Japanese Article: Developers leaving Sony (PS3)
- Thread starter dukmahsik
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Alpha_Spartan
Regular
Wow. Why are some people doubting the validity of this article? Is the author lying? So there aren't any Japanese developers wary of PS3 development? Secondly, why does Mark Rein's word get more weight than these dissatisfied developers. I think it's obvious that Rein is a PR monkey. His best interest is to see the Xbox360/PS3 succeed.
pipo said:
I understand that...typing too fast.
Alpha_Spartan said:
Who are these developers and just how many of them are dissatisfied is the question?
What's not to believe about what Mark Rein says? Devs need far fewer coders than artists in making games now and with such high demand for high quality art this seems to be the area where dev studios will be bleeding money in the future. I you're referring to something else he spoke about then I apologize.
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after reading the interview i remembered there was a report on this issue by computerand videogames.com, here it is:
"This morning we were simultaneously shocked and impressed to learn that the house that Gates built has been courting next-gen capable developers and publishers to exclusively create content for Xbox 360, by massively knocking down the cost of the company's per-disk publishing royalty, with one anonymous senior publishing source stating "for a select few there is no per disk royalty". Stunning if true.
If our sources our indeed correct (and these particular ones usually are), this could mean that the financially fortunate company will again operate (for an unknown time) at a financial loss, with the assumed reward being an increased market share through exclusive hosting of as much of the top Next Gen content around as possible. This would also prove to be a double-edged sword, as it would likely limit Japanese rival Sony's options for its upcoming PS3 console.
Now it looks like the Redmond Giant is to use a similar strategy, though this time directly aimed at content providers and publishers, through offering a highly tempting reduced per-disk cost deal. Format holders are said to make rather healthy amounts of cash from charging publishers a royalty fee per printed disk - just shy of a tenner per disk last we checked - meaning that even if the game doesn't sell when on a store shelf, the format holder still makes money.
If Microsoft is indeed cutting this figure down and in one apparent case we heard, waiving it completely, then the publisher's risk is reduced massively (that could mean more interesting and original games getting signed kids). In light of current fears that Next Gen games will cost in the double millions, this becomes a very attractive proposition indeed for publishers, and one Sony may have to match (that is if it isn't matching it already) in order to attract future blockbusters."
what do you think?
"This morning we were simultaneously shocked and impressed to learn that the house that Gates built has been courting next-gen capable developers and publishers to exclusively create content for Xbox 360, by massively knocking down the cost of the company's per-disk publishing royalty, with one anonymous senior publishing source stating "for a select few there is no per disk royalty". Stunning if true.
If our sources our indeed correct (and these particular ones usually are), this could mean that the financially fortunate company will again operate (for an unknown time) at a financial loss, with the assumed reward being an increased market share through exclusive hosting of as much of the top Next Gen content around as possible. This would also prove to be a double-edged sword, as it would likely limit Japanese rival Sony's options for its upcoming PS3 console.
Now it looks like the Redmond Giant is to use a similar strategy, though this time directly aimed at content providers and publishers, through offering a highly tempting reduced per-disk cost deal. Format holders are said to make rather healthy amounts of cash from charging publishers a royalty fee per printed disk - just shy of a tenner per disk last we checked - meaning that even if the game doesn't sell when on a store shelf, the format holder still makes money.
If Microsoft is indeed cutting this figure down and in one apparent case we heard, waiving it completely, then the publisher's risk is reduced massively (that could mean more interesting and original games getting signed kids). In light of current fears that Next Gen games will cost in the double millions, this becomes a very attractive proposition indeed for publishers, and one Sony may have to match (that is if it isn't matching it already) in order to attract future blockbusters."
what do you think?
You should always post a link along with any quotes, if only for the context of date published, publication, etc...
Having said that, I think I recall that article, and it being from around the time that Microsoft was trying to get Square and some others on board.
I don't think Sony will match it, though they may lower fees in order to seem like they are throwing devs a bone.
