PS3 game cancelled because of development cost? [update 1]

Meh.

A small development company in Greece, a country without a very good gaming track record.

Sony obviously wasn't able to dedicate resources to them, their "experts" are working with bigger names on bigger games. So these guys are left SOL.

Yes, it does imply that this might happen with other small companies.
No, it doesn't guarantee it. As bigger dev houses get more familiar with the PS3 Sony will have more time to dedicate to the little guys.
No, it doesn't really imply worse 3rd party support. You miss out on some games from small dev houses. But... so what? How many tiny, first-time dev houses make a killer game without the financial backing of a publisher already? Yeah, it happens, but not often.


Companies like this would be wise to start small, like XBLA, build up some funds, experience, and name recognition like that. Probably.

Anyone viewing this as 'so what, the game didn't look that great', is a nearsighted fool!

It's probably those same people who bemoan the size of EA and it's identikit, paint-by-numbers offerings.

We are moving in to a situation where small developers or individuals can not produce games.

Where would companies like Rare be if they hadn't been able to cut their teeth in the 8-bit market?

Would we have creative visionaries like Peter Molyneux - who were able to create a 'what if' game like Populous that created an entire genre?

This isn't about development for the PS3, or Xbox360 - this is about the increasing difficulty creative individuals find in breaking in to the games industry.

So no matter how powerful the hardware, how realistic the physics, how complex the AI, how huge the storage medium - it means nothing with out those creative people trying to put their vision to code.

And that's a concern.

@34:

"I love irony... don't you?"

ARGH! Does nobody understand what the word "irony" means?

*crickets*

Anyone? Hello?

#42

Crunch, the first part of that article is nonsense. The cost of blank recordable media for Blu-ray has no bearing whatsoever on mass produced movies and games on BD-ROMs. I can remember the early days of CD-ROM development when a workstation that would let you burn your own CD for mastering purpose was $40,000. The blank media ran about $40 a pop. For a long time this was limited solely to production services companies. If you wanted a test CD made you sent a tape (usually DAT but some others were used) over to the service bureau and they sent back a disc for about $150, with additonal copies running about $70 each.

Despite this, audio CDs were already the primary format for new music releases and CD-ROM was poised to become the next big PC software format. The expenses for developers had little bearing on retail software prices.

Further, the market for blank DVD-/+R media is defined by an installed base of tens of millions of drives, possibly hundreds of millions worldwide by now. The market for Blu-ray media is measured in the thousands if you include some specialized data/voice recorder apps in the Japanese market. (Back in the late 90's, data/voice archive systems for 911 [emergency call] systems shifted from mostly DAT to DVD-RAM. Those were the earlier 2.6 GB per side discs but the random access aspect was a huge improvement over tape. Municipalities that have done refreshes of their 911 infrastructure in the last three years are probably now using DVD-R/RW because it's cheap and more easily found than DVD-RAM.)

More recently, it seems like only yesterday that DVD burners were $5,000 units from Pioneer and the discs ran you $20. It took a lot less time for DVD creation to become accessible to consumers from the time DVD launched than in comparison to when CD audio first hit the market and CD burners became so common many PC owners don't realize they have the capability.

Blu-ray disc production cost just isn't a major factor in the price, whatever that turns out to be, of PS3 software. The premium for putting out Blu-ray disc is not much more than the premium for DVD over CD-ROM when the PS2 launched in Japan. Back then DVD manufacturing capacity was still limited. for instance, several movies had their DVD releases delayed because high demand for 'The Matrix' tied up so much capacity. Warner decided it was better to not let those Matrix sales slip by if it only meant a few lesser titles came out a month or so later. Today you would have to have the most popular movie of all time to strain DVD manufacturing capacity that badly.

Nor is Blu-ray a hassle for developers, any more than DVD was. For a game it just gets treated like a big disc. The issues people designing movie presentations deal with are on the agenda for games. (Both new disc formats' first decks are shipping with incomplete support for their interactivity specs.) Of all the parts of the PS3 causing developers pain, Blu-ray is so far down the list as to not matter.

The aspect of Blu-ray that has potential for driving up PS3 software prices is the actual cost of the drive units. If Sony is really hurting to pay off that part of the PS3 cost sooner than later, they can either hope to have a bunch of games that sell at GTA levels (which seems unlikely when the installed base of the machine is far less) or stick third party publishers with much higher royalty fees on disc production. Just as royalty fees make up most of the difference between a $50 console game and the $40 PC version, the publishers will transfer those costs diretly to the consumer.

