Hi all I was just wondering if the HYDRA was a good platform for beginners to game programming, because altho it dosn't use C# or C++, surely the basic priniples for game programming will be the same. Thanx http://www.parallax.com/detail.asp?product_id=32360

That depends. It looks like one of those "game console kits." It's $200. Even if you are foaming-at-the-mouth desperate to work on a console, it doesn't seem like a good deal to me.

Consoles are effectively just PCs with some different hardware and slightly different hardware performance characteristics. They also usually have less well-developed development tools, which can ultimately prove frustrating to a beginner.

While I don't necessarily see anything wrong with this Hydra kit, I don't see it having any huge advantage over simply learning to program on the PC or (again, if you are really desperate) using the various homebrew facilities available to you to develop on existing "real" consoles.