Seems like Sony is about to jump on the bandwagon of being indie friendly - they will open an app store for PSP Go in Oct 2009.
Not sure about the details, but we may face another gold rush.
Maybe Unity folks can make Unity3D PSP Go edition? 8) I’m ready to wash the gold… :twisted:
just saw the promo video:
looks like quite a few iPhone game ports…
Not really.
The PSP Go was mentioned to cost a good $350 in Europe, thats over $100 more expensive than the PSP 3000 already is and that although it lacks UMD.
Quite stupid decision to throw out a device dedicated at gaming at that price and Sony should know that, the PS3 flopped (by their expectations and daydreams) due to it already (they lost how many billions to the ps3 by now?).
Unless we see a significant turn around from Sony, that platform won’t be even half as interesting as the AppStore is because people have far less a problem to buy an apple ipod with gaming addon than buying a gaming device with additional stuff.
What we potentially will see is the final nail in Sonys coffin after years of growing reds.
Dremora, you may be right, but I hope it wont be the case, I’d like to have another indie friendly market, so I can port my Unity based games.
If PSP Go sales 10m units, and it may have that potential, I’ll be very happy. PSP has like 17m-20m units out there if I’m correct.
P.S. hmm, miniGore is already on PSP GO?! damn, they are quick…
I guess they were like others hooked by sony to port their games 
And yes another market is nice. But lets face it: developing a game from groundup isn’t easy, nor creating an efficient mobile engine
hope Unity tech support this emerging technology lets see what happens in the not to distant future 
I think the iphone engine was already pretty heavy due to the memory constraints and the slow hardware and the psp has less of everything the iphone has especially memory
but we will see if it happens and naturally we will also see the price
Because after all, Sony does not intend to make the platform “dumbwit accessable” like the iphone dev program, which allows anyone to develop apps for it, so the whole thing first needs to turn out in some way.
As it is still a professional platform, I wouldn’t expect to see PSP targeted licenses below $5000 - $15’000 per title, similar to the wiiware license
Yup but PSP mini games will be solded @t 1 to 9$.
I think its a bit different from current PSPnetwork games.
PSP mini games will be less than 100MBs. Sony whants to target everybody this time, not only high profesional studios. If Unity make the move onto a PSP Engine, i dont think that PSP minis licences will cost more than Unity iPhone advance.
Unity should be pretty serious about this, as Sony whants to make “almost” the same thing as Apple does with App Store games…
$5000 per title doesn’t sound at all bad really, as a developer you’d be happy to pay that otherwise you end up with the main problem of the AppStore… 100+ new releases (sadly, mostly crap) per day
Except no Indie would put a 5000$ potential loss …
So who would be interested in such a business format ?
Not the big companies (EA, Ubi, etc) for sure, as they already got their position with the “normal” market.
If this is so high cost, it won’t work, I’m pretty sure about it.
Don’t know what Indies you know but those I know are more than willing to pay $5000-$15000 for such a high power engine technology as Unity instead of developping their own for months and months (which will cost them easily 5 - 10 times that with all the tools, art pipeline etc).
To give you an idea: comparable technology normally has a price tag of $50000+ per title with upfront fees that are already in the range of Unity Wiiware licenses.
$5000-$15000 are really the least problem if you intend to enter the console market in any way. You must have a serious financial budget to even become a licensed dev, no console maker lets any broke home coder without the needed cash to finance the development onto the real device, the best you can dream of is the “indie xbox” store (its not really indie, as the indie one is actually XBox Live Arcade itself, the one called indie is the financially broke homecoder xna store).
Thats actually why I’m a little confused about the interest of many on “console targeted Unity versions”, because aside from a handfull people, nobody here even has a chance to become a licensed console developer for any console (neither psp download store, nor WiiWare, nor DSIWare, nor XBox Live Arcade), they can at best hope to get into console programming through the iPhone or the near nowhere available MS Xbox homebrew store.
According to this, it seems that the only cost associated with development is the dev kit, which runs around $1500. If this is truly the case, this should attract quite a few indie developers.
Thats the direct cost you must be able to pay to do anything right.
But there is more than just that to get a development license for a console.
Its not like the iPhone where anyone can just sign up for ta $100 program and thats it. Such a thing does not exist and I doubt that it ever will exist unless the console developers decide to follow apple to the dump - junk yard quality level which they are seeking due to the missing Q&A step for releases.
