Sony slashing PSP development costs by 80%

by David Hinkle { Jun 2nd 2009 at 2:48PM }

Sony's Kaz Hirai took the stage at the Sony E3 keynote to reveal the new PSP Go!, but he also had some things to say about longterm development for the PSP platform. Kaz mentioned that Sony would be making it easier for developers to create titles for the handheld by cutting the cost of PSP development 80%. Hopefully, that will mean more developers flocking to the system making great games for us to play.

Tags: development, e3-2009, kaz-hirai

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Aegis Fairweather @ Jun 2nd 2009 2:50PM

that's called awesomeness right there

Caveman @ Jun 2nd 2009 2:51PM

That's a great thing. It'd be nice to see more games for the PSP. I never play mine anymore because the games don't really interest me.

With all the rampant piracy on PSP, at least this gives developers more of an incentive to keep the platform alive. Although Sony pretty much had to do this since they just invested so much money into the PSP Go!

tenor77 @ Jun 2nd 2009 2:52PM

lol- umm how do you cut the cost of game development? Are they forcing all developers to outsource to china?

LaughingTarget @ Jun 2nd 2009 2:58PM

Exactly, all they can really do is cut the license fees and dev kit costs and that isn't going to come anywhere near 80%.

MarioSpitza @ Jun 2nd 2009 7:42PM

There are many ways to cut costs. I'm guessing the most likely thing Sony is doing is cutting the cost of licensing and dev kits. It is also possible that Sony may have improved the dev kits to make development easier (thus cutting development time) and they may also be funding some projects partially depending on certain criteria.

Dr. Stabbingworth @ Jun 2nd 2009 2:52PM

They should give the development kits away for free (not to every regular Joe, though). I bet they'd make far more money of licensing than they would for a kit.

In any case, this is good news for everyone.

TheSpam @ Jun 2nd 2009 2:57PM

By cutting the cost of development I take it as meaning they only giving it 20% of the money they normally were to make new features and generally keep it in working order. It seems like a bad thing to me, an increase in "development" being we're not cutting support for it.

master811 @ Jun 2nd 2009 3:34PM

Did you even read the summary??

They are cuttiing development costs for games, so games will be cheaper to produce, meaning more (and hopefully better) games.

shawn @ Jun 2nd 2009 2:57PM

how bout cutting the price on the ps3

Lenovo @ Jun 2nd 2009 3:18PM

They should make it as easy, cheap to develop for the PSP (PS3) as for the iPhone. If they are worried about game quality then reserve the right to review each app before it gets released. I don't know why Sony (and Nintendo) has not done this yesterday.

E @ Jun 2nd 2009 5:07PM

With the formal announcement of the PSP Go, I'm really excited for Sony's latest handheld. While there've been three other iterations of the PSP, they just didn't do it for me. The Go looks to be a step in a bright direction and hopefully more developers will flock to the handheld, especially seeing as how they'll be able to cut pressing costs by not pressing final cuts on UMD.

Olicon @ Jun 2nd 2009 7:36PM

I wish it'd been someone else who said it. Kaz has been spilling a lot of BS since a few years back, and I feel that he had lost a lot of cred as the face of PS3.

yacjuman @ Jun 2nd 2009 7:46PM

Jeez, This announcement reminded me of those guys who are tweaking the levels with analog sticks. Why don't the magically make it 80% cheaper to deve;op for the PS3 with these mystical development cost cutting powers of theirs?

Sony: OH BTW it's 80% cheaper to develop now for the PSP!
Developer: wut?

Popfrogs @ Jun 2nd 2009 9:22PM

In before trolls...too late.

One good way to slash development costs is by handing devs a premade engine that can do pretty much anything. I believe Flower was developed on the PhyreEngine which is free to PSN developers, but only for PS3 software. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Sony did something similar for the PSP.

Between the free engine, reduced licensing costs and reduced devkit prices, I don't see why they couldn't make it 80% cheaper.

LM2007 @ Jun 3rd 2009 9:37AM

I thought the slashing was for the psp since there gonna be a new one, but NO!! is for developer tools. I don't mind buying more old PSP if they cut the price, i love it in every way. I use it for music, games and movies.