Proposal: A Reference Design for an Open Source Game Console
January 31st, 2008
As I’ve been playing with MythTV, Ubuntu and the like for a year now, I keep coming up with the idea of an open source game console. I’ve figured that someone would have thought of this before, but, I can never find anything on the interweb about it.
My idea is (relatively) simple: come up with a list of hardware and a Linux OS that can play games out to a TV/HDTV/Monitor. The kind of games I’m talking about are the quick arcade games (Extreme Tux Racer), RPG (Westnoth), fighting (Paintown), etc. I’m not sure exactly what games, but, the eventual goal would be for teams and indies to make games that run on the console. Maybe even a way to buy games via digital distribution.
Here’s my guess at what it should have to keep it affordable:
2GHz Processor
256 MB Video card with TV/component/DVI out
Wireless internet
160GB Hard drive
Wireless joysticks-up to four (GUI is controlled by joysticks)
DVD-ROM drive
The OS would need to support all of that and be driven by the joystick.
What am I missing? Again, the point is to create a reference design for people to build it themselves and be able to run certain games. I’m not looking for an MP3 playing, divx-serving PVR set top box. Just a fun way to play some good games while building a computer.
Posted in Games, Random, Welcome to the Future | Comments (2)
February 2nd, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Its already been done see Play Station 3 linux and or mame right? or am i missing somthing?
February 3rd, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I was thinking that instead of using a PS3 for the hardware, the project could identify the hardware needed off-the-shelf. and the os for it. If we identify the hardware profile, then developers could make sure their games worked with it.
I was hoping that the hardware could cost less than $300 and the os would be open source. Maybe it’s just Ubuntu with a set of apps like Mythbuntu.
Ideally, people would develop games for it (that also ran on other Linux variants). Maybe even an online store like Wii.