Japanese Article: Developers leaving Sony (PS3)

[dukmahsik]

"Some people from the industry questioned whether Kutaragi has the right vision, saying "Kutaragi has unwavering belief that evolution of the game console is the only way to expand the market, I wonder if that will truly gather support from the game fans and win the battle."

Sony is touting the catch phrase "Don't stop the evolution", believing strongly that it will lead to big victory. Another person from the Japanese industry commented that "To many devlopers it's nothing but a nightmare".

The reason for the nightmare is the the rising cost of developing the games. With starting investment costs for developing for PS3 rising to around $20 million, many developers are looking toward Xbox 360 instead.

"In the (Japanese) game industry, many people are losing trust in Kutaragi's non-stop pursue of this evolution", "people are leaving PS3 at a rate worse than Nintendo's Game Cube era".

Has Sony with PS3 taken the too high of the road this time around? This doesn't sound too good for devs making the most out of the Cell as development costs are too high. MS was right on for saying development costs are going to be very high next gen and make their tools such as XNA easier for devs to make games.

here is the link:

http://www.zakzak.co.jp/top/2005_09/t2005092602.html

 

[scificube]

What developers are leaving Sony?

 

[London Geezer]

Aww it's 2000 all over again!!

 

[Qroach]

This article is nonsense.

 

[Confidence-Man]

Wow. I wouldn't imagine development costs to be that different from PS3 to X360.

How do you get an english translation on that site?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Are Sony FORCING devs to spend millions? If they can make a simpler game on the rival consoles without spending a fortune, why can't they manage that on PS3? If an MGS game cost $40 million and you only want to make a $500,000 puzzle game, why can't you do that on PS3?

 

[c0_re]

I was gonna call this bogus outright right away but it's from a Japanbese site, I can't really say one way or another.

 

[dizzyd]

I am no expert but wasn't it stated by many in this forum that the increase in cost in next gen games is based on the artistic assets needed.

 

[mckmas8808]

I was gonna call this bogus outright right away but it's from a Japanbese site, I can't really say one way or another.

Yeah no matter what country it's from it's pretty much bogus. Epic has already talked extensively about development cost. They have stated that cost should go up slightly.

 

[Simon Templar]

This article is a bit of a over reaction but here is the difference.

When the PS2 launched it was the only next GEN (for at least 12 months) so developers were more accepting of difficult and long development time because it was the only way to achieve next gen results. This gave them plenty of time to develop libraries to ease development, but this time around The PS3 will lag the next gen by 6-12 months putting it at a disadvantage from the start.

This is crucial because "if" the 360 is easier to develop for (read cheaper), then it makes the PS3 look much less appealing because the ROI will not be there initially so non exclusive developers will develop for 360 first then port over to PS3 if there is a enough of a business reason to do so. This is backwards from the current model and a very interesting development.

Ultimately games sell consoles not tech specs, unfortunately the PS3 will not get to show it's prowess until the 360 is full swing and development of second gen titles has begun.

My question is this does Sony have the resources and developer tools AT LAUNCH to overcome this 6-12 month lag? What do You think?
?

 

[dukmahsik]

any negative towards ps3 must be negative. i mean come on, it makes logical sense that next gen games are going to be more expensive. to expect the same amount of resources from last gen to be the same for next is a bit naive.

 

[Gholbine]

I don't understand why people are always saying that development costs for the PS3 are going to be so much higher than the competition. The Xbox 360 and the PS3 are both heavily multi-threaded consoles with a lot of power under the hood, why will developers spend more time on PS3 games than Xbox 360 games? If you want to make a cheap game, you use a single core and the GPU like a conventional PC... this can be done on both machines, almost identically.

And what developers are leaving Sony?

 

[dukmahsik]

I don't understand why people are always saying that development costs for the PS3 are going to be so much higher than the competition. The Xbox 360 and the PS3 are both heavily multi-threaded consoles with a lot of power under the hood, why will developers spend more time on PS3 games than Xbox 360 games? If you want to make a cheap game, you use a single core and the GPU like a conventional PC... this can be done on both machines, almost identically.

maybe the toolset for the 360 is more efficient which saves time and money?

 

[Gholbine]

maybe the toolset for the 360 is more efficient which saves time and money?

So much more efficient that it warrants an entire company re-structuring to support a different system? I don't think so. Besides, in terms of ease-of-development, news is coming back as both positive and negative for both systems. Some people hate the PS3, some people love it. Some people hate the Xbox 360, some people love it. It's not like one is clearly above the other when it comes to convenient architecture and toolsets.

 

[Guden Oden]

any negative towards ps3 must be negative. i mean come on, it makes logical sense that next gen games are going to be more expensive. to expect the same amount of resources from last gen to be the same for next is a bit naive.

The thing that makes the article suspect isn't that it claims costs will rise with PS3 (because undoubtedly they will). but that it suggest costs will magically be lower on x360, which simply isn't going to be the case. Not to any degree that makes any kind of an impact anyway. And not when considering sony will most likely capture the majority of the market anyway, thus likely more than negating any difference in development costs...

Frankly I think any dev "leaving" PS3 (hard, as the machine isn't released yet) is a dev that is already financially in trouble and is now seeking MS financial backing for exclusive titles or such.

 

[pipo]

For starters (correct me if I'm wrong), but isn't the PS3 devkit a lot more expensive than the 360 kit?

Also, and I'm not saying the article is true, Sony is making a big fuzz about the support of their licensed engines and tools.

There could be some truth in this.

 

[dukmahsik]

So much more efficient that it warrants an entire company re-structuring to support a different system? I don't think so. Besides, in terms of ease-of-development, news is coming back as both positive and negative for both systems. Some people hate the PS3, some people love it. Some people hate the Xbox 360, some people love it. It's not like one is clearly above the other when it comes to convenient architecture and toolsets.

we've seen many more devs praising MS's toolset for 360 than we have for the PS3. Carmack, Newall, etc. 1st party/2nd party devs dont count such as team ninja.

no one is saying 360 is magically cheaper to make games on. they are just saying that ps3 costs more.

 

[Confidence-Man]

Is it possible that Sony is putting too much pressure on developers to create games that look the way Kutaragi expects them to look? I mean, we haven't seen any really crappy-looking PS3 games compared to some of the stuff on X360 (that Far East of Eden game comes to mind). Maybe they won't allow certain games onto the platform if they don't look up to par?

 

[dukmahsik]

Is it possible that Sony is putting too much pressure on developers to create games that look the way Kutaragi expects them to look? I mean, we haven't seen any really crappy-looking PS3 games compared to some of the stuff on X360 (that Far East of Eden game comes to mind). Maybe they won't allow certain games onto the platform if they don't look up to par?

im not sure but could be but who knows. so far we've seen only a very limited number of the best looking ps3 games. it's marketing to battle against 360 and a good one. im sure there will be crappy looking games for both systems, it's up to the devs.

 

[one]

The reason why Xbox 360 development is cheaper than PS3 development now is:

1. MS can pay more incentives
2. The same reason why NDS development is cheaper than PSP development