HAHAHAHA I LAUGH AT YOU SONY HAHAHAHA

All is not well in PS3 Land.

Um, possibly. But also look at the development team. They have no other games under their belt (as far as I can tell) and from their website you get the strong feeling its only 4 or so guys.

Another sign. Theisis? What the hell is that. I'm pretty up on videogame news (borderline obsessively) and I hadn't even heard of that. We're talking a tiny tiny developer and a no name game. This is the same stuff that we heard during early ps2 dev cycles.

But I'm sure this won't stop the Anti-Sony fanboys from getting all hot and excited. ;)

-Colin

Wow, if this is true, the PS3 is going to lose a lot of third-party support; I don't think they will lose support from big companies like EA, Square,Ubisoft, Capcom, etc, but a lot of third parties will go with either extremely cheap Wii, or Xbox360.

I always wonder if maybe Sony puts out disinformation to make people hold off on buying the 350 (like saying price drop in winter when Xbox says it isn't going to happen). Now I'm wondering if maybe microsoft is attacking back with a less-known development company. The console wars are much more interesting than the Nintendo / Sega days....

"If this does turn out to indeed be true"

Mark my words, it won't. You'll be quickly posting an update or correction to this rumor just like every other PS3 hate-post of yore. Sometimes Joysiq, you over do it. Simmer down the hate; gaming is supposed to be fun.

Edit to my above statement.

There are 12 guys total. With apparently no prior game experience. And Theisis is their only project. Which it doesn't look like anybody has even had hands-on with. (http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/adventure/theseis/index.html)


Also, gamespot lists it as being only a 360/PC project. Gamespot is *rarely* that quick on the ol update to have updated it already.

So come on, don't get too excited. Honestly wouldn't believe if this was a publicity move from their part. (Or an attempt to scam some help from Sony).

-Colin

Pat Kessock, "All is not well in PS3 Land."

Now what exactly did you mean by that comment??? Do you think we report unreliable news? We where emailed by Track 7 games twice regarding this information so unless you think Director Vicky Valanos from Track 7 has gone nuts or someone got a hold of her email and sent us false info I would keep to yourself.

We here at PS3land work at our best to provide everyone with up-to-date news and reliable news with sources to back it up. I dont mean to be mean or anything, I am just saying.....

Thank you joystiq.com for writing an article about us and Track 7...its cool to see our articles actually being read...hehe. :)

All has not been well in PS3 land for quite some time now. =/ Its simple math. If developers cant afford to make the latest and greatest games, they crash and burn, often selling their assets to larger companies. (i.e. EA...) Eventually, all we'll be left with is several psuedo mega-companies like Square-EnixCom and Sega-Vision. =P I can probably count on both hands how many companies can actually afford to take a loss from a botched PS3 title this gen, and there are still a lot of good developers out there.

I believe that this is actually where Nintendo is going to shine this generation. Honestly, they have no excuse -not- to have amazing third party support this round, especially considering how cheap everything is going to be.

Shame, I was actually considering buying one before the $600 price tag was announced... now it seems some developers are feeling the same way...

What at PS3land.com do we need to improve on???

We meant the general idiom, much as we would say Nintendo land to describe Nintendo's current stability in the market or Loony Land to describe the local mental hospital. =D It was nothing specifically directed at the website.

A very small developer. In Greece, no less. Why do I suspect they're not very well financed compared to someone with a major label lined up to publish their game?

While doing this as a multiplatform title makes it much less costly per platform than if it were solely a PS3 title, it still doesn't mean they had the money to handle another version even if the costs were identical to the more costly of the other two platforms. (PC and Xbox 360)

For larger companies the question to ask is, will the PS3 version of a game cost us significantly more than a near identical Xbox 360 game? Or will the PS3 give us results the qualify the investment?

If the machine has more ceiling and cost more only when it exceeds what can be done on the competition, that is acceptable, so long as you aren't spending 20% more money for what would be viewed as 5% more quality. If developers and publishers who can mount big budget project feel they're getting their money's worth, there isn't a problem.

But if it cost a good deal more just to deliver parity with Xbox 360 and PC projects, they have big problems.

oh...ok, I thought somebody was slamming our site...lol.
Yep we have currently gone in an redesigned our website so it looks more next gen.
Anyway, enough said on that. We can update you with more info soon as we are waiting for another email back from Track 7.

