Speaking at GDC Europe, SCEE's George Bain has confirmed the price studios will have to pay for a PlayStation Vita development kit.
"The PS Vita development kit is going to be very affordable," said Bain. "And when I say affordable I mean €1,900 plus VAT."
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The €1,900 price tag is significantly lower than the €20,000 charged for PS2 and PS3 dev kits, and the €15,000 fee for a PSP dev kit.
"There is no cost to join the PS Vita Develop Program," Bain added. "There's just that cost of the dev kit. If you're a small developer, we happy to talk to you about this. It will help if you have a games portfolio. There's no reason we won't speak with smaller studios about joining up."
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Audio:
MP3 MPEG-1/2 Audio Layer 3, MP4 (MPEG-4 AAC), WAVE (Linear PCM)
Video:
MPEG-4 Simple Profile (AAC)
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High/Main/Baseline Profile (AAC)
Gradthrawn, I remember you requested for codec support info. It's out now:
http://www.sys-con.com/node/1947549
You can look up wiki for the supported bandwidth and resolutions for these profiles & levels.
EDIT: It's nice that apps like Twitter are confirmed but Vita OS should integrate Twitter seamlessly into the social network experience, rather than just a standalone app.
Lot of money upfront to develop for a platform which may not be that successful.
Lot of money upfront to develop for a platform which may not be that successful.
How much does it cost upfront to develop for Android or iOS?
How much does it cost upfront to develop for Android or iOS?
Of course, Vita is for big publishers who plan to sell games for $50.
The €1900? It's remarkably affordable for a closed console, and any serious studio, even bedroom developers who can convince Sony they are for real (which by accounts isn't easy), will see that as a smallish part of any significant title. Anything simpler (iOS/tablet games) wouldn't sanely be after the Vita market.Lot of money upfront to develop for a platform which may not be that successful.
Yeah but the $64 question is whether that model is still viable.
If they can sell enough devices and enough $50 games to make people buy those devices, great.
Beyond a handful to a dozen franchises, that model may not work.
Well if they're subsidizing the hardware, they have to recoup that with a high license fee.
Add in cuts for various middlemen to get the games to the shelves and ...?
How much were the PSP games at launch?
As Patsu says, multiple revenue streams. Games on PS3 range from $60 AAA titles, to $20 large download games to $10 smaller games to $5 and below little games. There's no longer a single pricepoint. For a dev creating a full cartridge game, the $2000 Vita devkit is a drop in the ocean. For devs targeting a $5 download game, $2000 is affordable while enabling Sony to 'keep out the riff-raff' by having a suitably high development fee that you won't have people writing fart apps, ensuring a minimum level of quality. For devs targeting the $1 title, Vita isn't the right choice.Well if they're subsidizing the hardware, they have to recoup that with a high license fee.
Add in cuts for various middlemen to get the games to the shelves and ...?
How many $50-60 games are on PSN? Full retail games are not the only option. You wont see many fart apps but for any serious indie devs that price is very low. Im not sure there is much point in sony aiming for the $1 mobile market when everyone is already carrying a phone. They are better off sticking to $5+ imo, if you are carrying a Vita it will be because you want a higher quality experience than what you have already.