For publishers this will end up being the primary equation: p = (xm - xy - z) , where p is profits, y is licensing fees, x represents the units sold, m is the average selling price per unit, and z is development costs.
So the greater the market penetration PS3 reaches, the more potentially lucrative PS3 development becomes. Now - 360 looks at the moment like it's going to increase MS' penetration by at least a decent bit, so the gravity may shift increasingly in their direction. If so, then then the licensing fees Sony charges may become an increasing barrier to entry for devs. But as it stands now, assuming PS3 leads the market once again, it will probably be the best move for them profit-wise. Dev support leads to penetration leads to dev support.
Having said that, I think I recall that article, and it being from around the time that Microsoft was trying to get Square and some others on board.
I don't think Sony will match it, though they may lower fees in order to seem like they are throwing devs a bone.
For publishers this will end up being the primary equation: p = (xm - xy - z) , where p is profits, y is licensing fees, x represents the units sold, m is the average selling price per unit, and z is development costs.
So the greater the market penetration PS3 reaches, the more potentially lucrative PS3 development becomes. Now - 360 looks at the moment like it's going to increase MS' penetration by at least a decent bit, so the gravity may shift increasingly in their direction. If so, then then the licensing fees Sony charges may become an increasing barrier to entry for devs. But as it stands now, assuming PS3 leads the market once again, it will probably be the best move for them profit-wise. Dev support leads to penetration leads to dev support.
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seismologist
Regular
Alpha_Spartan said:
Most of the wary developers have been from a PC background. Coming from a PS2 background like most Japanese devs, supposedly the PS3 is much more developer friendly.
mckmas8808
Legend
seismologist said:
Why can't more people understand this?
He is talking about where the negative comments are coming from about next gen consoles. To date it has typically been PC developers while devs who are traditionally from the console arena are for the most part neutral or in some instances excited about next gen development.
At least this is what I think he means.
At least this is what I think he means.
scificube said:
Well thats a double edged sword, I think 99% od Japanese devepers are too scared of Sony to say anything nagative, I mean Sony pulls alot fo weight in the Console gaming industry and I imagine they can make or break any development house. With the PC developers even if 360 and PS3 was cancelled today they would just keep on making PC games and life would go on, the same cannot be said for Japanese developers. So take that into concideration.
Strange just at TGS 102 games for the ps3 were announce just from japan dev...
TGS 2005: Sony Confirms 102 PS3 Games
TGS 2005: Sony Confirms 102 PS3 Games
Do publishers and developers pay the per-disk royalty on eash disk shipped or on each disk sold-through.
A lot of games come out at $50 and have to be marked down to be sold. Presumably, if the selling price of the game ends up being $25 instead of $50, the per-disk royalty isn't the same?
I'm sure there's a sliding royalty scale for different publishers. EA probably could demand a lower royalty than a much smaller publisher.
But really, reduced royalty can't be the only incentive. Don't some publishers get money up front to be exclusive?
Hell, Microsoft secured exclusivity in more expensive ways, like buying Bungie and then Rare.
Sony hasn't bought a developer in awhile, it seems.
A lot of games come out at $50 and have to be marked down to be sold. Presumably, if the selling price of the game ends up being $25 instead of $50, the per-disk royalty isn't the same?
I'm sure there's a sliding royalty scale for different publishers. EA probably could demand a lower royalty than a much smaller publisher.
But really, reduced royalty can't be the only incentive. Don't some publishers get money up front to be exclusive?
Hell, Microsoft secured exclusivity in more expensive ways, like buying Bungie and then Rare.
Sony hasn't bought a developer in awhile, it seems.
wco81 said:
AFAIK the royalty is paid per disc pressed and its mostly a set price no matter what the sale price is of the game. Some publishers do get charged less per disc and some exclusives get paid via an upfront sum (I believe Rockstar got paid an upfront sum to stay exclusive to the PS2 in regards to the GTA franchise). I don't think MS or Sony has purchased anybody publishers lately but there is still time. Sony bought some company lately that makes a development tool.
