BD-J basically died as any kind of platform for games for pretty much the same reason CDO etc did. To hit maximum market share, you have to assume the controller is an IR remote, which means clunky controls with no real "hold" functionality and epic amounts of lag. It might sort-of work for a games console, but then you're targeting really low-end games at high end consoles and the level of control still tends towards unpleasantly laggy for all but the simplest of games.
When I began this BD-J version of Ukko's Journey, I also did not expect it to be playable on a normal blu-ray player, partly because of speed and partly because I assumed it wouldn't be playable using a remote control.
I was wrong though. I'm getting 25 fps on my Sony BDP-S1100 and there
is "hold" functionality with the remote control. It is true though, that when using a remote control, I can (obviously) only receive one button at a time. But this is also ok in the case of this particular game (where you need to either repeatedly press a key to pedal, or else hold down a key to auto-pedal).
My daughter constantly wants to play the game these days, and she always picks the remote control rather than the PS3 controller. Go figure.
But: I can definitely understand why people has no interest in targeting standard blu-ray players, and that's not what I'm doing either. I'm focusing on the homebrew communities on the modern gaming consoles for this proof-of-concept project. The success with standard blu-ray players was just an unexpected bonus.
Yes, it
is kind of ironic (and also a bit funny) that my geeky interest for limited platforms leads me to the biggest gaming consoles on the market.
But like our retro-computers, these modern consoles also have a community of homebrew developers. So far, these homebrew devs on the PS3 has gone through the trouble of jailbreaking their console in order to be able to put their own homebrew games on it. Surely someone willing to go through that much trouble, to be able to develop homebrew games for such a small target-group (only people with a jailbroken PS3), would also be interested in being able to target PS3 + PS4 + Xbox One + any PC + any future gaming console that features a blu-ray player. or UltraHD blu-ray player. All without needing to hack anything, and everything running everywhere using the exact same source / executable / disc.
Those are the advantages, and me like.
Yes, there are obvious limitations with BD-J compared with native code, but when looking at the
Funky Fresh BD-J demo, it definitely seems capable enough for me to be able to do more than just "low-end games". My bar for defining low-end may be.... well... low though.
I've never liked how people declare a platform dead just because it stops evolving. By that definition, the CPC was stillborn, and never lived. All the 8-bit computers were declared dead too, but all I see is a rising interest in them.
Is the CPC dead now? I doubt anyone in here would think so.
"Dead platforms" is just a plus in my book. I love developing for "dead platforms" - because they never change. Whatever you make for any retro-computer will work forever. And whatever you make for BD-J will also work forever. But make something for Android or iOS or web... and it will stop working one day.
BD-J will be around for many many years to come. The new gaming consoles will feature Ultra HD blu-ray drives, which will be backward compatible with standard blu-ray players. So you're looking at a platform that'll stick around, and only get faster and faster. Dead or alive, doesn't matter. It'll stick around.
Logically, BD-J homebrew should be embraced by indie devs from all over.
Topic: Blu-ray Disc Java (BD-J) game "Ukko's Journey" preview video (Read 2526 times)