How much is a PS3 dev kit?

S

sir doris

Regular
Hi,
I've tried using the f*****g b*****d search engine but to no avail :(

Can anyone tell me the rough cost for the PS3 dev kit/ environment? Also how this would impact a "typical" 3rd part developer?

How many would kits would they require? how does the hardware cost compare with the staff costs etc.

I understand this is a difficult thing to guess as there are so many variables and large projects could cost many times more than smaller ones, but do you think Sony makes any money from the dev kits or do they just cover their costs or even subsudise 3rd party development for the good of the platform?

Looking forward to some replys :)
 
I'll tell you this much, yeah Sony does profit off devkits. Does it mean much? Not really. As for prices, well often you don't actually buy them, you often just lease them. Also if you're a small developer, and actually have a publisher, the publisher may be the leasing the box from Sony and loaning it to you, or purchased from Sony and leasing to you (it can vary all over the place)...
 
I think invariably kits are given to publishers and distributed by publishers to devs. You can't get a PS3 kit without a publisher.

Hardware is a small part of the budget. Human resources is the biggest cost. You might have a kit per programmer, each costing - I don't know $20k, $30k? - but that programmer is costing you maybe $40k+ per year, for the multiple years a game is usually in development. Add in the rest of the team..

Plus, hardware costs can probably be written off over multiple projects.
 
Yes it usually works that way. Although someitmes early on it's possible to get devkits without a publisher, but after the first year sony doesn't do that any longer.
 
Titanio said:
I think invariably kits are given to publishers and distributed by publishers to devs. You can't get a PS3 kit without a publisher.
.
Click to expand...

yes you can.A x3660 kit would be harder. :)
 
Titanio said:
I think invariably kits are given to publishers and distributed by publishers to devs. You can't get a PS3 kit without a publisher.

Hardware is a small part of the budget. Human resources is the biggest cost. You might have a kit per programmer, each costing - I don't know $20k, $30k? - but that programmer is costing you maybe $40k+ per year, for the multiple years a game is usually in development. Add in the rest of the team..

Plus, hardware costs can probably be written off over multiple projects.
Click to expand...

True but you usually don't pay the programmer in one lump sum at the start of development :)

It certainly used to be possible with Xbox/PS2 to get kits as a dev, and if you wanted to demonstrate technology it was a good thing to do so. I haven't had to do it on PS3 or XBox since I now work for a publisher, so I can't comment.

You don't own Sony kits ever... You "buy" them and recieve a license, which Sony can revoke at any time. Although in practice you do own them, at my previous company we sold on PS1 dev kits with permision from Sony.
 
The closest thing I'd heard to any sort of figure was off the Inquirer, which on its own makes the figure suspect. But I believe they did say it was ~20-25k... Though I should mention that was in pounds, not dollars.

Still, much as I'd expect a ridiculous price for it (and the PSP kits are also ridiculously expensive, so it's not like this is a PS3-only thing), I wonder what the hell source the Inquirer got their figure from...
 
ShootMyMonkey said:
The closest thing I'd heard to any sort of figure was off the Inquirer, which on its own makes the figure suspect. But I believe they did say it was ~20-25k... Though I should mention that was in pounds, not dollars.

Still, much as I'd expect a ridiculous price for it (and the PSP kits are also ridiculously expensive, so it's not like this is a PS3-only thing), I wonder what the hell source the Inquirer got their figure from...
Click to expand...

I don't actually write the cheques around here, so I don't exactly know - however for PS2 I think the early devkits are essentially a free loan to developers doing launch titles and such, and then the final versions cost money. If the costs are similar to PS2, then they'll be maybe 20k US initially and fall slightly over time. I think it's about half that now for PS2 kit (and a shade extra for the PA version).
 
One question I have about the kits - what was the impact of the SN Systems acquisition on the software environment? Are their tools standard now? And how do they fit in with the GNU toolchain - they hardly replace it, do they?

It struck me at the time as being the most significant announcement Sony made at the Playstation Meeting, but there wasn't a lot of clarification about what exactly it would mean.

Also, I was reading in Edge some issues back where they mentioned that PS3 would effectively have a performance analyser from the start..true/not true...? Maybe these questions aren't answerable.
 
Titanio said:
One question I have about the kits - what was the impact of the SN Systems acquisition on the software environment? Are their tools standard now? And how do they fit in with the GNU toolchain - they hardly replace it, do they?

It struck me at the time as being the most significant announcement Sony made at the Playstation Meeting, but there wasn't a lot of clarification about what exactly it would mean.

Also, I was reading in Edge some issues back where they mentioned that PS3 would effectively have a performance analyser from the start..true/not true...? Maybe these questions aren't answerable.
Click to expand...

So far it seems like they're still ironing out what to do with the tools. Not a lot has changed yet from my point of view, but I kind of expect it will - otherwise why buy them?

