# Which console had the best homebrew scene?



## PaiiNSteven (Nov 8, 2016)

Just want to see what everyones opinion is.


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## FAST6191 (Nov 8, 2016)

The vita is ongoing, and some would argue the 3ds is as well (has no games and is beaten soundly by contemporary devices). Also your poll I guess but no original xbox on that list?

Also I suppose is left to the responder's opinion but is best emulators (what most seem to want when they speak of homebrew), media players (got to love XBMC), things like Linux (having an embedded Linux device which goes into your TV or your pocket was a big draw at one point), or actual homebrew (what many others enjoy, I certainly did for the GBA and DS, as it did some wonderful things that would never have happened in commercial world and otherwise did not happen in commercial world for whatever reason).


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## DinohScene (Nov 8, 2016)

Xbox.

Amazing scene back in the day


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## KiiWii (Nov 8, 2016)

Of that list PSP:

Spent so many months with my 1.00 PSP playing emulators, loading (hook) firmware, GTA exploits, ahh fond memories.

Original Xbox had XBMC and some amazing emulators!

GameCube had SDML and PSOloader, N64 injects...

PS2 has openloader, HDD, snes

Wii had a lot of tasty homebrew: Not64 and WiiMC being highlights.


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## kapapt (Nov 8, 2016)

whell, you are missing a lot of consoles... but if were talking only on handheld consoles ps vita and 3ds are on the top


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## migles (Nov 8, 2016)

i will say psp, because we had plenty of homebrews since a complete cfw. 
cfw on the psp added themes on the console before sony started to suppor themes
we could do a really lot with cfw.. including instead mounting the MS card to usb, it could mount the firmware file system or the umd disc as a iso (thats right, the console emulated a flash memory with an iso inside, so you could copy your games very easily)
then there was the apps we had calculator, irshell, media players. psp is still concideered one of the most popular emulation machines..
psp could stream video and audio to the pc and we could even play on pc using this method, it was not that good but it was something cool...


while most of the consoles was about getting piracy, psp achieving this early and easily available, it had plenty of other stuff


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## FAST6191 (Nov 8, 2016)

kapapt said:


> whell, you are missing a lot of consoles... but if were talking only on handheld consoles ps vita and 3ds are on the top



You would rate 3ds homebrew over all the DS had to offer? Is there a whole load of things I missed out there or something ( http://pdroms.de/news/nintendo-3ds/ seems fairly accurate and reasonably complete)? The DS had loads of nice ports and remakes, original games, utilities and more besides. The 3ds thus far seems to mainly be a few emulators eclipsed by loads of other contemporary devices (and for general polish the PSP and DS come out on top) and some basic, if nice to have, utilities.


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## kapapt (Nov 8, 2016)

@FAST6191 yes because you can play all ds games / homebrew on your 3ds.


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## InsaneNutter (Nov 8, 2016)

I presume this is handheld consoles only?

The best homebrew scene by far on any console was on the original Xbox. Projects that started on the Xbox still live on today, Kodi for example.

Handheld consoles i'd probably say the PSP.


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## Deleted member 377734 (Nov 8, 2016)

the psp . easy to inastall cfw . lots of homebrews and features .


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## vpd (Nov 8, 2016)

For console's, the original Xbox and the Dreamcast had the best homebrew scenes. 

For handhelds, it's the PSP.


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## ShadowOne333 (Nov 8, 2016)

No Wii?


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## sj33 (Nov 8, 2016)

The lack of Wii yet inclusion of the PSP and GBA is bizarre.

Anyway, based on current scenes - I'd say the Vita scene is the most active and exciting right now. taiHENkaku should bring about revolutionary developments, as will Adrenaline. The 3DS scene is the most 'mature' scene given that we have coldboot CFW these days, but things are slowing down on the homebrew side. The Wii U scene has the potential to take off - Retroarch this week has brought homebrew forward so much, but we're all waiting on the IOSU developments.

The PS3 scene is well developed too, but also the least accessible due to requiring ancient firmware.


