http://news.com.com/Sun%27s+McNealy+swings+at+rivals/2100-1007_3-5252299.html?tag=nl
Interesting comment indeed. True or not who knows…
I wish it would be true, but havent seen it yet 
Thats not because of Java. Thats because the community around java games is small and “poor”
Hand in a few mills and you’ll see
Brother can you spare a dime?
Cas 
[quote]Interesting comment indeed. True or not who knows…
I wish it would be true, but havent seen it yet
[/quote]
It’s true, both languages are turing complete! 
Well, sarcastic comments aside… ;D
Yes, I think that statement is true. We’re rapidly leaving the performance problems behind, and third-party Java libraries exist to interface direct to hardware for graphics, sound, input etc. There’s a couple of memory issues relating to object overhead, and in a very busy render-loop you’ll still need to avoid certain garbage-generating APIs, but reinventing the wheel is pretty much second nature to games developers anyway.
Yes, Java is here, it’s capable, and it’s dying to be used for the next generation of computer games. Hurrah!
the question is tho, will it be used?
To be perfectly frank, and yes the truth hurts, C# has a better chance of making it first into the console market due to Microsoft ties with the XBox platform.
So until either the phantom is released and welcomed by a large number of gamers, or SUN make their own console that will blitz Xbox and PS2 in all areas, then Java will have a hard time being adopted.
However, I totally agree that Java can do anything that C/C++ can do.
DP
[quote]the question is tho, will it be used?
To be perfectly frank, and yes the truth hurts, C# has a better chance of making it first into the console market due to Microsoft ties with the XBox platform.
So until either the phantom is released and welcomed by a large number of gamers, or SUN make their own console that will blitz Xbox and PS2 in all areas, then Java will have a hard time being adopted.
However, I totally agree that Java can do anything that C/C++ can do.
DP
[/quote]
XBOX, yes, but I’m not 100% sure about .NET on the playstations, because if I were Sony in fierce competition with MS, I wouldn’t let them control my console VM. So I’m guessing either “no VM”, “special Sony VM”, “Java VM” or “.NET VM” in order of likelihood.
- elias
Sob. Yes - if ChrisM et al don’t pull their long hinted good news about consoles (*) out of the hat soon, then how long before it’ll be too late?
(*) The Phantom is competing in a market where the smallest competitor has more than 10 million installed units, and the market leader has 45 million (off the top of my head). Personally, I don’t find that to be good news! Even if they started giving them away tomorrow, it could take them years to even show up on the console landscape (although note what wonders for market share Nintendo’s price lowering did them…)
yes, i agree, but would sony, nitendo, or any other console be willing to adopt java knowing no else has? Will they invest in so many dollars not knowing whether this venture will succeed or not?
DP
Actually, I think the question now is: Will EA “politely request” that they do so? ;D
(since EA now owns the single most influential technology in the cross-platform commercial games industry - the product that revolutionized console dev - wouldn’t it be incredibly nice for them to have a common runtime environment too?)</idle speculation and rumour-mongering ;)>
Actually that’s a good point… EA has a lot more influence in the game world than Sun, and they already have a solution for building games on multiple platforms simultaneously in RenderWare. I know EA is a juggernaught, are they strong enough to influence the console makers decisions?
I hope its not too late, too little situation in one year from now.
- efficient structs to solve mentioned memory problems, maybe maybe not??
- something else to boost performance and quality
C# community has created Axiom 3d engine port, its based on Ogre3D code. I am not to say anything about Axiom or Ogre3D quality as havent coded them, only run demos. It looked very easy to use and run fine on my Cel500Mhz machine.
Time will tell whether such projects pass the java driven engines, or Java has its own growing market place in the games community.
The main problem with Java and games is this deadlock:
{repeat}
As long as there aren’t professional 3d engines for Java, Java won’t be used for highend PC games.
As long as there aren’t Java driven highend PC games, no one’s going to port a highend 3d engine to Java.
{until true}
Clearly Java can do everything C++ can (in a more efficient and nice way) but if there’s no middle-ware, you’re out of game business.
