Stance on Homebrew

For a while now I have been debating on how to approach the issue of homebrew. For many companies such as Nintendo and Sony, the concept of homebrew has been a black spot that has been fought viciously and lost by the worlds largest console developers. The lack of embrace and down right rejection to nearly a legal standpoint has discouraged me in my pursuit of implementation of homebrew applications for any console that I own.

It is strange how these companies, without accepting homebrew are competing with Microsoft, whom, although expensive, have allowed users to develop for their console through a supported API designed with the hobbiest in mind. Although, I have stated my opinion of the XNA platform in the past, decent as it is, lacks some more complex functionality without extensive rework. It is useful for smaller scale projects. I am of the opinion that if Microsoft were to make a hand held system that ran XNA based development projects and supported the community who uses the development platform, homebrew would have a much better place in the legal hand held market.

However, the companies that do have their hand helds, restrict the developement of homebrew so much that it makes it almost impossible to develop for the systems unless you are a licensed developer and have proven yourself in the industry as a mult-title releaser. How does one go about proving this without the ability to develop for the system in the first place? How does one go about making demo games to show off to companies who would potentially hire developers if they do not have a platform to build these demos on?

Fortunately, there are dedicated groups out there who have developed homebrew APIs for the leading hand held consoles. Buggy as they may be and questionably legal, they do allow for developers to build applications for release, and although homebrew communities have been notorious for piracy, they have also shown an avenue to developing applications to fill a niche that large scale developers have found non-cost effective to develop. I don't believe in stealing from programmers, I am one myself, but I do believe in open source, and I do believe in open platforms. So homebrewers out there, keep at it. The PC community has already embraced this ideal, so should console developers. The only way to show them that they should is to show them how impressive it can be.

( Hint Hint... look for some homebrew apps for the DS here VERY VERY soon ;) )