Why makes games in Java ?

[erikd]

Even if they could by some miracle get the JVM actually performing fast enough to be of any use in the tiny amount of RAM the PS3 will sport... they wouldn't be telling us, in here.

Not that I think Sun is going to create a JVM on it, but 256MB is enough for many fun java games.
JEmu2 running Street Fighter 2 would be easily possible on PS3

[erikd]

Right now the reason for doing games in java is not because it will run *anywhere*, but it *will* run on Windows and Mac without any effort.
Because java is much easier and efficient to use than C++ and because java still has the edge over .net when it comes to portability, it makes much sense to use java in many cases.
And as discussed before, once that killer game has been developed in java, someone *is* going to make sure it will work on consoles.

[Jeff]

Even if they could by some miracle get the JVM actually performing fast enough to be of any use in the tiny amount of RAM the PS3 will sport... they wouldn't be telling us, in here.

Not that I think Sun is going to create a JVM on it, but 256MB is enough for many fun java games.
JEmu2 running Street Fighter 2 would be easily possible on PS3

A while back, as an experiment, Shawn Kendall got an FPS in Java at about the sophistication level of Quake 2 running in 32 meg.

Now a  big aprt of that was the last genreation of paltforms stil lahd pretty limited resolution and vdieo memory so the textures tended to be scaled way back.  The next gen, that are all supporing HD-TV, we may lose that space advantage over the desktop...

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[swpalmer]

I just noticed that the Myst V demo installs a JVM (1.4.2).  I think that it makes a lot of sense to use Java for that style of game.  They release on Windows and Mac simultaneously and I have to wonder if Java helps them do it.