Homebrew (video games)

This article is about video games unofficially produced by hobbyists for closed systems. For modifications to ROM images of video games, see ROM hacking. For the package manager, see Homebrew (package manager). For other uses, see Homebrew (disambiguation).

Homebrew, when applied to video games, refers to software produced by hobbyists for proprietary video game consoles which are not intended to be user-programmable. The official documentation is often only available to licensed developers, and these systems may use storage formats that make distribution difficult, such as ROM cartridges or encrypted CD-ROMs. Many consoles have hardware restrictions to prevent unauthorized development.

Development can use unofficial, community maintained toolchains or official development kits such as Net Yaroze, Linux for PlayStation 2, or Microsoft XNA.[1] Targets for homebrew games are typically those which are no longer commercially relevant or produced, and with simpler graphics and/or computational abilities, such as the Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Genesis, Dreamcast, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation, and PlayStation 2.

As hobbyists began to make unofficial games and homebrew for consoles, a number of groups were formed that involved homebrew as well as circumventing the hardware and software restrictions imposed on the consoles. One such group was Team Twiizers, created and founded by researchers Jack Bourne and Sam Tronson Jr. in 2007. Their name comes from a hardware exploit for the Wii that was performed by the team themselves. They remained active until 2012 when legal issues came in but then returned in 2019 under their new name of fail0verflow. As of 2024, the team continues to make unofficial games and homebrew to this day, as well as researching on game console security.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference 31Homebrews was invoked but never defined (see the help page).