I came across an article in the Globeandmail.com technology section by Ted Kritsonis from Canada, explaining how heavy users and creative developers and gadgets users are improving the commercial product Sony’s Play Stations and Double Screen Nintendo.
“Many users are happy with their devices just the way they are, but a growing community of “modders” aren’t content with the limitations imposed on the PSP and DS by Sony and Nintendo, and are investing considerable time and energy into transforming them with their own designs. Some of what they’ve created makes these devices seem almost unrecognizable.”
This “modders” are improving the products and selling the changes online, there are several sites like Coolmods which sell online these changes, like see-through case shells. Most modders take apart nuts and bolts to remake the consoles and devices, they add functionalities and even new sticks, they have added the Choto Shot camera inside the new slim Sony PSP because it has more space and emulators to play any game you want on the Nintendo DS, there is even a site where a DS Lynux is being developed.
AcidMods.com has over 10.000 active members, and The ModGods.com is one of the most popular site
“Will Tuttle, a prominent gaming critic with Gamespy.com points that the majority of them do it for no other reason than to make improvements to the PSP and DS using their own time and money.
“These are people that just want to see what they can do to either make the system more user-friendly or to add features that they felt should have been included in the first place,” he explains. “Then there are the folks that just want to make their system look cooler, like the ones that made the gold, Zelda-themed DS, for example…the ideas and collaboration behind the modders’ intentions for both platforms is largely centred on the curiosity toward what’s possible. Modding on the consoles, particularly the Wii, has been fairly well-known. But the communities behind these portable gaming mods are relentless in their determination to tweak and tinker…These modders aren’t going to see a single cent for their many hours of work, so their reward is the admiration of their peers and the feeling of being part of a passionate community””
We invite all modders to put your new game improvement ideas also in ideas4all.com for comments and further inspirational ideas
