Buying Dev Machines

How does a home Indie Games dev justify spending the bucks on hardware?

Generally today we can work cross platform (I certainly do using www.madewithmarmalade.com). This means we need as many pieces of hardware to test on that we would like to publish on. that is where the dificulty is, or it is difficult if you are not wealthy.

For example....

• iOS (4.2 and above)
• Android (2.1 and above)
• BlackBerry PlayBook OS
• bada (2.0)
• Windows desktop (7, XP3)... full-screen and windowed applications
• Mac OS X desktop... full-screen and windowed applications
• LG Smart TV (for Professional licensees and LG registered developers)

That is a list of supported platforms for Marmalade. If I wanted to test my game on enough of these machines to feel comfortable (differing screen aspect ratios and sizes matter). I would have to own a fair number of tablets/phones etc.

The cost of having a selection of the above must be well over 3000 dollars. OUCH'

Currently I own... (that I work on)

• Kindle Fire
• iPad2
• iPod3
• iPod4
• PC
• Android phone (ice cream sandwich) (gingerbread phone just broke!!)
• Windows 7 Phone
• Xbox 360

So the thought of buying a Blackberry playbook at the moment is frightening. But also Windows Phone 8 has gone Native development, which means Marmalade is going to be supporting that platform as well. ARGHH!!! Now I need a windows 8 phone (side note: I already have several games out on Win7 Phone via XNA).

Luckily for me my new phone that I hope will arrive today will be said hardware. So expect a new version of Hot Chicks the Card game and also my Book apps to appear fairly quickly. (ok, so not lucky at all, I opted for this phone simply because it is easier to justify the cost as a dev machine).

Jst maybe,being a Big fish in a small pond might pay off for a while.

Laters y'all,
Da Voodoochief