I think by the comment "All is not well in PS3 Land." he was actually talking about the PS3, not your website. :D

And in all reality this probably has less to do with the PS3 and more to do with them being a first time development team with little funding. It is a shame but I wouldn't file this one under "PS3 SUXXORZ!!" just yet.

Well, I'm more of a Nintendo fanboy than anything, but I'm still disappointed by this. :/ I still like to see what kinds of games go out for other systems, and this one being cancelled hurts me just a bit. Even if the developer is unheard of.

Hey Colin,

you obviously don't know alot about where games come from. Some of the best games and series of games ever made came from start up companies that couldn't afford big budget development. ID used to be smaller than these guys I believe. Doom is ancient gaming history.
If development costs become so great to where smaller third party companies can't afford to make games then we won't see alot of new ideas or intellectual properties from start-up companies. Furthermore, the big studios who can afford to develop games on the PS3 will be less likely to take risks since they will have to put so much money into a game just to create it. So this means we are more than likely going to see all of the sequel mess that is invading the market today. Where does it stop? Metal Gear Solid Part 20? Final Fantasy XXXXIIIIII? Madden NFL 2050? IF Sony is forcing smaller companies out of the gaming business because of development costs then all of us are losers. And yes the same applies to Microsoft.

"Two young paranormal researchers receive a call that will change their lives in ways they never dreamt possible. Andronicos and Pheve, journalists and owners of a cult paranormal website are summoned into action on what initially seems to be their first professional and paying contract. But appearances deceive, as they are drawn to the other side of the veil, where the dividing line between myth and reality becomes a mysterious blur.

So, come and join us in this majestic journey through the dark and taste the wonders that our team has conjured just for you."

Oh well, the game sounds pretty bad anyway. These guys barely have a website, I guess that's too expensive to develop too.

I love how some people are just shrugging this off. This is an issue, no matter how much you try and ignore it.

The PS3 is still 5 months away from release, and there's already one development team that said they won't develop a game for the PS3 because of the development costs, but they will develop the same game for the 360 and PC.

"But it's just Track 7," people say. So what? They're an upstart development team (that seems reasonably capable based on an early trailer) that wants to develop an original game using some creativity and hard work. Isn't that what we want? Shouldn't that be the goal is for those types of development teams to be possible? Can we count on larger development teams for innovation and originality?

So what's the alternative for these small development teams in regards to the PS3? They can either not make the game, like Track 7 is doing, or they can get a lot of money from a big publisher who will undoubtedly do what they can to make the game as marketable as possible. How can anyone shrug off either of those situations?

From a company so small it would not suprise me if they took an under the table offer to be not develop for the ps3 for some kickbacks or other incentives by another console company. Those who do not develop for the ps3 will undoubtably lose a huge market when it is available.

I just realized that some people are so dedicated to finding the information to support their own arguements my own comments are actually pointless.

So here's some fuel to your fire
...PS3 FANBOYS!!!!

To finish my thought above, if we as gamers are concerned about playing games other than Madden 200whatever or Spiderman vs. Wolverine: Tokyo Drift, shouldn't we hope that teams like Track 7 are capable of developing games for particular systems? Isn't the fact that they are unable to develop a game for the PS3, but able to develop that same game for the other systems, doesn't that reflect poorly on the chances for the PS3? Sony better hope that the PS3 gets as big of an installed base as the PS2 did so small developers and hands-off publishers are more willing to eat large chunks of money up front in order to make games for their system.

Yeah, they're a small dev team... But you know what this means for the PS3?

It means that the fresh, new content from up-and-coming developers will be squashed by the need for a huge budget. It means that all these smaller, new developers will go to a different console to release their hot new game.

...and it means that the only people developing for PS3 will be huge megacorporations with formulaic paint-by-numbers franchises. This means PS3 will be a lot of sequels and rehashes, and will have that high-polish gloss like what you find in Michael Bay movies, but not the quirky twists like you'd find in the indy movie scene.

It means Sony has effectively killed the small developers' potential on their console. Only the big boys need apply.

Thank goodness for XBLA and the Wii.

Meh, I wouldnt have got this game anyway. No loss....

So basically, they've got two programmer, and were expecting to make a multiplatform game, in one year, that was to be on the level of at least some of the games coming from the bigger houses.

That's simply not physically possible, unless they are coding gods. And I somehow doubt that from looking at their presentations.

Basically, I have more of a chance of being drafted for one of the major NBA-teams than these guys have at programming a full scale game for three major platforms.

