Hi all!
I just found out about this and it struck me as quite amazing!!!
I bought a Unity license, then a Unity iPhone license… Now I just have to find another $2400 to get Unity iPhone Pro…
But Ps3 Dev kits now cost only $2000!!!
Console development licenses used to bean expensive thing, so I am not sure if this is all that is required to make games for the PS3, but if it is, then isn’t this wonderful?
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/03/sony-announces-lower-cost-ps3-dev-tools.ars
Precisely yesterday I was reading an article over at Destructoid that quoted Doug Lombardi from Valve stating that the main problem with the PS3 is that they don’t have anyone who wants to develop for it.
http://www.destructoid.com/breaking-valve-still-hates-the-ps3--138312.phtml
With other similar quotes I’ve read from “nobodies” like John Carmack, it seems that the PS3 is one complicated platform to develop for.
In short, the devkit price should be the least of your worries.
(It’s still pretty cool that prices are going down, though)
also the dev kit does not pay the base tech you require, licensing a PS3 engine (start at $10’000 PER GAME not unlimited games like Unity, end at $500’000+) or your stable business and plans to even get your hands on the NDA leading to the dev kit.
if you have the financial background to become a licensed ps3 dev, $2500 is definitely the least of your problems.
I knew it was too good to be true!
$2000 + $10,000 minimum… Now that sounds more or less what I expected in the first place!
Yeah, a dev kit is just the tip of the iceberg for console development. It’s just hardware to let you run your PS3 game as you develop it. The engine will kill you in cost, whether you spin your own or license one you are talking millions, thousands… at least if you want one that looks and feels modern.
But the real bugger is the publisher… if Sony doesn’t approve it to be on the PS3 console, it won’t ever be. It’s not an open market like the PC/OS X. Microsoft(xbox), Nintendo(Wii/DS) and Apple(iPhone) also have to approve your products, but at least Apple is wide open to about anything but porn.
If you want to hear some real horror stories, look on the web for some of the poor folks who invested tons of time and money in XBLA games, and completed them only to learn from Microsoft that they won’t be approved for publishing! Yikes! You pretty much need a publishing contract before it’s worth putting any time or money into a console game.
Yay Unity! 
This is so sad…
Way back in high school befor eI even knew of the term “programmer” I dreamed about making a console game. I always thought of it in terms of PC and Consoles.
PCs are what everybody (except me) have and consoles are the deviced made for gamers like me.
“I want to make a game for a console”. With every passing year that brought out a new console my platform of choice changed, but through all these years making a console game is still my dream. Making it for the PC or Mac feels like doing something every Tom Dick and Harry does in their spare time just because they are bored with what’s on telly. But making a console game… wow! If I can have my name in a console game I would have achieved my life’s first (of only 2) ambitions…
So far the iPhone is the only quasi-console available to me and it is thanks to Unity that I am now forevermore immortalized in the world of video games and I thank them all greatly. My life’s first ambition is now halfway met… if only there were a way of getting onto the consoles… darn it!!!
FWIW, I expect that as the middle ground of console development disappears, the barrier to entry will get lower for small indie titles through download only. Sony has been reaching out a bit to a few indie small games, and MS has the first, fumbling steps towards that in XNA/Community Games (though it’s still a pretty tiny window). The current problem is still the tools/cost/publisher ratio, but economics of the industry will change that dramatically in the coming years.
So don’t give up hope!
I would actually expect nintendo to do the first step because neither the WiiWare nor the DSiWare channel really work out at the time.
Only few games and over half of the WiiWare games are that bad that the average unity game here already kills them.
If it weren’t for the near impossible state of getting a dev license from nintendo, even for WiiWare titles, I think especially Unity developers could shine in this sector.
Stuff like CraneWars would rock on WiiWare, I think even the little humoristic meant “shoot the flying pony” game would have more fans than many of the WiiWare games.