Also even if it existed: you need to be able to write your game in C++. Unity is not really an option at all.
the psp has 32mb of memory, that leaves 22 to 16mb of RAM for your whole game and textures with unity.
In comparision, even the first iphone offers you at least 40-50mb of RAM + 24mb of VRAM.
Holy sh*t …
Considering the games we can find on PSP, that makes me feel very, very, very amateurish …
not really, but it just shows the difference between a console and a pretty hefty device like an iPhone without even considering the 3rd generation devices of it.
Best thing I often get a good laugh about is people dreaming of doing DS development, which obviously don’t know anything about it: The NDS has a 33mhz cpu and 4MB of RAM for all data. Thats a fraction of what already .NET needs to run on its own, without considering unity ^^
But I hope getting people to be aware of such things also makes them appreciate really well done games more because its a hellish amount of work and it requires a lot of research and ongoing evolution on the engine end to achieve top end quality.
The iphone actually has even more RAM than the Wii, which has 104MB in total (the 1st gen iphone for OS + app + VRAM has 128MB)
Well,
Even if Unity right now is pretty heavy for the PSP, they should start to optimize it and make do something, cause there are quite few PSP engines, running well on the PSP.
Theses guys have a price drop in mind just for PSP minis licences…
I was a certified sony dev when i worked for Gameloft.
When you are in the Sony Devnet, you have acces to many PSP engines ( binary ) for free ( evaluating purpose ).
Many of them are now targetting small studios.
And PSP Minis is a good reason.
But yes, as you pointed out ( Dreamora ), this is not a field for homebrew coders with a dream to make a game into their favorite console, and specially with no money.
Even good casual game publisher/developer as Gameloft or EA mobile, have to make a checkout of every single project. Wich means, that you need to send a demo of your started project to Sony and if they like your project you are aproved to make your game.
PSP minis licences are for serious indies. Wich means, a bit of money and of course a good knowlege of game design, game coding and every game dev standart.
Again, i think Unity should start to do something about PSP dev. How? I have no idea…
My two cents…
As PSP minis likely don’t require different licensing towards Sony (unlike WiiWare which is different to regular Wii dev licenses, or Xbox 360 Live Arcade), it would likely end on the same I guess.
Also, making lighter just does not work. .NET has core requirements that must be met. Already .NET itself costs 4++ MB of RAM and that although UT already restricted it to .NET 1.1
In addition to that, the engine (including PhysX) comes.
The only way to use unity on such an ultra low technology would actually be source licenses so you can completely bypass .NET but that is medium to higher 5 figure price range.
I read that especially this part was finally made easier to make the digital only store a larger success than so far, together with the lowered price for the dev kit.
That the dev kit is basically peanuts compared to the engine licenses you are going to pay if you don’t create all yourself is a whole different story but thats normally aware to most as they port a tech from another platform, commonly another mobile platform, only few start from “nowhere” I think
The best thing is to follow field runners example: Create a great game for the iphone for example that sony would want on their platform too. I don’t see anything preventing anyone to do it with Unity.
I know thats kind of a dream too and hard to unrealistic in some way, but far more realistic than the dream of home coders to ever reach out for a Sony / MS / Nintendo real dev licenses without such a strong proof that makes the corresponding maker want have it on their platform.
I’m totally with Dremora on this one.
The dev license is peanuts, even at (I heard some time ago that to even look at the ps3 was $200k) that’s chump change compared to what developing a title worthy of anyones money costs.
Even if you don’t use Unity in the final product, I personally would use it to prototype the game anyway, then I’d rebuild that prototype with a proprietary engine (if we’re talking PSP etc).
Regardless, $15k for an engine is trivial compared to the $80k+++ for a coder worth their weight, and that assumes you only have one.
I could rant on forever about Indies (which I technically am one of), but I’ll keep it short
Am not quite sure that a PSP minis license will have the requirements as a PSP retail or PSPNetwork licence.
In fact, as a PSP minis licensed dev, you are not allowed to make multiplayer games, you don’t even have the right to access to any online thing ( online scores, achievements, etc) and your game should not be bigger than 100MBs. Also, its not a coincidence that Sony drop their PSP dev kit about 80%, 1500$!
Sony is targetting smaller indies devs this time…
( not homebrew coders btw xD )
That indeed is something not too smartly thought out to cut minis from the 2009 game requirement reality. Achievements and social components are base requirements for long livity and to build up the quantity required for to compensate for the price.
The 100mb are no problem for most indies (the textures need to be that small due to the ram that you need a massive game to pass it anyway)