Iphone

OK - this may be an idiotic question but am hoping for a bit of a discussion on what my options are here.
I have had built a small DirectX based game that runs on Windows. This is for a niche market and it seems a waste of money to have to provde a PC and screen (which i will need to do at my cost) to run the single game. Ideally I would like to convert the code that makes up the game to a an all in one piece of hardware with a screen (pref around 15 inch) and some flash memory that can get updates off the web and store user details. The current thinking is that it will also use webservices to get the latest data from the web.

Is this possible? who would i speak to in order to get such a thing done. The app currently runs on an AMD Sempron CPU (2600+) with 512mb of RAM and a 256mb graphics cards. I would need around a gig of storage

I have shied away from XBOX, PS/3 type solutions due to the costs in licensing etc.

I am guessing you are going to need a bit more info that I have given so feel free to ask questions!

Iphone

I think the short but sweet answer here is: Your options are limited. Let's just have a look at each option in order.

1.) You have written a DirectX game that runs on Windows. As far as I know (And I do know) DirectX *only* runs on Windows, and the Xbox/360. So right off the bat, if you want your game to run on another system you will need to port your code to that system.

gumstix - way small computing Sells embedded Linux systems on a device which is the size of a pack of gum with 200 or 400MHz processors and (optionally) wireless access and CF storage. CF would hold enough data and with wireless you could connect to a wireless hub to access the internet though the linux tcp/ip stack but I dont think a webservice is necessarily the best way to go. I would recommend using HTTP or even FTP for file transfer over the net - then you can avoid all the SOAP and other smeg that comes with it (Which you would need to code yourself).

2.) Have someone make a console for you. This is a bit of a black art and comparitively few people could make you a game console - even if they could they would charge you for it and those skills I'm sure dont come cheap. When the hardware is made for you, you now have a completely proprietary piece of hardware which you now need to code the entire interface for and possibly a less than average processor. Say goodbye to your compiler, and goodbye to your api's. In a worst case scenario you're going to be writing everything in asm, and without a native OS to host your game, you'll be writing an entire tcp/ip stack for the given architecture of your bit of kit just for networking support. Not easy, and by no means cheap.

3.) Use an existing console. DirectX leaves you with few options, but if you convert to OpenGL you could port to PSP (Using homebrew techniques), or the relatively powerful GP2X which would be much easier (As again you have the Linux OS, and a fairly healthy community of homebrew developers with good support from the manufacturer).

This is probably your most viable solution as the hardware is relatively cheap for what you get, and the architecture is well documented.

4.) Use electronic distribution and just assume that your niche market all have PC's.

5.) If you're serious about your game then you could try using a real game developer to develop your game and get it published. Stainless Games have been in the news quite a bit recently (Stainless Games | Home | Welcome)