The price may be low, but the availability of the devkit is still highly vetted. You do not just mail Sony a check and wait for it to show up in the mail, open and ready to develop for your favorite console.
This plus the other accurate comments above go to show that the dev kit is the tip (the very tippy top tip) of the iceberg. The dev kit is piece zero, from there you do the actual work and engine building/licensing and all of that is where the real expense comes in.
Welcome to console development. 
The reason I actually posted this thread was in the hopes of the Unity guys going:
“Oh, wow! We missed that. Let us get ourselves that kit, get the source code for the engine they use and see how we can make UNITY PS3 compatible”.
I figured having the actual source code that Sony provides for making PS3 games would be a great aid for the Unity blokes to make Unity compatible to the point of building for PS3 as simply as going: “Hmmm… do I want to click on Windows, PPC, UB or PS3 for this build? Hmmm”
Unfortunately it seems making Unity compatible is the least of our worries, yeah? They can make it 100% compatible and build a game that we can’t do anything with… Useful…
So I looked into 360 and the XNA the other day. They make XNA seem so easy and the current game I am working on is also very easy to code. In fact, I don’t even use ground colliders or physics for the main characters, it is that simple. So I figured: “Perhaps look into porting my game to 360 when it is done”
Then I realized that I would, first and foremost, have to use Windows (ewwww), then I have to download Visual Studio and XNA. I will then have to go buy a 360 and a subscription to Live before spending the $99 on the license. Then I just have to learn the SDK and each time I complete a game in Unity redo everything for 360 from scratch… What a shlep…
I read the Unity blokes are now planning a 360 build target. This prompted me to say: “By the time I feel up to doing everything I just mentioned, Unity will probably be in it’s 2nd 360-ready release so why bother?”
I am just curious, are you guys planning on making Unity compatible with the Arcade or making a separate Unity with a separate Unity license that also requires a $10 000 MS license?
A dev kit is not a lump of source code for an engine, it’s a development machine through which you can test/develop your own code. Think of it as a “special computer that emulates a PS3 for development purposes”, there is no code involved.
We are looking at continued platform expansion and that should eventually include both the PS3 and X360, including both retail titles and things like XBLA. But that has nothing to do with whether a dev kit is needed or not. If you have your entire engine in C# you can make XNA compatible tools, otherwise you have to go the route of requiring a dev kit and that’s where we’ll end up as we are not going to rewrite the Unity engine in C#.
XNA: development framework
XBLA: distribution framework
XNA != XBLA
Another thing, just to get my mind straight, here:
You get the kit and Sony provides you with their Pyre (or however you spell that) engine so you don’t need to go license Unreal’s engine (I think I saw it for $30 000 once but last time I checked it was $1 mil annually) or any other engine.
So after this comes the per-game license to Sony. This is what exactly? Just a $10 000 nod of approval and if you are lucky a pat on the back saying “Yes, you may go ahead now and we will decide later on if we are going to allow your game to be published”?
Then, you just have the normal day-to-day expenses like staff and rent etc and when you are done you need to find someone who is willing to publish your game? (Of course I can see why this step is better suited to earlier, rather than later).
Is this basically it or what other costs am I overlooking here?
Do you have to pay the publisher in advance for every box, DVD, cover and inlet they make for each game they INTEND to sell or is all of that covered by the 85% royalties, cuts and fees?
EDIT:
Oh, and in case anyone missed that bit of info from before, when you get the Dev kit, Sony gives you their Phyre engine for free… ← This was the source I was mentioning before. Buy the kit, get the source…
Okay, I’m confused… I was under the impression that only games made WITH XNA may be distributed via XBLA. Games distributed on disc just has to run and be signed and can thus be coded using whatever engine you feel like. I could have sworn I read something about the XNA to XBLA correlation… Are 360 developers limited to using XDK or am I right here? Any engine for disc distribution and XNA for XBLA?