We won't know how high PS3 software price run until at least September. Consdiering how much people have already complained about Xbox 360 game prices, for third party PS3 games to demand a $70 or higher SRP would require the PS3 to induce orgasms via the optic nerve. (Maybe thats why you need 1080p.) Short of that, Sony is either going to keep parity with Microsoft or become the new SNK. Remember the Neo-Geo? It really delivered what it claimed compared to the SNES and Genesis. But it never had a chance at manstream acceptance and only existed thanks to a scheme to raise margins for their arcade machine business.

Where Sony used to have the largest library of titles (good or bad) in the PSone and PS2 generations, it seems like the cookie is starting to crumble. If they don't get their act together...

In the past, small developers had still been able to create smash hits for the Sony consoles in these generations (one good example is Harmonix and their break-out hit FreQuency), but it's starting to look as though only larger devs can stomach the costs, which may end up translating into a lack of originality in what the PS3 has to offer.

Well first of all, the blu-ray media isnt going to add that much more expense to the cost of games.

Secondly, according to their site, they are making a pc game. Period. They "possibly" wished to bring the game to next gen consoles. Simple, you can afford to make a PC game; that was your initial plan anyways. Next you have to throw down cash to buy devkits for both next gen systems. Sounds like they may have found themselves a bit too short on the cash for two devkits. Since the x360 is already on the market and already has its established userbase, it makes more sense to port it to the x360 if they couldnt afford a couple thousand dollars for two devkits.

How far along were they in development of the ps3 version? Thats the question I have for them. In general, once the initial game is built for one platform its not exactly easy, but its alot "cheaper" to port it to ps3 and x360. It sounds like their game was too expensive to start with; planning to release it across three platforms was way too ambitious for a tiny developer anyways.

EDIT: While typing one of my trademark lengthy messages, I was doing background research to make sure I didn't write anything wrong, and according to the track7games.com website, there was never a ps3 version. They never cancelled the game because they never intended to create it in the first place, they never started working on it.

Everyone is attacking the company for being small, yet no one attacks Sony for having a system that only caters to big name devlopment firms? How does handing the power of the system to a small group of already wealthy firms benefit anyone but those handful? Bring on Geometry Wars and the Wii Virtual Console, because I'm not handing a dime to firms like EA that put in game ads all over the screen and still manage to charge $60 for a game with "virtual sweat."

This is a small developer trying to do a multi platform release. With an intent for 360/PC ver.
Now i'm definetly not hailing the ps3 just simple programing for 360 is similar to that of PC. Microsoft made sure of it, it was even a big push from them. PS3 is a diferent development enviorment entirely. Same with the Wii I would imagine.
It a logical choice to drop the oddball platform when you have 2 others to get your name into the market with.
But to release a statement like that is a joke. Youre either 1 trying to scam sony into sending you some help to null down the negative publicity or recieving incentives from microsoft for doing so.
They are not a big publisher or a PS3 exlucive which would have been detremental news to Sony.
If you are not crying wolf then you need more realistic goals for your development team.

whatever happpened to getting a good person to be producer or howabout going to a bank and getting a loan for some more money to produce.... the blame here lies on the developer

Gotta say, people outside the industry are generally clueless. For game production a team below 20 is the NORM at any given time, ESPECIALLY for multi-platform games. For single console games an ACTIVE team of about 7-9 is good, although it can be done with less. Because people say, its not EPIC, lets take EPIC as an example. For the game GOW which is headed to a single platform right now, the had to more than DOUBLE their team. EVEN WITH THE UNREAL ENGINE 3.0. This is saying something signigicant as the Engine actually can reduce programming expenses by up to 70%. Thats nothing to sneeze at in programming fees, so for their staff to double for a single game is ludicrious. And Im not talking all their games, Im talking GOW. Secondly the UNREAL Engine has NOT been tested fully with cell. MARK REIN has gone on recorde SEVERAL times stating they have yet to really use the spes as the majority of the game code is running on the single PPE and the RSX. Once they attempt to synchronize those spes with the PPE into ram using the current bandwidth you open a nightmare of programming headaches. Its not far fetched to same this about the hardware. But to be honest this has VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY little to do with the hardware itself. The fact of the matter is Sony provides garbage tools to developers. Plain and simple. Sony DOES NOT HELP DEVELOPERS by providing decent tools. It took forever to get a stinking compiler to them let alone a DECENT one. The white pages on the SONY system SUCK and the fact of the matter is their support is sub nintendo level when attempting to build a game. This translates into game companies paying their own programmers to trouble shoot hardware. As compared to MS, for all the things they do wrong, they realize that the less developer have to pay, hence the more profit they make, the better experience it will translate into for everyone else. Currently Sony's position is game companies should feel priviledged that they are allowed to develop for their console at all. Which is true as they have a 70% market share. But at the same time this is a whole new ball game and is that attitude of shunning developers without support continues it will be down hill sony.

