3 ms·
The only method I’ve seen work semi-reliably for archiving console game source is to grab the physical machine that made the final build, spray paint “Do Not Di
by corysama 8y ago
The only method I’ve seen work semi-reliably for archiving console game source is to grab the physical machine that made the final build, spray paint “Do Not Dispose! Build archive!” on its side and stick it in a back room. Even that has a 2% chance/year to end up in a dump.
Otherwise, console game build systems were far to finicky to repro later (at least up to the 360/PS3 generation). You would need a huge collection of confidential tools from the manufacturer and those tools sometimes had OS/driver/hardware dependencies that can be reproed reliably with a VM. Think USB driver for the GameCube debugging connection. IIRC, the PS1 and N64 required add-in cards to connect a PC to them. Then there was the propriety test disc/cartridge burners.
- le-mark 8y agoAll true, yet for PS1 there was the net yaroze dev system that was distributed for some time. I actually had a copy at one point. Seems inconcievable it wouldn't just been easier to use a software emulator and the original data from the cd. But then I don't know if there is a good software emu for the PS1? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze
- motwera 8y agoIt's likely that Vicarious Visions was unable to get the source code from Naughty Dog due to Activision being unable to get it via Sony, though I'm not 100% sure about that since VV mentioned that majority of the original code is virtually unusable in a blog post. https://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/12/03/crash-bandicoot-n-sane-trilogy-first-screens-in-depth-details/ https://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/12/03/crash-bandicoot-n...