidnariq, as I said before you can get around the copy protection with a GameShark or any other ROM memory connected to the Parallel Port if you store a program on it that can send the unlock commands to enable Read commands on unlicensed discs. Sure you could store your whole homebrew game on a cartridge device if you wanted to do so, but why do that when you can still use a CD-ROM in conjunction with any number of methods to play unlicensed discs?

[lidnariq]

It's a single thing to buy/sell/manufacture, and it doesn't require serving double duty as a DMCA circumvention device (sigh).

You could just decide that you're going to make something that could only be used by people with modchip-modded consoles. Is that a bigger or smaller proportion than the number of people who still have a parallel-port PS1? (I have no idea)

Or you could decide to have two separate parts: a parallel-port modchip and a game disc. You could even include an SD interface, since flash is so much bigger than CDROMs now.

[Drew Sebastino]

You could even include an SD interface, since flash is so much bigger than CDROMs now.

Kind of begs the question as to why you wouldn't just use the serial port exclusively...

Considering that the port seemed to be removed from models made in 1999 and newer, I think it's safe that there aren't enough of these PlayStations vs. ones with serial ports to really matter that bad.

Wait a minute, the PlayStaion has two expansion ports? What's even the point? (I don't actually own one, so I've never paid that close attention) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_models

[tepples]

All PlayStation 2 consoles are without the parallel port, despite their ability to run authentic game discs for the original PlayStation. I think that qualifies as "enough of these PlayStations".

The serial port was used for 2-player games, much like Game Link on a Game Boy. The parallel port was never used for a licensed peripheral, but several cheating tools used it.

[Drew Sebastino]

Wow, I'm an idiot. I said "serial" instead of "parallel", as I never really knew there was a difference before looking up an info graphic on Google...



Is there really an advantage one has over the other that would warrant there to be both on the system?

All PlayStation 2 consoles are without the parallel port, despite their ability to run authentic game discs for the original PlayStation. I think that qualifies as "enough of these PlayStations".

Oh... Yeah...

Just a random tidbit, but apparently there was a PlayStation console version that could play video CDs. I just found that interesting.

[TmEE]

You can boot from the parallel port, you cannot from the serial