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## Ryccardo (Nov 8, 2016)

Voted DS between the limited options and the fact I'm Nintendo only since 2003, but what satisfied me most was the Wii one (I swear I had over 5 pages of non-system-utility apps in the HBC)



sj33 said:


> The Wii U scene has the potential to take off - Retroarch this week has brought homebrew forward so much, but we're all waiting on the IOSU developments.


Not betting on this tbh, for most "simple" apps (game ports, emulators, twitter clients, ...) the kernel exploit is enough, but in practice...


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## SomecallmeBerto (Nov 8, 2016)

PSP; it's why I came to this place in the first place. So much cool hombrew and emulators on the go for the first time(for me) was sweet.


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## PaiiNSteven (Nov 8, 2016)

I've edited the poll and given everyone a second vote. Wii I assumed was in there before and I never really thought about Xbox (not alot of my home consoles are hacked at all, but very interesting.)


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## sarkwalvein (Nov 8, 2016)

Dreamcast


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## SonicCloud (Nov 8, 2016)

In my opinion , Wii and 3DS has been the best so far n///n
I cannot comment on PS and Xbox as i've never hacked a PS console and i never had an Xbox console


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## FAST6191 (Nov 8, 2016)

kapapt said:


> @FAST6191 yes because you can play all ds games / homebrew on your 3ds.


If you are going that way the sure, give or take troubles with the GBA on it. I was thinking more "what console's homebrew scene did you think was the best when it was still active/current?". Going by that the 3ds is pretty weak really from where I sit.

With that in mind then for most that probably reduces it to DS, PSP, Wii or Xbox; I am not sure anything could mount a convincing challenge to any of those, unless you are going to bring in the Amiga or something or are solely concerned with copied games. Maybe GBA if you made I "I enjoyed it the most because of the people" (there was some great homebrew at the time for it, still even plays great today http://gbatemp.net/threads/links-to-various-gbatemp-features-over-the-years.352851/ but in terms of volume it is not good), and I guess I could entertain the DC (some fantastic things made in the years since) and PS3 (it was unpolished but you could get it done).


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## gamesquest1 (Nov 8, 2016)

the original Xbox has to win hands down, the fact xbmc became a household name (despite now being rebranded kodi...*tut damn devs snubbing their origins, at least jenny knows were she came from ) 

but yeah Xbox had a pretty cool homebrew scene, psp would be a pretty close second for active scenes with lots of new developments but it was mostly just emulators or roms, good but not on the scale of the Xbox


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## gnmmarechal (Nov 8, 2016)

Definitely PSP imo.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



SonicCloud said:


> In my opinion , Wii and 3DS has been the best so far n///n
> I cannot comment on PS and Xbox as i've never hacked a PS console and i never had an Xbox console


The community around HENkaku is often friendlier, though.


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## SonicCloud (Nov 9, 2016)

gnmmarechal said:


> Definitely PSP imo.
> 
> --------------------- MERGED ---------------------------
> 
> ...


I cannot confirm this but i can say , 3DS scene community are mean sometimes


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## kapapt (Nov 9, 2016)

So, now we have more consoles but not ps3? Ps3 have the best homebrew scene in the last years! Cfw adds functionality that was removed by sony in all models like playing ps2 and psp games on a ps3 slim and the posibility of having linux and media center running on system too.

But anyway, for me, every homebrew scene is a good scene because it give to us all the posibility of exploring the hardware we buy


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## slaphappygamer (Nov 20, 2016)

I was deep in the ps2. Spent so many hours with hdl dumb and configuring launchelf. I may have to redo it to boot freemcboot. When I figure that one out.


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## VinsCool (Nov 20, 2016)

The PSP and Wii scenes are amazing.

PSP, the best homebrew handheld, had so much great things.

Wii, this one was the first console that got me into modding and homebrewing. So much fun back in the early days. Hopefully the WiiU will follow the same path, especially with the scene explosion from the last 2 weeks.


