#56782 - blt - Tue Oct 11, 2005 3:04 pm
I'm not at all advocating piracy, but I'd like to thanks the programmer of NDS Patcher. It's a cheap way for us developers to permit off-site level designers to flash our game on their own GBA card for testing.
If Nintendo would listen and reduce some of their hardware price we would not need that, but until then this is helpful.
#56794 - The 9th Sage - Tue Oct 11, 2005 5:09 pm
| blt wrote: |
I'm not at all advocating piracy, but I'd like to thanks the programmer of NDS Patcher. It's a cheap way for us developers to permit off-site level designers to flash our game on their own GBA card for testing.
If Nintendo would listen and reduce some of their hardware price we would not need that, but until then this is helpful. |
Hm, I'd never thought of developers using software like this to help with testing. :)
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#56815 - thoop - Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:50 pm
How is it useful then?
#56817 - Spaceface - Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:53 pm
I don't get it either what this does for non-piracy ROMs...
#56822 - Extreme Coder - Tue Oct 11, 2005 8:24 pm
So basically you're an official developer?
#56823 - zubiac - Tue Oct 11, 2005 8:27 pm
| blt wrote: |
| If Nintendo would listen and reduce some of their hardware price we would not need that, but until then this is helpful. |
what?
what hardware? Dev kits? a DS?
The DS itself IS cheap though so no reason for ranting about it.
??
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#56847 - josath - Tue Oct 11, 2005 11:10 pm
"the cart themselves aren't that expensive, but the equipment to flash them is. We can't afford to buy more than a few of them."
http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?p=53432&highlight=#53432
#56850 - notb4dinner - Tue Oct 11, 2005 11:19 pm
What an interesting insight... I suppose it would be simpler than changing data reads around in the source.
#56851 - revo - Tue Oct 11, 2005 11:20 pm
| zubiac wrote: |
what?
what hardware? Dev kits? a DS?
The DS itself IS cheap though so no reason for ranting about it.
?? |
compare flash cart price to http://www.ndsemulator.com/nintendo-ds-emulator.htm price (pretty biiiiiig), any difference?
notb4dinner, yep, but patcher is easier in use
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#56951 - Lynx - Wed Oct 12, 2005 3:47 pm
Wow.. I actually think that is a really cool way to use something designed for pirates.. Just never thought about it like that.
It gives you the ability to hand out DSs with your commercial game (pre-release, still in development) to a bunch of people for play test/beta testing, and not cost you thousands of dollars for the Nintendo brand hardware.. As well as send it to companies that might be collaborating with the development (sound/graphics/etc), and doesn't have an official Nintendo developement kit.. Now they would be able to test on hardware as well..
#56978 - NEiM0D - Wed Oct 12, 2005 8:27 pm
| Lynx wrote: |
Wow.. I actually think that is a really cool way to use something designed for pirates.. Just never thought about it like that.
It gives you the ability to hand out DSs with your commercial game (pre-release, still in development) to a bunch of people for play test/beta testing, and not cost you thousands of dollars for the Nintendo brand hardware.. As well as send it to companies that might be collaborating with the development (sound/graphics/etc), and doesn't have an official Nintendo developement kit.. Now they would be able to test on hardware as well.. |
I for sure wouldn't rely on a *PATCHER* to test my professional software on.
#56982 - rmco2003 - Wed Oct 12, 2005 9:41 pm
If you don't have the money, what else can you do?
#56992 - Lynx - Wed Oct 12, 2005 11:05 pm
It's not so much as "don't have the money" but pointing outside companies that also work on your project to something that would allow them to test out your game as well. Meaning, I'm guessing the standard graphics company isn't going to have all the official NDS development kits, so if you provide them with the .nds to see how their graphics look in the game.. this is a cheap alternative to buying the $20,000 devkit.
#57005 - DsPet - Thu Oct 13, 2005 12:09 am
> this is a cheap alternative to buying the $20,000 devkit...
The cost of losing your Nintendo official developer status is much more expensive than that....
Don't know exactly what the rules are, but if I were an official developer I would check the legal contracts very thoroughly before using any homebrew or "warez" focused tools.
I don't think Nintendo would be happy with people shipping out non-encrypted easy-to-rip GBA versions of your game -- especially if they include development SDK debug components. Extra concerning if they appeared in the "wild" (ie. outside your development shop).
Cheap "homebrew" alternatives may harm your current business model -- ie. companies keep an eye on every licence of a $20K devkit. They won't worry about a $200 NDS + GBA cart.
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Remember, this is a hobby BBS. If you are an official developer, you have "inside information" regarding the confidential official SDK. In general you shouldn't be posting here!
For any "official developer" reading these forums, my advice is to be careful. If you lose your official developer status, the hardware is cheaper, but you will have to live with the reverse engineered open source SDK (like the rest of us) and give up on any opportunity of selling Nintendo games.
#57006 - tepples - Thu Oct 13, 2005 12:15 am
| DsPet wrote: |
| I don't think Nintendo would be happy with people shipping out non-encrypted easy-to-rip GBA versions of your game -- especially if they include development SDK debug components. Extra concerning if they appeared in the "wild" (ie. outside your development shop). |
Unless you give a unique serial number to each copy you hand out to your testers and watermark that number into the graphics somehow. Then by turning the watermark back into a serial number, you can track down the (censored) who broke NDA and then use the watermark as evidence to sue the pants off his (censored).
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