JME3 on Playstation 4 / Xbox One?

Hi,

Does anyone know if it’s planned to be able to easily port our JME3 applications over to PS3 or PS4? Or Xbox One? I know it was already discussed 5-6 years ago here but the conversation was abandoned: http://hub.jmonkeyengine.org/forum/topic/jme-on-playstation-3/

Thx

In short,

if you can get a jvm+lwjgl binding running there yes
alternative
if you can get gcj and lwjgl binding it might also work

then there would also be avian.

But in short, either way it will be quite some work.

Isn’t Avian what’s used for iPhone support?

There’s not much point… If we were to add support, we cannot make the port open source due to NDA restriction, and we need to be a corporate entity and pay 2,500$ for the dev kit.
Even if we made the binary port available for a price, I don’t think anybody would buy it. At that point, we would have wasted a lot of money and effort to add support for a closed platform that most of our developers are not capable of targeting.

The alternative is, of course, to hire the jME core developers to have them write the port for you. Are you willing to do that? If so, please contact us…

uhhh… hiring you guys?.. I’m not even close to being rich enough! :wink: …but I do have interest in helping raise 2500$ for the dev kit tough. Pretty sure every damn user on these boards can fork out 10$ to help the cause out. This morning, I got flabergasted when I discovered Minecraft just got sold for 2.5 BILLIONS (that’s 2500 million) dollars to Microsoft and 73% of the 54 million copies sold were on consoles (PS3, PS4, xbox, Android, iPhone, etc…)

We already got PC, Mac, Linux (thanks to Java) and now you guys managed to make parts of it work on iPhones and Android, so I mean, next step would definitely be TV consoles like Playsation and xbox even if they’re closed, no?

I’d love to see JME running on a PS4 but the mount of effort seems pretty huge to me. No Java, no OpenGL, etc… lots of work.

And it’s not just about showing up at Sony’s door with $2500 in cash “Can I haz dev kit?” You have to be a real company and approved as a Playstation developer. I looked at applying once but got as far as the part where I need to supply examples of previous games and figured I’d wait until I had some. :wink:

PS4 doesn’t run OpenGL? I didn’t know that, I assumed it was. How did Mojang do it then? They didn’t have previous games when they got their licence.

@.Ben. said: PS4 doesn't run OpenGL? I didn't know that, I assumed it was. How did Mojang do it then? They didn't have previous games when they got their licence.

Minecraft only just now appeared on the PS4… I think they have a track record to point to by now.

Plus, the game seems like a direct port of the XBox version… which was already rewritten in C++ I guess.

I see. Well anyway, IMO, running on iOS is still awesome enough for the near future. Most kids now have an iPhone or Android phone and they play lots of game on it, so I guess it’s not all loss, but >50% of the market is not targetable by JME3. That’s still a shame, imagine all the possibilities… I mean, JME3 could reach almost 100% of the market! Can’t blame me for dreaming! :stuck_out_tongue:

2 Likes

I don’t think so. JMonkey is programmed with Java. Nobody uses Java for consoles, because it’s a little heavy (even some people say Java is not good for making games!). Consoles use normally C++, which is a difficult language. Porting JMonkey to C++ means dozens of hours of work. And you also would need to know how to program in C++!

No, i don’t think JME is going to XBOX and PS3/PS4 so soon. But yeah, I wanted it too. Who knows, maybe?

Ev1lbl0w

PS: Im portuguese. There may be errors in the text above.

@Ev1lbl0w said: Porting JMonkey to C++ means dozens of hours of work. [...] PS: Im portuguese. There may be errors in the text above.

Yes, in english it is spelled ‘thousands’ not ‘dozens’ :wink:

@abies said: Yes, in english it is spelled 'thousands' not 'dozens' ;)

Heheh…

@Ev1lbl0w said: PS: Im portuguese. There may be errors in the text above.

The only real “errors” are that everything you mentioned was already covered and the original poster already understood the answer that it’s really hard.

Actually, the C++ thing is a solved problem, really. All of the other things are harder to overcome (lack of OpenGL, lack of a developer license, etc.).

Not to derail the topic, but I think it would be much smarter to spend resources making sure JME works well with open platforms like Steam OS and Oculus Rift.

@aaronperkins said: Not to derail the topic, but I think it would be much smarter to spend resources making sure JME works well with open platforms like Steam OS and Oculus Rift.

I agree… but the people who would work on one are not the same as would work on the other. It’s not like resources will be stolen.

If I ever get a Sony dev kit, I’ll look at PS4 support. I have no illusions about it, though.

@aaronperkins said: Not to derail the topic, but I think it would be much smarter to spend resources making sure JME works well with open platforms like Steam OS and Oculus Rift.

Is oculus rift developing a platform too now? SteamOS should be no issue though, idk if somebody tried it already but its basically “just” a linux distro. You should get the game running there the same way you can with a “normal” Steam multiplatform release, best bundle the JRE. Theres some examples of “steamified” jME games already.

Yep. Steam OS is just another Linux distribution, probably one that is close to Ubuntu since their Steam client for Linux is only supported by Ubuntu at the moment. What a useless project IMO. They say the biggest challenge is to force all GPU manufacturers to make Linux drivers for their graphics cards to work with Steam OS. Only a handful of hardware parts are compatible with it at the moment, but they say it might turn the market over and make non computer gamers go gaming on computers now because of those Steamboxes.

The concept does not appeal to me because I know I can build exactly the same thing myself from ground up in a few hours by buying parts, installing Linux, plugging it in my TV and purchasing a bluetooth controller for it. Tough, what seems to be the concensus among IT industry is that it will drive people away from Windows, which is a good thing IMO.

EDIT: The distro is 64 bits Debian based, from what I read now.

That only leaves you with learning a linux distro and learning about the hardware… Which is the EXACT reason why console people don’t have gaming PCs. Or Apple customers spend a few bucks more on their hardware… I wonder why those “you can build it yourself” people never build their own smartphones, would cost them much less :wink:

No, you don’t need to learn about the Steambox hardware, because it’s 100% OpenGL compliant. They claim to achieve 30% faster rendering in games because of the lack of driver overhead.

Also, building your own modular smartphone is coming soon. It’s called Google Ara and I won’t be buying it. http://www.wired.com/2014/04/google-project-ara/

Hm i can see the appeal for those who just want to play.

Buy it and start a game done. All else is steams problem.
As a linux user I’m way out of the targeted user group, and will probably mainly benefit from the pressure on the driver developers.
Also games make quite good testcases for the drivers, as else except a few special applications the 3d parts are rarly used for more than compositing and screensavers.

@.Ben. said: you don't need to learn about the Steambox hardware

Exactly.