Paystation 3 will not survive the next-gen console war.

Nothing like an anti-sony post to get MS bitches riled up. It been slow the last few days, joytig needed things to pick up.

So basically only big budget companies can release games for the PS3.

Companies doesn't start out big. I'd prefer small companies over large slave driving conglomerates any day. Don't be so quick to knock the little guy...they might come out with the next big thing.

Did anyone read my post? the companies very own website says that they never planned to develop the game on ps3 in the first place. They just thought it over...

www.track7games.com

Yep thats right.. ONE game from ONE new Developer (Game and dev i've enver heared of either...), rumored to be cancelled... is the downfall of PS3. *nods* i mean look at the PS2, that was hard to develop for too and look what happened to that horrible system... not very many games at all.

But in all seriousness, DEV costs on games are only going to rise, this is not the fault of Sony, but of the gaming community as a whole. I even remember reading an article way back a few months ago stating next gen dev costs are just gonna rise, across the board. So this is neither Sony's fault or MS's fault or Nintendo's fault, its just the way the nature of the market is i'm guessing.
But seriously though, ONE game most of us NEVER heard of, doesn't mean the system will fail. Sure the news isn't a Good thing, but its not like its the downfall of Sony either.

Apoc is right.

They said they just decided only on a PC/360 combo and only mulled over a pS3 title and decided not to do it.
Not huge news really.

You mean $5 is not enough to develop a PS 3 game?

What a bunch of noobs!

Maybe they should cut their teeth developing games for Nintendo's platforms first.

Yet, even there, it will cost them $5K minimum.

track7games responds to erroneous article

PS3land.com wrote an erroneous article on June 29, 2006 regarding track7games and our upcoming game, "Theseis".

track7games would like to clarify that we never cancelled something that did not exist in the first place. We plan to develop "Theseis" for PC and Xbox360 in the near future. As for the PS3, we simply made a strategic decision to not move ahead because we deemed it not probable at this time.

It could also mean that sony in effect would filter out all the horrible third party developers that plagued sony in the first place. Developers would be literally pressured to push a really great game. Its a two way street

Just let the MS bitches rejoice in made up stories about the PS3. The truth is that everyone knows that PS3 is going to rule again. The 360 already showed what it can do and we are not impressed. The only ones picking up the 360 are xbox fans and the 360 is not doing any better than the xbox. They have picked up 0% marketshare and when the PS3 comes out they are going to do even worse.

Last time I checked Playstation was still number 1 and the numbers don't lie, the 360 is not doing what ms thought it would do. So if you want to believe all this made up crap about the PS3, then I guess you still believe in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. But the plain truth is the PS3 is going to sell and sell and sell.....

PS. Have fun playing Theseis.

The people saying who cares its just a small company totally astounds me.

Almost EVERY company started very small. Do you think EA started with hundreds of employee's and a billion dollar company? How about Rockstar games?

Face it this is just bad news for Sony if a new company CAN afford to produce a game for the PC and the 360, but not the PS3. How you can spin that any other way is beyond me.

True, the cost of manufacturing BD discs is probably negligible in comparison to 360 games but I don't think that's the reason why PS3 games will retail $10-$20 higher than 360 games.

Sony can't afford to take the loss on the consoles as well as MS can. They NEED to recoup more on the games themselves and will do so by pricing them higher. And they will sell too at $69-$79. 360 games will look like a bargain at $59, who woulda thought?

@ pedro

So the Easter Bunny doesn't exist? I guess next you'll be telling me the Great Pumpkin doesn't exist either. You non-believers kill me...


I have to agree with bandit on this one, how about Silicon Knights? I remember when I first played Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. I had no idea who these guys were and yet they created a truly great game on new hardware. I remember Rare with RC Pro-AM too. Great game. Who knew that Rare would go one to create some of the greatest games ever made on any platform. The industry needs the small start ups. I remember playing Final Fantasy for the first time and getting pissed at my older brother for buying Phantasy Star for our Master system instead of buying Shinobi or SPace Harrier....that is, until I started playing it.

The point is development cost is an issue and has been for a while now. This particular story may not be a good indication of an bigger problem but cost is definately an issue. Especially with the PS3 retailing for 499 and 599 and Kaz Hirai being reluctant to state game prices for the PS3. "a bit more than 59.99 but not 99.99" is a suspect answer.

