When will they send out PS3 dev kits?

Jabjabs

Regular
This question has been bothering me for the last few days, while nobody knows (sony probably doesn't even know) the question is when will it be viable to send out the dev kits.

The reason I ask this is how early are Sony/IBM and Toshiba willing to let the Cell technology and software out so that they can start on development?

And thoughts?
 
Well, that is a *very* good question, IMO. In today's climate it takes *at least* two years to make an epic AAA title, that everyone likes to have for the console launch. Well, the time to start making such titles would be right about now, especially considering that making games for such powerful new platforms is not going to get any easier. Think about art department's nightmares of producing assets for a CGI movie, and you have an idea...

Perhaps, Sony/MS/Nin can say to their devs - it's going to do this and that, have that much memory, and be able to move that much polygons and perform this list of operations - so plan your game ahead. That would certainly help.
 
The problem is that even if you know the specs for the console you are still limited in what you can do. The PS3 being so different from everything else is going to be particularly hard to tackle. Moving code from a PC to actual PS3 hardware or a simulator will most likely be a huge challenge.

I actually think M$ can get away with having significantly less powerful hardware because development is bound to be significantly easier.
 
well considering this chip is going to be made in 2005 and the mircon process its designed to use is not found anywhere yet i would guess mabye next year ... but most likely 2005.. mabye 6 months before launch.
 
But when will they be able to supply simulators? It sounds like they still don't know how to program the thing.
 
cybamerc said:
But when will they be able to supply simulators? It sounds like they still don't know how to program the thing.

I dunno... Depends on what the graphics chip is but i'm sure they will tell them the specs and be like shoot for this and the graphics chip would do this . and let them fly. Dunno though. Thats why first gen games look crappy compared to the last ones
 
ive read that ps3 might be release late this year. I know its a rumor, but it has gotten some press on other sites.

later,
 
epicstruggle said:
ive read that ps3 might be release late this year. I know its a rumor, but it has gotten some press on other sites.

later,


when did PS2 dev kits come out? and how long was it before the release of PS2?
 
Ps2 was announced in early 1999 with early demos shown, later during summer the dev. kits were given, in sep further demos were shown, it launched in early 2000 in japan.

If ps3 is to launch in early 2005 in japan, it will likely be unveiled at the beginning of the previous year, and dev. kits will likely arrive in that summer.
 
I think PS3 Dev. Kits will be out by summer/fall if not earlier to first party teams, then Spring/Summer 2004 to third parties.

They want to be able to be in the position of at least releasing the PS3 in late 2004, early 2005 in Japan just in case Microsoft puts forth an Xbox 2 early.

You don't need the complete hardware but they might provide some emulation from a functionality standpoint to developers to get them started soon.

If you notice recently a few development houses (Rockstar, etc) have began mentioning products for "next-gen consoles".

The false announcements about PS3 production this year, may just be the preliminary hardware to help developers with their dev. kits and provide something for middleware and tools developers to start integrating.

Speng.
 
Justin and Fishie said Sony will supply early devkit sometime middle of this year.
I suppose it's not impossible (I don't really know all that much myself yet either) but it sounds unlikely to me from what I do know :\
 
I wonder if the first generation PS3 games will be like PS2´s, you know, like how all PS2 first gen games left the vector units pretty much iddle and worked almost exclusively with the main processor (mostly because of the launch rush and poor documentation?).
So, is it likely that devs are going to shoot for half or so of what it is actually capable of in order to move the code more easily to PS3?
 
Well since PS3's release year has not been nailed down yet, its hard to say. PS3 could be out in 2005 or 2006. if 2005, im thinking probably late 2005 in Japan. i would think that development kits could be out anywhere from summer 2004 to summer 2005. summer 2005 might sound late, but that would be reasonable if for instance, PS3 comes out in March 2006 in Japan, fall 2006 in the U.S.
 
Yea... well to start a next gen game all you need is an idea. Then you can start fleshing out the idea. Mabye start writing the A.I ... mabye the physics engine. Then when they get hardware they can start the graphics engine.


These chips that they are using need a process that isn't avalible yet.
 
If they have nailed down the way communication and scheduling works yet they could provide a high level (C/++ input only, extended with new language constructs for communication and maybe with some SIMD intrinsics) simulator before the ISA has been fully nailed down. With some good guesses about how the processor cores will work and on memory/communication bandwith/latency you could run that in a simulation reasonably well without having a true emulator. Given the gargantium task it will be to write an engine anway developers wont have to worry about low level optimization for a couple of years anyway, let them try to write a massively parallel game engine first before worrying about assembly code. It will be a huge learning curve, for which they really dont need a fully accurate emulator soon.
 
Well, thats what they said -> some developers(EA? Konami? Square? the usual big guys i guess) are invited to do early PS3 games and devkits will be available 2nd part of the year.

You can always go clarify with Justin and Fishie at their usual forums. ;)
 
Aren't first gen PS3 games to be done through a RenderWare-ish development environment? Anybody else heard of this a while ago? I'm sure the PS3 RenderWare will have a few new tricks on its own, but it wouldn't be a bad start to target using the existing RenderWare tools, no?
 
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