http://www.warioworld.com/apply/wii.html

Quote:
Software Development Kits: Approximate development costs range from $2,500 to $10,000, depending on the size of your team. Financial stability is expected by approved developers in order to purchase the necessary development equipment for your project

So there you go, the approximate costs of Wii devkits.

Quote: Original post by zer0wolf
That is pretty crazy that the PS3 dev kits cost so much. I am a registered Nintendo Developer as well and everything Evil Steve said sounds right to me as far as the Nintendo side of things go. I didn't think the Xbox 360 dev kits were more than a few grand, either.

The xbox360 kits aren't except when compared to the retail versions. The PS3, PS2 and PSP kits have always been insanely expensive though. The PS2 kits were probably the worst when they came out but the PS3 haven't been much better until recently. I suppose since they got them finalised the price might have come down but I've never known the Sony kit to be "cheap". Even Xbox (original not 360) kits are still a few thousand pounds as far as I know. This reflects less the cost of the hardware its todo with the licensing for the development software, APIs and everything else assoicated with supporting you having that kit.

When it comes to developing I always think it's worth having a PC version of the game developed in parallel anyway. So by all means look into what everything costs to license (you license you do not BUY the kit from these companies) but don't let it stop you developing the game in the meantime. Assess your target platforms and learn what you can about them, write the engine, tools and software with those other targets in mind and begin development on the PC.

You can have large parts of the general code done long before you get a devkit and I've had to develop two titles this way! With only sporadic access to a PSP and PS2 and the Xbox kit frequently disappearing off to other developers too.

Andy

It doesn't cost 17 million to create a game for the PS3!

I'm working on a PS3 dev kit at the moment, and that was about $15,000.00 US

Again to reiterate...

The issue is NOT the developer hardware costs.

Development hardware and software is confidential proprietary stuff. It must be returned when you are done with it (you essentially lease it). The agreements even restrict the locations where you are permitted to use the hardware, and have restrictions on who can see and use it. These are not retail items.

Look at the list of computer hardware needed for a game. It includes not just the few devkits, but also developer PCs, artist PCs, servers, OS licenses, office software, art software, programming software, and all your other infrastructure. Console development hardware (which can include more than just the devkit) are a small portion of the computer costs. All the computer costs combined are still a tiny fragment of the total costs involved over the life of the project.

In order to get the contract that will enable you to acquire development hardware (which you do not buy outright, they remain property of Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony) you need to demonstrate that you are a financially stable company that is capable to bring a multi-million dollar game to market.


If you are not a company that is capable of bringing a multi-million dollar game to market, you will not (legally) get your hands on them.

What nobody seems to have mentioned is that 17.6 million US dollars is a suspiciously low number. It'd be closer to the mark if it were GBP. A modern next gen game should be comfortably north of 30mil to make, market, publish, and support.

for those wondering where i heard the 17 mil.. this is one link i found

http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2005/10/14/ps3-costs-scaring-away-developers

and there were several others...

also i understand that these items are not retail... i didn't know there was any kind of NDA... i was just trying to get an idea, for curiosity's sake.

Quote:
"Their source suggests that developing software for the PS3 from scratch requires an initial investment of at least 2 billion yen (US $17.6 million) and that's before they start."

This is a quote (from The Inquirer, of all places... so... yeah) referring to a second-hand quote of an estimate of costs to build software from scratch. Which likely includes tons of other factors, as speculated above, not just the "cost of the devkits." In fact, if you follow the article's citations, you end up with the more contextual version of the quote:

Quote:
The industry insider went on to say, “Kutaragi has said, ‘Please develop suitable software for PS3 - this software must not be of the same standard as PS2 software.’ Developing software for the PS3 from scratch will require an initial investment of at least 2 billion yen [US $17.6 million] [not including development costs]. There are not many software companies that can easily afford that kind of money.”

Which suggests that number is even less applicable. The articles are, furthermore, both from 2005.

Quote: Original post by jmoore2020
i was just trying to get an idea, for curiosity's sake.

Yes, we love working hard to answer questions that arise out of idle curiosity.
Just curious - why are you curious?

I'm going to be enter my first year of computer science and recently game development has come to my interest... sorry if I'm wasting your time.

Quote: Original post by tsloper
Yes, we love working hard to answer questions that arise out of idle curiosity.
Just curious - why are you curious?

I think it's going to be OK, there's nothing wrong with asking questions :)