For chris' sake. Two programmers... I'd be surprised if they have anything at all to show at the end. And as have been said, it doesn't look like they have much experience at all when it comes to coding for consoles, let alone PC games.

It's not a simple thing to code games these days. The days when a happy two hackers in a garage could pull off a major title in a year of coding are long gone.

I don't care much for Sony or their practices, but I still fail to see how people can hail this as a good thing.

Don't get me wrong... Nintendo is usually my first choice in consoles, and I have a history of knocking Sony products, but Sony has done a ton of good for this industry, and to pray that they fail... what good does that do for gaming on the whole? None.

They've made mistakes going into this next generation, and they're going to have to try and work through them, but they're not going anywhere, for better or for worse. They have a function and a purpose same as Nintendo or Microsoft do. While there's nothing wrong with prefering one system to another, there is something wrong with blind fanboyism.

Oh, and a fact I forgot to mention... what if this game ended up being a sleeper hit or 'Game of the Year' caliber? Now we may never know.

Again, I don't know if it's something I'd cheer for or laugh about.

If the PS3 is too expensive to develop for and it's too expensive for the casual gamer, then the PS3 is in trouble. It sure does look that way, no matter what goggles your wearing.

I can't stand Sony for a lot of reasons, and I have heard that the system is tough to code for, but how much credence are you going to give to what a small Greek developer with no publisher says about dev costs?

> We where emailed

With spelling/grammar like that, I hope you're not responsible for writing any artiles for PS3Land?

I wonder how multiplatform games are going to be priced considering the blueray disk costs alot more then the dvd disk. I mean they can't ask ps3 owners to pay 10 or 20 bucks extra for the same game their 360 owning cousins are playing can they?

Will they add extra content or just eat the cost differance. I mean how much extra would someone pay to brag "Sonic looks soooo much better in my 1080p then your primative 1080i"

@cap-n-crunch

indeed I think that the only advantage left for Sony will be its price.

600$ an advantage ? yes, because as you can see in the only pro-Sony comments left are "If you can't afford quality you'r suXXor, I got big money, I'm RoXXor, Sony RuleZ"

Some ppl will buy it BECAUSE it's the most expensive, even if it comes out with no games...

And they will be proud of it

From what I've read, PS3's development costs are pretty equal to the 360's.

*Side Note: Development costs are almost completely based on man-hours. Someone at Track7Games is baaaaad with money. How can you mess up budgeting such a small staff? Did they not figure out how much they could afford on payroll after paying fixed expenses? I guess two years of technical school doesn’t prepare you for running your own business (that’s just a joke…I don’t claim to know how much education/experience the partners have attained [I’ve learned to cover my tracks on this site]).

God people don't actually pay attention to comments do they? This is a *tiny* no-name developer. This isn't like Epic is suddenly scratching off the PS3 from the dev list.

If you realy want to be completely dillusional and just pretend that this is the signs of things to come, feel free. I'm not saying that the PS3 is off scott-free, but to even think in the slightest that this is an indication of what is coming for the ps3 is just the most insane, inaccurate comment of all time.

-Colin

Colin deserves a star for being the only logical person here, for doing his homework, for admitting his mistakes, for being thorough, and for making excellent points.

Seriously, give the man a star.

Actually, all this means is that you can't be a noname 2 programmer developer team and target 3 major platforms at once with a major game. Heck, you NEVER could. These people seem to have been sniffing some rather fine stuff, becuase even thinking they could do that, is hioghly unrealistic, unless they have had the money to buy some seriously good middleware that would provide them with a complete engine where the only thing to change is the in-game-models.

What you CAN do is as a noname small developer, target three major platforms and produce a small game, like with games on xbox-live, the ps3 equivalent, and the Wii equivalent. Or you can target one platform and make a larger game for that. They could have chosen to target just the PS3, but they chose to just target the Xbox/PC since perhaps that's the technology they were at least remoteley fammiliar with.

It's frigging economics, seriously. If you try to shoot for the moon with a spudgun, don't expect to get too far. But if you have some more realistic goals like shooting for something closer, then you might pull it off.

Another sports analogy, how many NBA-players do you think also plays pro. hockey, soccer, and football? None I'd assume, since that'd be suicide.

Welcome to reality! Population: Quite a bit, and now perhaps even YOU.

@27 -

"> We where emailed

"With spelling/grammar like that, I hope you're not responsible for writing any artiles for PS3Land?"