For independent games, things look better, of course. You could take Xith, Jme, Jogl, Lwjgl, or such. But you’ll need a working developer’s forum which at least supports e-mail notification of subscribed threads, and admins + mods.
PS:
With professional 3d engines I mean commercial ones like Netimmerse, Renderware, ID’s, etc. In no way I mean to undervalue good community projects like Xith, Ogre, and so on. Just the natural differences between them.
I could imagine, that in the future free middlewares could well compete with commercial ones; like for example today OpenOffice does with M$-Office, or Eclipse with commercial ones, etc.
Nah, engines really aren’t that complicated to develop, especially if you’re not aiming at the bleeding edge. There’s only one big problem with Java and that’s consoles. Even if the Phantom gets a JVM and even if the PS3 gets a JVM it’s still financial suicide for a big outfit to write a game in Java that can’t run on the consoles. So ChrisM is really being a little economical with the truth.
Cas
[quote]Even if the Phantom gets a JVM
[/quote]
Realistically, who cares?
Yep, PS 2 is the one where you’ll make all the money…allegedly it’s still financially viable to make PS 1 games, if you already have the dev tools (basic engine etc).
cas, you are not a beliver :-X
Middys eyes go blank
In SUN we trust, to SUN we pledge. Praise be thee SUN. Please accept this humble sacrifice, a disbeliving developer.
Middy makes a java.net account for Caspian
[quote]The main problem with Java and games is this deadlock:
{repeat}
As long as there aren’t professional 3d engines for Java, Java won’t be used for highend PC games.
As long as there aren’t Java driven highend PC games, no one’s going to port a highend 3d engine to Java.
{until true}
[/quote]
Fair enough, but … there is progress.
c.f. http://grexengine.com/sections/externalgames/tech-page-AgentFX-2.html
You are about to get an alternative, if you want it. I have no idea how popular forums on JGF are going to be - I’m personally only pushing the “each downloadable game gets it’s own private forum where the game author automatically has admin rights”, but we’ll make general categories too and see if anyone uses them (I’m guessing not, but enough people have asked that it seems worth a try).
One problem of Java in consoles is that Java is constantly evolving (well, that’s not a problem actually), but it would be difficult to change the current VM on the console (impossible maybe?) unless the thing is done with this in mind.
Maybe it’s not really a problem, at least you would be knowing exactly with which version you’re dealing with.
What do you all think about it?
[quote]In SUN we trust, to SUN we pledge. Praise be thee SUN. Please accept this humble sacrifice, a disbeliving developer.
[/quote]
Not sure if you’re being serious here… I hope you’re at least slightly sarcastic. The surest way SUN can silence the doubts some of us all have is to… drumroll… do something. Announce something real. We’ve been hearing about iminent and important news for a long time.
That said, since I started hanging out here things have come a long way. I’ve seen AlienFlux, Tribal Trouble, and the general quality of applet games and webstart games increase. Things have improved, maybe not fast enough, but they are improving.
Bill
[quote]Nah, engines really aren’t that complicated to develop, especially if you’re not aiming at the bleeding edge.
[/quote]
For a highend 3d game you’ll typically go and use a professional 3d engine, if you don’t have got a in-house one already (like the Groundcontrol-II guys and such).
Professional 3d engines (meaning complete, comprehensive, solid tools, exporters/importers and so on) are very complicated to develop. Netimmerse for example I wouldn’t call “bleeding edge” but professional and solid and it’s a very complex thing. ID’s genius engines are bleeding edge.
[quote]There’s only one big problem with Java and that’s consoles.
[/quote]
Although there’s a long list of top/good selling games for PC only, I agree with you because: even if you “just” want to handle the PC/Mac only market with your Java game, it could happen that your potential publisher could dislike the idea of not being able to let port your Java game to consoles by 3rd-parties “because” of Java.
Well… on the other side why big highend games? Indy games rock and for them you neither need Netimmerse nor a big and greedy publisher.