views:

221

answers:

2

I've been looking in to Nintendo DS development on behalf of my agency and begun using the devkitPro/libnds and PAlib, it seems ideal for our needs until we decide if it's a viable route for us and hopefully invest/apply for a development kit and licence.

My main concern is that, while developing and learning PAlib style is it possible to eventually take a project built in this fashion and have it licensed and published? I don't really want to invest a lot of time learning this to have to learn a completely different setup. Essentially I suppose is PAlib just for Homebrew? What do I need to learn for Retail development of DS games?

Many thanks, Anton

+3  A: 

No, PAlib based projects cannot be licensed and published. See also http://wiki.devkitpro.org/index.php/PAlib

Don't waste your time learning or using PAlib.

Unfortunately even just using properly supported homebrew libraries you'll still have a fair bit of work to do moving to commercial development.

WinterMute
A: 

To do retail development (i.e. to get paid for your product), you'll need to get a real dev kit from Nintendo. The homebrew dev kits do not necessarily work in the same way as the real one, and (most importantly) they don't have access to the real dev kit's libraries.

Thus, if you develop against the homebrew dev kit, you're going to have to learn an entirely new library (which probably works very differently) when you move to the real thing.

Now, that's not to say that the homebrew dev kits can't be useful - they are a way to get code running on a real DS. As long as everyone realizes that it's a throwaway prototype, perhaps that could be enough to convince someone to spring for a real dev kit. If you go this route, you'll at least have something of a spec (it should work like the prototype!).

I also would advise not mentioning to Nintendo that you did this. I'm not in the industry, but they are obviously antagonistic toward the homebrew scene - I'm unclear how they'll feel about developers who started out on homebrew.

Michael Kohne
Many thanks for the answer, I think I'll invest some time in learning PAlib/libnds purely to get experience in programming in C++ for the device and to get an idea if it works for us! The throwaway prototype idea is great, it might help me convince the MD to fork out for the real kit!Thanks very much,Ant
antonmills
Stay away from PA_lib. Learn the real device, don't hide it! Here's some basic tutorials to get you started: http://www.liranuna.com/nds-2d-tuts/
LiraNuna
Thanks LiraNuna, I'm an experienced AS3 and Web Developer and while I'm au fair with C/++ the complexity of the DS (managing memory banks etc) is quite intimidating! I've had a few people tell me to stay away from PAlib and learn the device and I think you're right, I'll drop PAlib and learn the proper way, your tutorials will definitely come in handy!
antonmills