Just in case anyone missed it the first run through. Let's hope Mr. Jones doesn't write ARTILES for anyone, eh?

I love irony... don't you?

according to Colin, if you're a fresh new developer looking to break into game industry, you're s*** out luck because you just don't have enough money to develop any games on PS3. Since you don't have money now to develop game, you won't have money later because you can't sell your game. Just sell your soul to bigger corporation.

Little that he knows, what make PS3 great is their vast game library. Most small developers in Asia make games for them. SMALL DEVELOPERS. If these companies can't make game because of high developement cost, Sony will lose lots of potential new games that once what make them great.

Well it seems to me that there is only one option! Rise of the machines! We are going to be getting more PC games!

Still cheap (relatively) to design for the PC :-)

On a more serious note, it is important for Sony supporters to realise that not every development company rolls around in cash.

Individual startups do have small teams, sometimes creative ones but that need to be able to launch a game on a budget. No bank in its right mind is going to shell out a huge loan given the risk.

After all, remember the guys at Eidos started up in a Garage in London, UK and they got majorly lucky. That said their fortunes almost went to waste with a string of unsuccesful follow up titles. Now they are back up (yippee!).

Markets are only now starting to go back into the high tech sector and still are a little iffy after the friendly descent in stock prices 5 years ago.

If development costs are high for a certain platform then you are going to kill Indie developers. That is why Xbox live market place and the WiiConnect24 thing (as well as Sony if they have an equivalent) are going to help. However if you are hoping to get the next Lara Croft or Super Mario on consoles where you need a multi million pound/dollar (even thousands) budget you are not going to have that many new developers.

As for all those saying that it is definitely going to crush Indie developers and small startups that is not necessarily true. If anything it may actually make games more interesting.

To get your idea out you need to have creativity, something that will get people hooked. The games initially may come out on a different platform and if it pays off well, then you get ports onto different platforms.

It is a double edged sword, the question is if all development costs for each platform rises to a level where no one can afford to develop for them (bar our usual crew), then we may all go back to retro gaming!

In response to the fanboyism:

Playing is believing! (Haha)

Seriously, judge the consoles when they are all out.

Development costs depend on tools, planning, and experience.

People really need to stop blaming the hardware for everything. Get a game engine working before you start building models and painting textures. Duh.

Oh yeah, their website locks up Firefox, and their page layout parses terribly so images overlap text, and so forth. If their PS3 code is as good as their web site code, no wonder they have problems.

Maybe they should've made some math before plunging in no?

if(money > 0){
make.game();
}else{
cry();
}

maybe those programmers needed this code.

Wow, I remember when Rockstar was a new development team. Too bad development wasn't too pricey back then. GTAIII would have never come around!!! That would have been great.

Here is another one from Wikipedia.

"Square's first games were released for the Nintendo Family Computer (also known as the "Famicom," and known internationally as the Nintendo Entertainment System) and the Famicom Disk System. Their early games were not very successful, and by 1987 the company was faced with the possibility of bankruptcy. That same year, Square employee Hironobu Sakaguchi was charged with the creation of a game that might well prove to be the company's last. The result was Final Fantasy, a computer role-playing game for the Famicom."

Imagine if they went bankrupt like they almost did. Hmmm, Final Fantasy would never come about (which also helped push the Playstation into the number one spot!!!)


There are plenty of new companies that we need to make great new games otherwise all we will ever find is:

Madden 2020
GTA14:Disney Land
Super Mario Nursing Home
Sonic the Hedgehog:Blazing Walker
Final Fantasy 294: Hopefully the Final Fantasy
Mega Man Square root of 74
Legend of Zelda: The Boneflute of Abstinence
Donkey Kong: Jungle Funeral
Halo 4
Duke Nukem Forever
Metroid Prime 14:When the hell are we going to reach the timeline of the original Metroid game!
Pokemon VD: It was a promise and a threat when we named the first movie Pokemon:The First Movie
Jak and Daxter 54:Out of the closet
God of War 9:Reshaping Greek Mythology
Super Smash Brothers: 3rd Party exclusive
Castlevania: The Theme to Rocky of Constipation
Resident Evil 9:
Super Mario Bros.:The Official Game of the Movie(My all time favorite)
Gran-Turismo 6

Disney Channel season 29
and finally
Cartoon Network crappy Anime game

#28

Be serious, Crunch. Do you really think the price of Blu-ray media is enough to make PS3 games $10-$20 more expensive than Xbox 360 games?

