PS3 costs scaring away developers

[Alpha]

SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS may be scared away from developing for Sony’s PS3 by the colossal investment required. And many may plumb for the Volish Xbox instead, a report suggests.

 

Japanese site ZakZak, translated here, 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.

 

One developer down to work exclusively for Sony is already questioning whether this was the right decision, we hear. µ

»» http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26945

[Madman]

Looks like the console business is putting itself to dead.

If developing games on PS3 is that expensive, the games will be much more expensive too. As this is a heavy argument when considering to buy a console, i dont think Sony did the right thing here. We had it once, that a console was ahead of its time, and it didnt reach much popularity. And even more realistic graphics in the nextgen shooters is not something worth working on.

The console business must find its roots again and develop fun and innovative game concepts rather than new game clones.

 

EDIT: UF says it nice: http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20051016

Edited October 16, 2005 by Madman

[sammaz]

no way i say give us the BADDest ass hardware you can (cost unimportant) and make it a big deal when 1 game comes out...thats how it used to be...read (NES Nintendo Power issue 1)...you could focus on each release and make it way more intriguing

[Madman]

That doesnt work out. See M$ Xbox. If Nintendo would have done that, or Sony, they'd be bankrupt now. Only M$ can afford to invest a few billion dollars to get started. They didnt earn a single buck of their XBOX.

[Gryph]

The Inquirer should be the last placet to look for news. Supposedly the original site isn't even legit.

[Wizard]

The original source was a link on the xboxdye forums if I'm not mistaken. I saw this "news" on 4chan weeks ago, just didn't report it because the source wasn't 100% credible, espeically if it was some link on xboxdye.

[Weirdy]

either way, haven't dev.'s felt more comfortable coding for someone else other than sony? I hear coding for sony consoles is a real biiiitch

[Gryph]

either way, haven't dev.'s felt more comfortable coding for someone else other than sony? I hear coding for sony consoles is a real biiiitch

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes. But Sony has quite a few first party developers and they have the support of EA, Ubisoft, THQ, and other large publishers. What more do you need? Many devs will take the chance of working on PS3 even if it's difficult because of the incredibly large PS2 fan base they are banking on to buy a PS3. But XBOX360 development is supposed to be the best which is understandable since Microsoft is a software development company so they know what programmers need instead of a hardware one like Sony.

[L.S.D]

I have mixed feelings on this.

 

One part of me want SOny to be humbled and stop giving us craps in future, but another part of me did not want him to fail since this might affect the PSP too which I like