Look at Torque for example, they already have 360 support, but it requires all the licensing and approvals and publishers etc etc etc mentioned before. From what I read, the publishing your work through XBLA is a LOT cheaper ($99) and a lot more likely to get approved…
Hense, the question about what kind of support you are planning. Based on this link http://feedback.unity3d.com/pages/15792-unity/suggestions/174212-xbox-360-build-target?direct_login_token=678e7e8fc25ddfcb329189b578dd6ea1&subdomain=unity&tracking_code=d1735668df481643c69d3f00e0fb17e6 the status of 360 support was moved from “Under review” to “Planned”.
To me it looked like the 360 has two very distinct methods of creating games as well as 2 completely distinct ways of distributing your games and as such, two completely different workflows towards either one. This was how it looked to my mind. So I was thinking, either Unity can build a project that is compatible with MS regulations for XBLA distribution, or there will be a new version of Unity that targets disc based distribution.
I hope I don’t sound like a complete idiot, but this is how I understood it and I am trying to get clarification on this issue… So please forgive any stupid sounding (or just plain stupid) questions, please
You don´t sound like an idot, the publishing options on the various systems are really not in every part stated as openly and clearly as they could be.
So with the 360 it is like this as far as i know:
There are right now 3 main ways of distributing a game on the 360:
-1. As retail game on disc sold in a store
-2. As XBLA game downloadable for a fee on Xbox marketplace
-3. As “Community game” in a sub section of the Xbox marketplace (this part will be rebranded to Indy games or something like that soon)
For 1 and 2 You need a dev kit and the other hubub talked about before, in return one can create games in everything that the xbox 360 supports and has in general approval by MS, so various middleware like Unreal, maybe sometime unity 3D or some own homemade engine/system.
One can also use all game and community features available for commercial 360 games like achievements etc.
For 3 one uses XNA and right now one can only release XNA made games into this community games sub section of the xbox live marketplace(not the main store section for all games) by default, unless one shows the game to MS or some other licensed publisher and they like it so much that they then release the game as retail game or as XBLA game.
One could alternatively become an approved XBOX/XBLA developer oneself (so pay all the fees related to that, buy a dev kit etc) and then release the game as retail/XBLA game oneself.
So the most affordable option for 360 dev right now is using XNA,
becoming a creator´s club member (99 bucks annual fee) and then releasing the game oneself on the community games section.
You don´t need a dev kit or anything else next to those other than a pc,
a 360 and the free edition of visual studio express with free xna tools addition. With that you can connect your 360 and pc, create your game and deploy test builds to your 360 to try the game there.
This is affrodable regarding initial investment but its of course personal preference whether you´re fine with being restricted by what XNA allows you to do and in which way you have to do it (like no visual editor for editing graphical things, can only do games in C# etc).
Besides those restrictions many indy developers using it also moan about the community games distribution channel still being not ideal at all.
(Not getting paid for several mponths after the release of a game, games don´t get promoted a lot, community games sub section in store is almost hidden and the community games section isn´t available at all in many countries so sales for xna games sold in community games section seem to be overall very low).
This is all from public information, so others may have more information (in which case they probably can´t share those parts as its usually NDA restricted)
Well, overall i think its great all the console manufacturers seem to slowly open up to indies in some ways, but there´s surely lots to improve with each.
On unity side i´d love it when unity becomes available for 360 and ps3 dev,too,
on console manufacturer/publisher sides i feel like the indy stuff isn´t pushed a lot yet other than a few hand picked titles (which then feels more like a “hey, look, we do it” rather than something that helps the whole scene and them alike).
I think the console manufacturers should (and will have to) drop prices of dev kits down way more or ideally allow to develop on retail systems (not just for xna stuff) and also really let all indies in, not ones with seperate office space, this many console titles under their belt or whatever
I´m sure with time such things will come more and more as the console manufacturers want to stay competitive with the online game and iPhone etc channels which give indies way easier access (and hence get more and more games and gamer time share).