Sony cuts PS3 dev kit price in half (joystiq.com)

[7th lutz]

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/11/19/sony-cuts-ps3-dev-kit-price-in-half/

In an attempt to further diversify the Playstation 3's library of games, Sony has announced a dramatic price cut for the console's software development kit. The Playstation 3 Reference Tool will now be made available to new developers for $10,250 USD, or €7,500 EUR. This is nearly half of what the SDK has previously cost developers.

Sony has also announced plans to further cut the cost of the development kit once more studios have adopted the format. On the surface, it's clear that Sony's struggling to earn new developers for their console, and hopes that incentives like a reduced entry fee for development will bring new blood to the system. On the other hand, decreased developer costs are good for everyone, so we'll eagerly wait to see where this takes the PS3 in the coming months.

I remembered developers complaining about the dev kit price for the ps 3. This something Sony needed to do and something ps 3 owners will be happy about. This could mean more games for the ps 3 in the future.

[mailman187666]

this could also mean that brand new developers with brand new and original ideas may make its way to the PS3. Not just PSN titles, but maybe Atlus kind of original. Who knows, some unknown developer could make the next biggest game of all time. We'll see what happens.

[XYXZYZ]

I read about this on USA Today's website (linked from Google news) and the article had a big fat Wii ad in it.LOL

[ProgrammingAce]

at just over $10,000 per station, it's not exactly "accessable". Not to mention, sony still won't sell you one unless you have a proven track record of releasing top tier games. Add on top of that the ~$80,000 (YA RLY) for an ESRB rating and you can see why garage games just don't happen anymore.

The irony is, a 360 kit still costs then 10% of that...

Nintendo can't provide enough Wii kits to the developers they already have licensed, so the price is somewhat moot.

[XYXZYZ]

It costs $80,000 for an ESRB rating?

[roushimsx]

You really ought to throw the quoted text into a quote block or something.

[ProgrammingAce]

It costs $80,000 for an ESRB rating?

Roughly, yeah.

That's ok though, because it costs about $100,000 for Microsoft's certification. Note: this price is constant, even for XBLA titles...

Want to toss a quick title up on XBLA? You're ~$200,000 in the hole just in dev hardware, ESRB rating and certification. Add in 2 years salary for a developer or two and a business person and you're looking at $600,000. Don't forget that Microsoft takes a percentage of sales on XBLA content...

Numbers are fairly similar on the Sony side. I couldn't tell you for Nintendo, their online shenanigans don't really handle unique content yet.