[maven] said:
I didn't say they didn't exist I just can't think of any, can you off the top of your head? Exactly my point, they are meaningless. Somthing tells me the sales #'s for Japanese PC games are .001% of the Japanese console industry. If you can come up with a valid, logical and realistic argument against my points please do so.
edit...if you read through the entire topic you would see that I believe this article to be bullocks but I don't trust what Japanese developers say about coding for the PS3 either, I have WAY more trust in the word of American\European developers that havn't allready sold out to both Microshaft and Sony.
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2 weeks ago: Unnamed "developer" indicates something bad about Xbox 360.
Group A. I told you so! 360 is screwed!
Group B. Defensive. Take a jab at the PS3 if there is a chance.
Today: Unnamed "developer" indicates something bad about the PS3.
Group A. Defensive. Take a jab at the 360 if there is a chance.
Group B. I told you so! PS3 is screwed!
I am not going to even bother reading the article. Sony will have plenty of support. Obviously there have been comments about Sony's high expectations (meal analogies) and we all have different opinions about dev tools, architecture, release date, exclusives, and PC porting/cross platforming and how all those impact the market.
Unnamed devs = pointless opinion. Even 1 or 2 devs = meh. The only metric that matters for this discussion is:
1. Games released (not to mention good games released)
2. How well the released games sell
And we wont know that for 3 to 5 years.
Ps- Development costs and profits **is** a very good topic of discussion. Just not within this context! Not especially when people are seriously comparing the 360 to the NDS, quoting unnamed developers against the PS3, etc...
Group A. I told you so! 360 is screwed!
Group B. Defensive. Take a jab at the PS3 if there is a chance.
Today: Unnamed "developer" indicates something bad about the PS3.
Group A. Defensive. Take a jab at the 360 if there is a chance.
Group B. I told you so! PS3 is screwed!
I am not going to even bother reading the article. Sony will have plenty of support. Obviously there have been comments about Sony's high expectations (meal analogies) and we all have different opinions about dev tools, architecture, release date, exclusives, and PC porting/cross platforming and how all those impact the market.
Unnamed devs = pointless opinion. Even 1 or 2 devs = meh. The only metric that matters for this discussion is:
1. Games released (not to mention good games released)
2. How well the released games sell
And we wont know that for 3 to 5 years.
Ps- Development costs and profits **is** a very good topic of discussion. Just not within this context! Not especially when people are seriously comparing the 360 to the NDS, quoting unnamed developers against the PS3, etc...
Here's a bigger chunk of the Newell quote:
"Writing for SPEs and writing in a Playstation 3 environment, there are incredibly few programmers who can safely write code in that environment. You make tiny little changes to code running on one of the SPEs and the entire thing will grind to a halt. You have no visibility into why that’s happening -- it’s just sort of magically running really, really slow. It’s also incredibly hard to architect things at the beginning so that you can distribute all of your functionality on all of these different processing units.
This was not a problem that we were lying awake late at night saying “oh we would really like to take this on right now.†You know, we were worried about little things like billing, and forums, and wikis and things like that.
I totally see why Sony wants people to write code that runs on 7 SPEs and a central processing unit -- because that code is never going to run well anywhere else.
They’re saying “make your code not run on anything other than one of ours and we’re betting that we’ll have market share that’s so high that everybody will have to write code for our platform, and other people, you know, “we’ll just starve the air from other platforms by absorbing everyone’s R&D budget and making their code less portable.â€
I think it could be that last part about the portability of the code that is driving some of this. The less portable code is, that indirectly leads to higher development costs, particularly for multi platform games.
So, for example, if a game costs 10 million dollars but they expect to sell 2 million on 360, 1 million on PC and 2 million on Revolution, thats 5 million units sold for 10 million dollars. Or, $2 per unit sold.