Thank goodness for GBA and XBLA

#66

By that logic we should be able to create a list of the greatest movies of all time based on their production costs in constant dollars. Thus the Taylor & Burton 'Cleopatra' and 'Waterworld retroactively become the finest of cinematic experiences. After all, they're among the most expensive movies of all time, so they must be good.

Big budget and high expenses does not automatically translate to high quality product.

#68

Rishard, of course every company starts out small. Part of that is having realistic ambitions. Nobody is going to hand the reins of a $100 million film production to a guy who graduated film school last year.

Sony isn't losing anything if the PS3 isn't friendly to the game developer equivalent of Kevin Smith making 'Clerks.' They have other more accessible platforms for those kinds of budget productions and the PC remains by far the lowest cost and most open of places to get started in making games. Target something modest like a 1 GHz P-III and a DX7 graphics card using tools that are freely downloadable or sold for prices anyone earning better than minimum wage can afford. Make something that works, looks nice, and is fun to play. Then see if someone will pay you for more expensive projects.

A lot of major developers started out doing DOS shareware games. The path is still there and easier than ever with the internet to help with access to software, code samples, and free advice.

Pedro, I must find out where you went to school. Why? Because I need to learn where people get this neat ability to pick out facts from thin air. Or, in your case, talk out of your ass. I think it's called Sony Logic 101.

Note to self: Beginning a post by calling people "MS bitches" will probably result in no one ever reading my posts ever again.

But please, enjoy your PS3. With the online play they have promised yet not yet described in detail, I'm sure you'll have a blast playing non-exclusive games with the 12 other people who just make shit up when defending the PS3. Welcome to Sony Logic.

Malarky. Sorry folks put this one under Bull Shit.
Follow the link below and see for yourself.

http://www.theseisgame.com/index.php?ok=1

News Flash

track7games responds to erroneous article

PS3land.com wrote an erroneous article on June 29, 2006 regarding track7games and our upcoming game, "Theseis".

track7games would like to clarify that we never cancelled something that did not exist in the first place. We plan to develop "Theseis" for PC and Xbox360 in the near future. As for the PS3, we simply made a strategic decision to not move ahead because we deemed it not probable at this time.

Please correct the news, this is a false rumor:

"track7games responds to erroneous article

PS3land.com wrote an erroneous article on June 29, 2006 regarding track7games and our upcoming game, "Theseis".

track7games would like to clarify that we never cancelled something that did not exist in the first place. We plan to develop "Theseis" for PC and Xbox360 in the near future. As for the PS3, we simply made a strategic decision to not move ahead because we deemed it not probable at this time."

Source:
http://www.theseisgame.com/index.php?ok=1


Thanks

"Theseis is the first of many dominoes to fall for Sony."

The domino theory never worked before why now. LOL

cap-n-crunch said:

"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"



Um, okay. So, instead, you pulled from a horrendously written blog entry with zero comments?

I mean, seriously. Did you read it? Because I sure couldn't.

check out PS3 Fanboy for this statement taken from Track7Games website.

"Track7Games would like to clarify that we never cancelled something that did not exist in the first place. We plan to develop "Theseis" for PC and Xbox360 in the near future. As for the PS3, we simply made a strategic decision to not move ahead because we deemed it not probable at this time."

this isn't the sad story of the poor startup company that couldn't afford to develop for Sony that everyone is making it out to be.

milk.

The issue with third party support like this is when those third party companies do get big, they tend to remember who helped them out. If Sony said, "Hey, here is some cash, port over to us as well," then Sony would find they're going to get more titles out of that company, especially if they get big. Instead, when you hole up on the wait and see approach, the other guy gets all the credit and you get none. Why should they do all the work just to impress YOU when the other guy is already willing to offer support?

Especially when the 360 isn't just some AAA league, but a legitimate competing pro league. It is like English Premiership demanding that their players have experience in Germany before applying for the team. Both leagues are just as good as each other, they pay around the same, so why bother "trying out"?

This is especially important when the major competition, Microsoft, is already effectively offering fringe benefits in the form of a free and easy to develop for API, DirectX, that easily ports to their console as well as a low-cost method of distribution in XBLA. This is all before their fairly liberal cash offerings.

Sony never had to deal with this situation before. The PS1 was dirt cheap to develop for, making game production a snap. The PS2 had roughly equivelant development costs as its competition, but had such a huge install base lead that it was a brain dead decision for start-ups.

Again, Sony is in territory they are not used to. They are not used to coming in from behind. They are not used to being the most expensive to develop for, especially when it involves learning how to program on an alien processor design, meaning even higher costs for early games.

