Game Platform Comparisons

Portable platforms

Some notes on game development for various portable platforms. Please provide parallel thoughts on development and networks for these platforms; with an eye towards doing the best we can for OLPC machines. Quotes below from Wikipedia unless otherwise noted.

Palm OS

Interface: touchscreen

Development tools include "CASL, AppForge Crossfire (which uses C#) and Handheld Basic or HB++ (which uses Visual Basic)... A Java Run time Environment is also available for the Palm OS platform, however it isn't shipped as standard on non-Treo[s]" and Plua, which requires an additional runtime to be installed.

Garnet, Cobalt

"Palm OS Garnet applications are primarily coded in C/C++. There's an open source compiler tool chain prc-tools, based on an old gcc. PRC-Tools lacks several of CodeWarrior's features... a version is included in the Palm OS Developer Suite (PODS). OnBoardC is a C compiler that runs on the Palm itself." Wikipedia 1

"Palm OS Cobalt applications are coded in a variation of gcc, but the compilers have fewer limitations."

PPC platforms

...

Treo

Interface: keyboard, touchscreen, arrow key/wheel

GBA

...

PSP

Released by Sony in America in march in 2005 and in september 2005 in Europe and Australasia. The PSP has a large screen and the is a directional pad, analog stick and the playstation face buttons. There are also two shoulder buttons and interface control buttons (start, select and volume control).

There are also peripherals to add different inputs to the PSP

 microphone
 camera
 gps unit

Nintendo DS

"The Nintendo DS ... is a handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo, and first released in 2004. The console features a clamshell design, with two LCD screens inside - one of which is a touch-sensitive screen."

• two screens
• one screen is a touch screen
• microphone
• local wireless + 802.11b

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS_homebrew#Notable_homebrew