If what newell says is fairly accurate, lets say it costs 9 million to make a game on a PS3 that will only be sold on the PS3, and has 90% of the work that cant be re-used. Even if you plan to sell more PS3 units than any of the others, 3 million (50% more than the 360 or revolution). Then your dev cost is $3 per unit.
Problem is you are put in a real make or break proposition for the PS3 to be a significant market leader. Whereas with more portable code you have several platforms from which to make your money back.
This is the only reason I can think of as to why ps3 dev costs/risk would be much higher. Otherwise, i'm as confused by the comments as anyone (if theyre even valid). Sounds like its a 'putting your eggs in one basket' issue.
J
"Writing for SPEs and writing in a Playstation 3 environment, there are incredibly few programmers who can safely write code in that environment. You make tiny little changes to code running on one of the SPEs and the entire thing will grind to a halt. You have no visibility into why that’s happening -- it’s just sort of magically running really, really slow. It’s also incredibly hard to architect things at the beginning so that you can distribute all of your functionality on all of these different processing units.
This was not a problem that we were lying awake late at night saying “oh we would really like to take this on right now.†You know, we were worried about little things like billing, and forums, and wikis and things like that.
I totally see why Sony wants people to write code that runs on 7 SPEs and a central processing unit -- because that code is never going to run well anywhere else.
They’re saying “make your code not run on anything other than one of ours and we’re betting that we’ll have market share that’s so high that everybody will have to write code for our platform, and other people, you know, “we’ll just starve the air from other platforms by absorbing everyone’s R&D budget and making their code less portable.â€
I think it could be that last part about the portability of the code that is driving some of this. The less portable code is, that indirectly leads to higher development costs, particularly for multi platform games.
So, for example, if a game costs 10 million dollars but they expect to sell 2 million on 360, 1 million on PC and 2 million on Revolution, thats 5 million units sold for 10 million dollars. Or, $2 per unit sold.
If what newell says is fairly accurate, lets say it costs 9 million to make a game on a PS3 that will only be sold on the PS3, and has 90% of the work that cant be re-used. Even if you plan to sell more PS3 units than any of the others, 3 million (50% more than the 360 or revolution). Then your dev cost is $3 per unit.
Problem is you are put in a real make or break proposition for the PS3 to be a significant market leader. Whereas with more portable code you have several platforms from which to make your money back.
This is the only reason I can think of as to why ps3 dev costs/risk would be much higher. Otherwise, i'm as confused by the comments as anyone (if theyre even valid). Sounds like its a 'putting your eggs in one basket' issue.
J
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What Newell said was accurate... for him.
For PS2 developers who invested heavily into EE, SPEs offer a great oppurtunity for substantually more power than EE and in an easy to use environment.
Its called: Perspective.
That is why a single quote, or even a half dozen, is worthless. The games thoughout the entire generation--how many, how good, how well they sold, how much profit devs make, etc--determines the pros and cons. And THOSE things are tied up as much into marketing, brand appeal, business relationships, etc... than anything else.
For PS2 developers who invested heavily into EE, SPEs offer a great oppurtunity for substantually more power than EE and in an easy to use environment.
Its called: Perspective.
That is why a single quote, or even a half dozen, is worthless. The games thoughout the entire generation--how many, how good, how well they sold, how much profit devs make, etc--determines the pros and cons. And THOSE things are tied up as much into marketing, brand appeal, business relationships, etc... than anything else.
It's not at all difficult to make any processor grind to a halt. In most cases I imagine duffing up a SPE would only cripple that SPE and the others would keep running unless they're dependant on data from that SPE. What tiny little change can you make to a SPE program to grind the system to a halt that you can't make on a XeCPU thread?expletive said:
The only obvious risk is if when such a bug occurs the dev tools aren't there to find it. Nyah, we've hacked this quote to death already!
I'd like to hear from these devs as to what is so costly about the PS3. If they're leaving the platform why do they care about staying anonymous?