The difference in cost between DVD and Blu-ray discs for software distribution is measured in nickels and dimes. If you're shipping a million units it's a meaningful amount of money but nowhere near sufficient to justify a massive price hike. It just means you need to sell a few thousand more units before profits commence. Don't be fooled by the pricing for studios announced HD-DVD and Blu-ray movie releases. Those have much higher profit margins, whole sales and retail, than the typical DVD movie or console game. This compensates retailers for supporting the thin early market and lets the studios make back their start-up costs quickly. Movie studios hate doing anything with their own money.

Big online retailers and monster chains don't need that early boost, so they instead deeply discount the product. If you shop at a place like Amazon the premium for HD-DVD movies is already reduced by an average of $10. If you look at their Bluray titles, the SRPs average a good deal lower than HD-DVD and they're still offering discounts (some already down at $20) plus bonus discount for buying three or more at a time.

Most of the touted lower manufacturing cost for HD-DVD was based on the cost of building the production line and paying that off. Because both formats were delayed so long the effect isn't as meaningful anymore.

While it will cost Sony a little more to manufacture a PS3 game than it does for Microsoft to manufacture Xbox 360 games, there are other areas that help compensate for that expense. While there has been much hysteria from people thinking the time will come when DVD-9 is hopelessly inadequate and most Xbox 360 games will require multiple discs, it isn't remotely true. That said, a company doing a large game on the 360 will need to devote some time making sure the game doesn't overrun the disc because someone forgot to VBR the FMV material or got lazy with storage efficiency.

The PS3 will be like the early days of the PS1. Most developers had ten times more storage than they needed and could allow themselves to waste disc space in ways that would never have been acceptable for cartridge games. The limitation that had to be observed was the RAM in the machine. As a result some PS1 games had horrid load times but the developers saved a lot of drudge work. Expect the same on early PS3 games, especially for harried developers trying make launch and not caring if they waste a few gigs of disc space if it simplifies their lives. Again, this can mean some annoying load times (not a factor for FMV, of course) but if it means they keep on schedule it will be accepted.

A small development team can easily start small and work their way up in the world. But trying for a major multiplatform high-end title directly out of the gate is not the way to do it.

It's like a high school baseball star thinking he's going to get scouted and be pitching in the next year's World Series. Doesn't work that way unless you're MVP of the decade. You spend time on the farm team for a while.

PC shareware is the farm team of game development. Almost anyone can play and the equipment is extremely cheap. From there, if you produce something good, you might do an XBLA version. Step by step.

lol some of these comments are hilarious. they seem to be getting slammed for starting up their own company. at least they have the guts to do it. companies the size of square-enix and ea don't just spring from nowhere and i for one would rather support some small start up underdog more than some huge company rehashing the same games again and again (especially if the games are good). be grateful for having a selection, it makes things more interesting in life.

I tip my hat to your logic epobiris and your 18 stars.

but I didnt just pull 10 to 20 bucks off the top of my -1 star head.

http://www.nextechnews.com/PermaLink,guid,0bbb960a-785c-4811-b77c-a8590d9318de.aspx

KawF is closest. It's fairly obvious that Track7, being a small company with no early support from Sony, rightly decided to make a PC game knowing they could port it fairly easily to the 360 or vice versa.

Now someone's done a feasibility study and discovered it will be too expensive to port the game to the PS3, at least until they've seen some return on their investment in terms of sales for the PC/360.

This is one game cancelled, they've not said they wouldn't be developing for the PS3 in future, especially if Sony could give them some help - like an Alpha dev kit for example.

What it does hint at is an either/or situation, with small publishers having to decide which platform will make them the most money. The safest bet is with the known audience and technology, i.e. PC/360, meaning new games for the PS3 from smaller developers will likely be sparse for quite a while after launch.

I don't care if the rumors are true or not, I'm just glad for the situation that finds SONY in a defensive position. Next to the excellence of Nintendo, SONY and their constant abuse of my wallet are the big reason that I have left the SONY fanboy camp. I wanted to love the SONY game machine, but they insisted on bending me over and giving it to me with their hype machine.

@23 KawF :
Have you heard of Project Offset? It was originally developped by a 3-man team, yet they managed to pull off an incredibly advanced game engine. Call them programming gods if you will, but it proves that it can be done.
http://www.projectoffset.com

yay ps3 rocks, saved from another crappy port of a crappy game from a nobody developer