PS3 costs scaring away developers

[Zeus]

Reports suggests that developers may opt to focus their development skills on the Xbox 360 as the PS3 costs are profusely expensive.


Japanese site ZakZak, muses on the upcoming battle between the PS3 and Xbox 360 and fears Sony’s demanding standards could put it at a disadvantage. Their source suggests that developing software for the PS3 from scratch requires an initial investment of at least 2 billion yen (US $17.6 million) and that’s before they start.

"There are not many software companies that can easily afford that kind of money,” he said. "This is nothing but a nightmare for many Japanese software development companies."

The sentiment is that many software developers will step towards the Xbox 360. Thanks to their inherent similarities 360 developers could also develop PC titles without incurring high R&D costs.


News Source: <a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26945" target="_blank">theinquirer.net</a>

[whackawookie]

im waiting to see all the ps2 fanboys jump at this one and say "o well this cant be true because its at the inquirer" or "independent developers arent any concern to me" but the fact remains, this is makes alot of sense. Lets say the ps3 is pushing the graphical interaface and lets say its as good as there saying it is, does that leave room for games to be not good with the price tag there bound to carry. I will have all 3 next gen systems no doubt, but i am only excited about the 360 launch at this time. Has nothing to do with timeline til launch but the fact that microsoft is proving that there games are what they appear to be. I c not nearly as many sony exclusives as people have been banking on and that is where the trouble lies because if the games turn out to be identical on 360 and ps3 and microsoft games carry a 50-60 dollar game tag, thats bound to get the attention better then a ps3 game that carries a 90-100 game tag.

[kgonepostl]

I was actually gonna come here to say something nice about sony. But damn. I don't know much about sdk kits. But DAMN!!!!

[LaNcom]

WTF? That's nonsense. First of all, as always, the SDK will be free. The devkit hardware will have a pricetag, about $ 10.000 I'd think. That's not much compared to all the other stuff you need to develop a game.

And $ 17.6 million initial funding needed to create a game? Wow, that's stupid. We'll sure as hell see Puzzle Bobble for the PS3, it'll look, sound and play like all the previous installement. And, as always, it will sell. Will it take $ 17.6 million to bring Puzzle Bobble to the PS3?!?

What's so hard about creating PS3 games? The graphics? Reality check: development studios create much more detailed models anyway, they are needed to create textures and normal/ parallax/ whatever maps for example. Dynamics? The most advanced dynamics system, Ageia PhysX/ Novodex, comes with the PS3 SDK. And, contrary to the well known Havok engine, it's tightly integrated in a common (for game development) 3D package, Softimage|XSI. Usually, it's easier to develop for a more powerful system, because you don't have to spend that much time to polish, tweak, strip and profile your code, or come up with clever hacks to make your stuff look good.

Then, what's that crap about Xbox360's similarities to a PC? It's not similar in any important way. Completely different architecture, different APIs (the Xbox DirectX SDK is not identical to the Windows version), different endianess, everything. The PS3 has almost as much in common with a PC as the Xbox360 (known OS - Linux; known APIs - OpenGL, Ageia PhysX, Collada, fmod ex; known tools - Softimage|XSI). And, like the Xbox360's CPU, CELL is a PPC derivate.

[whackawookie]

well i do know some that would be doubters on the issue and when i came across yet another article thats pretty much explaining the same cost i figured id share.
heres a quote from the article
"The industry insider went on to say, “Kutaragi has said, ‘Please develop suitable software for PS3 - this software must not be of the same standard as PS2 software.’ Developing software for the PS3 from scratch will require an initial investment of at least 2 billion yen [US $17.6 million] [not including development costs]. There are not many software companies that can easily afford that kind of money.”

and heres the full article
http://www.ps3focus.com/archives/127

[Charbless]

Another problem with the PS3 is this blue ray issue blu ray production costs are very high so then that cost will be put down to consumers also it uses a new type of encryption which developers are already having issues with.