What do we all think about handheld homebrew?

[Fraser]

I personally have never gotten involved though the promise of free games and countless emulated classics has often made me wonder. You see for the relative layman homebrew is an intimidating field to venture into. Naturally I have some questions.

Are you scared to get involved with homebrew for fear of breaking your console?

If you are a homebrew enthusiast, do you favour homegrown originals or ported classics?

Which is the better machine for homebrew apps and games, the PSP or the DS?

Do you find that you have stopped buying games since you started using console for homebrew?

As always this is yours to chew over until next week's Loose Threads. Enjoy!

[Mandark]

I'm not into homebrew. I didn't buy my handhelds to run a ton of third party programs. It's very clever what some peopel can do but it's not for me! Yeah, I'm boring like that

[SetsFireToPoshHammer]

I have to say, though it pains me to admit it, I am much too scared to venture into the world of homebrew. It just seems so complicated and I am a bit old fashioned about keeping my consoles virginal and pure.

At a guess though I would say that surely the PSP is the place for ported classics and the DS for more original projects based around the hardware.

[danskmacabre]

There's some great Homebrew games and apps out there.

Such as Colors, a very well written drawing package, you can even email your images to people from yourr DS.

Dicewars is a classic (it's basically "Risk"), I would have been happy to pay for that if it had a commercial release.

Lots of other tools, utilities and games that are fun and they seem to be getting better.

There's certainly a place for Homebrew, even if the cards that run Homebrew are a bit of a dodgy, grey market.

[Mandark]

Interesting review of the situation in Loose Threads but I think even these few posts highlight that there probably is a big divide between handheld enthusiasts who like their consoles clean and those who love to experiment.

Strangely I'm much more prepared to try third party applications on my smartphone rather than rely on just the stuff your given by say Nokia.

[Fenrir]

Homebrew is something I occasionally think I'd really like to get into for all the potential and of course the portable emulation but I have absolutely no idea how and the idea is a bit offputting as I don't want to somehow 'break' my rather expensive limited ed psp or my trusty DS.

[TheAdipose]

I think its an excuse for pirates to make money, esp the flash card makers on the DS.

The initial goal of opening up hardware and software for experimentation is a noble one, but its been hijacked by the pirates.