A less-publicized announcement from the PlayStation Business Conference yesterday had to do with the price that developers pay to acquire PlayStation Portable development kits. Prior to yesterday, each development unit cost a developer 750,000 yen (roughly $6,400) to purchase. Now, they'll cost 500,000 yen, or approximately $4,200. Sony hopes that the decrease in cost will lure smaller developers to produce games for the PSP, and entice developers that are still on the fence to take the plunge. To date, Sony has shipped 5,412 development kits for the system. Thanks alot for the story Pikoro
The approval of your title is the nightmare. I'd want to do 2d, but that's probably a no-no like on ps2
Doesn't the dev kit come with a PC based PSP emulator ??? LINKED And if someone were to purchase this dev kit, couldn't they also leak the emulator ??
PSP approval isn't as bad as PS2, or *shudder* PS3. There are a few goofy hardware things to consider, but as for gameplay, you're pretty much open to whatever. Look at the namco clasics for example.
Just because a couple of 2D games get approved does not mean that all of the ones that should do. I definitely blame Sony for the death of the Phantasy Star Trilogy remake.
Now if only a company would go bankrupt and the units fall onto the black market. I really could use one for my n64 emu (monkey64) & my 3d shooter (iris). God I cant wait to get one off the black market (I believe they have double the ram of a comercial unit).
I believe that the general consensus is that Sony disproves of 2D games because they feel it makes their hardware look graphically inferior. :banghead:
I think Sega fucked that one up just fine on their own. SOJ is not very strict against 2D. There are even a few low res 2D games coming out these days... at full price mind you.
Two things. 1) If the game concept is not approved prior to production. It is highly probable it wont be aproved by sony down the line. Without concept aproval, sony wont allow it to be published. I know this is different then the topic at hand but its a load of bull**** if you ask me. So pretty much even if you have a fully completed game ready to go, if sony does not give concept aproval (which is very hard to do when not at the early stage of development) youre screwed. 2) While its more of sony looking out for the best interest of american gamer, Sony tends to be overly picky of 2d games in north america. The title must either be bundled or budge priced. While this has caused us to loose out on some games, its also made things better for us (come on now, would we all just bend over and say its lovely that snk wants to rip us off on a direct port of a neo geo game at full price like they get away with in japan?).
I'm still waiting for the first publisher that completes a perfectly suitable game for the PS2/PS3, gets refused by Sony and promptly sues Sony for monopolistic practices and interference with a business. Of course, it is "easy enough" to port the game over to a different platform which is more than happy to have another game (or destroy it and completely write off the expense for tax purposes). Actually, I don't think that it is better for us. It should be our choice whether or not we want to be ripped off (again). No one wants what happened in the ET era of gaming to happen again, but I think that the industry has matured enough that it won't. Plus, when you throw in the cost of actually making a game, potentially having the future of the company depending on the success or failure of that game, it acts as a natural filter (or invisible hand if you know anything about economics) to bad or unwanted games. Now that doesn't mean that crap won't squeak out of the industry every so often, but it does reduce the volume of it.
While I can't give direct reference but the studio I work for alraedy had this happen to us twice (even on a game up for publication by a big name publisher). It's actualy alot more commen then one might think.
with SF Alpha 3 and GGXX#R already on PSP.... i dont think there's anything against releasing 2d on the PSP
They're very established franchises so they didn't go through ultra hell like people who may be totally unknown and want to release 2d.