PA functionality is built into Cell and is exposed in the current SDK - but it's kind of early days for the software and the capturing isn't quite the same level of detail as the PS2 PA. It's a work in progress, but it's there.

On the whole though, I'd say the tools are shaping up much better for the age of the machine compared to where we were with PS2 at this point, and I agree that the SN thing should turn out to have been a wise purchase.
 
That's interesting, they charge extra for the PA?

They should be encouraging developers to use the PA.
 
MrWibble said:
So far it seems like they're still ironing out what to do with the tools. Not a lot has changed yet from my point of view, but I kind of expect it will - otherwise why buy them?

PA functionality is built into Cell and is exposed in the current SDK - but it's kind of early days for the software and the capturing isn't quite the same level of detail as the PS2 PA. It's a work in progress, but it's there.

On the whole though, I'd say the tools are shaping up much better for the age of the machine compared to where we were with PS2 at this point, and I agree that the SN thing should turn out to have been a wise purchase.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the answers! It should be interesting to see how things develop from here.

wco81 said:
That's interesting, they charge extra for the PA?

They should be encouraging developers to use the PA.
Click to expand...

There was a time when there was just one PA per territory, and they cost like $100k or something (I may be thinking of PSone-era PAs here..). So relatively speaking, it's probably not too bad if they command merely a slight premium now.
 
Titanio said:
One question I have about the kits - what was the impact of the SN Systems acquisition on the software environment? Are their tools standard now? And how do they fit in with the GNU toolchain - they hardly replace it, do they?

It struck me at the time as being the most significant announcement Sony made at the Playstation Meeting, but there wasn't a lot of clarification about what exactly it would mean.

Also, I was reading in Edge some issues back where they mentioned that PS3 would effectively have a performance analyser from the start..true/not true...? Maybe these questions aren't answerable.
Click to expand...

AFAIK and I don't deal directly with vendors, it didn't change anything from a cost stand point. You still buy the SN software seperately, and you still need a seperate license to run it.

During PS1/PS2 launch Sony also owned SN Systems, albeit via Psygnosis, and then later sold them, and then recently purchased them for a second time :/

It probably changes the amount of resources SN can bring to bear, but I don't know for sure.
 
Titanio said:
There was a time when there was just one PA per territory, and they cost like $100k or something (I may be thinking of PSone-era PAs here..). So relatively speaking, it's probably not too bad if they command merely a slight premium now.
Click to expand...

I didn't do any PS1 stuff so I don't know about that, but when the PS2 PA was being developed, Sony had a prototype we could go and use. I think there was just one in Europe because we had to go to Sony's office to use it.

It went through a couple of iterations. The first version seemed to be like an early devkit (a metal box with some boards in), and the second version looked more like a normal devkit (A T10k). However both had a bunch of wires hanging out, hooked up to a very expensive logical analyser which was doing the capture. I guess that was where most of the cost went - everything else looked fairly standard.

I think I saw a picture of the whole set-up in one of their presentations. By the time you have the devkit, the analyser, and a meaty PC for running the software to view the captures on (plus huge monitor because you need a lot of screen real-estate) then you're looking at quite an impressive rig.

I guess most of the work they were doing in between that stage and letting us buy them, was working out how to cram enough of the logic-analyser part (the thing that was actually capturing the data) into something they could mass produce inside a devkit.
 
ERP said:
AFAIK and I don't deal directly with vendors, it didn't change anything from a cost stand point. You still buy the SN software seperately, and you still need a seperate license to run it.
Click to expand...

That'd be a shame. I'm not sure what the point of acquiring them would be in that instance. I hope Wibble is right and they're sorting this out..

MrWibble said:
It went through a couple of iterations. The first version seemed to be like an early devkit (a metal box with some boards in), and the second version looked more like a normal devkit (A T10k). However both had a bunch of wires hanging out, hooked up to a very expensive logical analyser which was doing the capture. I guess that was where most of the cost went - everything else looked fairly standard.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I remember reading about, so maybe those were PS2 days when I read that ;) The logic analyser was apparently what made it prohibitive, at the time at least, to distribute these widely amongst the community (I think I read they ran $100k+).

But yeah, they worked it out, thankfully.
 
Titanio said:
Yeah, that's what I remember reading about, so maybe those were PS2 days when I read that ;) The logic analyser was apparently what made it prohibitive, at the time at least, to distribute these widely amongst the community (I think I read they ran $100k+).
Click to expand...

What was cool about going to the Sony offices was that one or two of their engineers would actually help analyse the code with us. It's one thing to stare at some graphs of your code and work out what's going on, but it's quite another to have someone who does that all day every day with other peoples code, tell you what yours is doing wrong...

Plus they bought lunch, which was nice :)
 
Having just read this thread for the first time, I can tell you ERP mentioned it (No dates though) right here (Post 13). ;)
 
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