This also means that even the bigger houses are not likely going to try out risky games for the PS3 as readily. Why try to make a Psychonauts or Katamari-type game (creative, new, off the beaten path, etc) cross-platform this generation when the one machine that costs more also has a smaller install base? The Xbox had a lot of problems with having uncreative games because of the install base issue, now magnify it with having to train your development staff on a proprietary hardware system that isn't going to be taught in any college campus because it isn't a mainstream device.

Sony needs to make up for the instrinsic advantages the 360 has over it by using cold, hard cash incentives, with provisions they need to be paid back if their investment doesn't pan out if they're so worried about backing a dog. If not, their gaming will become stale, much like gaming on the Xbox was.

The game sounds interesting, a mix of Kings Quest and Myst perhaps? I'll look forward to playing it on my 360, and if its a hit no doubt they'll think about porting it to PS3.

Its nice to have games developed for your console and scaled to others for a change. :)

TY epobiris
fu rare hare

Alright so I havent Read all the comments, so I dont know if this has already been stated but

TRACK7GAMES HAS RESPONDED TO PS3LAND'S ARTICLE.

They have called the article 'erroneous', and said the PS3 version never existed (?) ....
They also said that it was their strategic desision to not move ahead with this as they deemed it not possible.

I feel they are contradicting themselves...

Read about it on my blog - http://nextgenwars.blogspot.com
OR
simply goto their website - http://www.track7games.com/index.php?ok=1#

Earth to XBox fans...

If a game developer drops development because THEY couldn't afford the cost. That's THEIR FAULT. That does not mean that every single small developer will do the same thing. One small company that gets over its head it not *all* companies.

But noooo....all you Xboxers come here with your Microsoft Propaganda and spin the story.. Why? Because you KNOW you can't compete head-on with Sony. YOU NEED the spin. You need a barrier-to-entry (like the Windows monopoly).

Well, hate to break the news to ya...but come November 17th. While you Boxers are playing your year old 360 -- real gamers will be having fun with their brand new PS3!

You know it's true. And there will be nothing you can do about it.

Xboxers will be squealing like stuck pigs again..."Nooooo, Playstation is getting all the attetion again! Waaaaahhhhhh!"

Cry, Xboxer, cry....

i cant say i know, nor care, about using games consoles for games. i used to but not now. now the ps3 looks good as it can play blu-ray. if it doesnt it will fail.

in the beginning, even if small time developers dont take up the challenge of creating games for ps3, the ps3 will still sell, as the cheapest stand-alone blu-ray player that i have seen costs way more than the ps3 is intended to be, which won't change much until after the ps3 is launched.

the xbox 360 is cheap, and is relatively easy to port to, and there lies it's advantage. it does not, however, allow hd-dvd compatability straight out of the box. the ps3 is an investment in promoting next gen media more than it is in games, no matter what the guise suggests.

i believe hd-dvd will lose the format war, with blu-ray prevailing, only because of capacity, and because of ps3 having blu-ray drives.

Smart gamers will go to the xbox 360, smart non-gamers will go to ps3 for blu-ray and mod it for playing hundreds of hours of copied avi's from a single blu-ray disc. ok i admit i know sh*t about anything but blu-ray will get better when someone mods the ps3 to allow anything to be played from the discs, but if you don't care about the format then why get a ps3 when most games are on both consoles and the xbox is cheaper?

oh im talking sh*t and i know it but i dont think it really matters if small developers abandon ps3, it will still sell to begin with as it'll be the cheapest blu-ray player around, and later on enough people will have a ps3 to warrant small companies getting the dev kit to port their games to it.

And what do i think about the nintendo wii? Nice name....

> All is not well in PS3Land

> Now what exactly did you mean by that comment??? - Justin

Maybe that you're making up news that is completely untrue? lol

Justin, you is teh SuCk. ;o)

J B Cougar

Monthly U.S. Console Hardware Sales
Month
Xbox 360 Xbox
November 2005 326,000 November 2001 722,177
December 2005 281,441 December 2001 699,597
January 2006 249,000 January 2002 127,939
February 2006 161,000 February 2002 139,123
March 2006 192,000 March 2002 136,388
April 2006 295,381 April 2002 78,142

Total 1,504,822 1,903,366

I'm sorry I was wrong it's actually doing worse than the xbox 398,544 less to be exact. These are NPD numbers my friend just for the US and it's doing much worse in japan. Facts are on my side you're the one talking out of your ass. And I'll be playing my PS3 with the millions and millions of smarter people that know what is truly next gen.

Note to self: Count how many bitches answer my post.

You are lucky bitch number one. There's another one.