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## Deleted User (Nov 20, 2016)

I would say back then in the the 7th generation of gaming,the psp was a amazing device to have hacked due to its countless emulators and support it had back in the day.Now in modern times here in mid 8th generation the 3ds is domanating the vita due to its better exclusive library along with ds flash cards like r4i gold and native gba games that can be injected into the sysnand.The 3ds also has countless methods and options of installing cfw and Any model 3ds can be downgraded once it has a supported ofw.The only advantages the vita has is it has the better ps1 support and it can play psp games (which is its best advantage since the psp had really good exclusives) but only when it's hacked,while the 3ds can just use backwards compatibility on ds games.Anoughter would be streaming your ps3 and ps4 games to the vita,however the vitas exclusives are crap while the 3ds has a above average  good library.


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## Deleted User (Nov 21, 2016)

Hmm I don't know. I've only _lived _through a few homebrew secens and the one I got the most joy out of it the DS. Comparing homebrew that DS to 3DS had is quite astonishing. The DS had way coller things and games on it. The 3DS just feels like a play around device but I can still get enjoyment from my DS 6 years from now.


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## digr8one (Nov 21, 2016)

Wii and the first xbox.


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## DeoNaught (Nov 21, 2016)

I would say the Psp or the wii I guess.


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## Deleted User (Nov 22, 2016)

FAST6191 said:


> You would rate 3ds homebrew over all the DS had to offer? Is there a whole load of things I missed out there or something ( http://pdroms.de/news/nintendo-3ds/ seems fairly accurate and reasonably complete)? The DS had loads of nice ports and remakes, original games, utilities and more besides. The 3ds thus far seems to mainly be a few emulators eclipsed by loads of other contemporary devices (and for general polish the PSP and DS come out on top) and some basic, if nice to have, utilities.



This.  Sorry for posting fairly late on this topic, but I just had to voice my opinion on this.  While I find it nice that the devs have been able to crack the 3DS this far open, I'm noticing a shortage of actual homebrew; there haven't been that many games and apps for the system, compared to the Wii/DS/PSP.  

You know what would be cool, but unlikely?  A homebrew scene like that of the Dreamcast, where new games are still being released years after the console stopped being supported.

It seems to me that most of the homebrew community is oriented towards cracking the system, which is fine, but personally, I'd like to see more practical stuff come out of this.  Emulators are fine, but what about some interesting original games?  Some useful apps, like text editors?  Some developments in ROM Hacking?

Maybe this is due to the fact that everyone and their mother nowadays has a phone, which is probably much more powerful and more capable of doing these things than a 3DS can, and maybe I wouldn't want a better homebrew scene if I actually had a phone, but I'd like to see more cool stuff come out of the 3DS Homebrew Scene.  I just hope that it doesn't die out before I get the chance to contribute something.


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## FAST6191 (Nov 22, 2016)

IOS rose up towards the end of the DS scene. Between actual comments to such an end and the large amount of DS homebrew which ended up as top apps on IOS it was pretty clear that IOS had gutted it. Without it things would probably not have continued on massively but IOS sent something that might have lingered on in a home for a few more years to the glue factory.

ROM hacking on the 3ds seems to be doing well enough -- plenty of people seem to be doing 3d model manipulation and even video has sort of fallen unlike the DS which could have and still could do with something like what the 3ds had very early on.

Likewise a homebrew scene will never die out for a device like we tend to see, I imagine it could for something which requires active connections and the like but that is not something to really consider here. At any point you can make a new piece of homebrew, polish up something if you want or otherwise. Poke around http://www.pouet.net/ for nice demos and things like the dreamcast, NES and more besides enjoy new games to this day. Even with the extra power then pending the rise of a given controller type for phones or a common phone with controls (personally I await some of the things with screens changing shape to kind of having physical buttons) the 3ds will still represent something interesting. That said the GBA and DS did genuinely represent power enough to do something and the best option for it, there is a reason things like http://reinerziegler.de/GBA/gba.htm#great GBA hardware were made for it and it was not just "because it was cool". Phones today have options to allow for ODBII (car diagnostics tools), portable oscilloscopes, endoscope/boroscope/snake cameras ( http://www.banggood.com/6-LED-7mm-L...amera-for-Android-Phone-and-PC-p-1001666.html ), thermal cameras and more for far lower than I would have paid in years past for dedicated tools with less functionality, and in some cases still would.


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