Anybody any idea about the official Sony devkit..?

Steril707 · Post by **Steril707** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 6:31 am

Hello folks,
I'm new here, and this is my first question..

Anybody here ever tried out an official PS3-Devkit from Sony?

What is Sonys' policy on these things these days. I know, for instance, that Nintendo only gives out Wii-devkits to "proven companies", is Sony doing the same?

I searched the forum quite extensively on this topic, but found nothing....

Hope you can enlighten me, fellas...

lots of greets from the land of beer and beautiful cows, that is Bavaria...

Mike

Jim · Post by **Jim** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 7:42 am

Real dev kits only go to companies that have successfully pitched a game to Sony. When you get a dev kit, you have to sign an NDA which means you aren't allowed to discuss the dev kit.

Jim

Post by **jbit** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 8:47 am

Our forums aren't really for official development questions (infact discussion of official devkit/SDK details is strictly prohibited), but if you're serious about making professional games on the PS3:

If you're a small startup company then assuming you have a solid game idea and business plan I've heard (from public SCE talks at nordic game and the such like) that Sony can be quite receptive to applications.

Of course as mentioned above you'll need to do lots of legal paper work such as Non Disclosure Agreements, and probably need some kind of publisher backing and proof that you can actually pull a game off.

Links of interest:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... hp?print=1
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_i ... tory=22864
http://www.technology.scee.net/software#registration

rapso · Post by **rapso** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 4:50 pm

usually you had to have signed a deal with a publisher to get in touch with sony or at least have released some games, it's all about reputation... and of course you had to have enough money to pay for those devkits.

nowadays it's slightly simpler, if you're an indie and you've released some games, you might get devkits to make games for psn.

But nothing will work if you just have 'a really amazin, unique, crazy idea', as they probably get 1000 of those kind of requests daily.

I think there was a thread here before in how to get started and the main advise was, get something running on pc, if you want to make it somehow portable, use opengl and cg.

Rex_VF5 · Post by **Rex_VF5** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 5:03 pm

There is another route available (probably): academic development kits. Read about that here: http://www.develop-online.net/news/3237 ... S3-dev-kit

Steril707 · Post by **Steril707** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:49 pm

That's a lot of great info here already...

Thanks...

Hope you don't mind me asking a couple more of stupid question here in the future ;)

greets,
Mike

Steril707 · Post by **Steril707** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 3:10 am

nowadays it's slightly simpler, if you're an indie and you've released some games, you might get devkits to make games for psn.

PSN was the target I had in mind, regular Disc releases are far out of anybodies reach who isn't a minimum 30 people studio, I guess.

But nothing will work if you just have 'a really amazin, unique, crazy idea', as they probably get 1000 of those kind of requests daily.

Guess you are right on that... hehe...Probably funny to be one of those guys who get these kinds of emails every day...

;)

I think there was a thread here before in how to get started and the main advise was, get something running on pc, if you want to make it somehow portable, use opengl and cg.

That route sounds reasonable.
One question now, though...You recommended using openGL..

Let's say I'd have something developed in C/C++ using openGL (what's "cg" by the way? (edit: nevermind, found this here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_for_graphics), is there an openGL port to whatever the official devkit uses, so I can simply rewrite the Rasterization target, and really, that's about it (apart from the other obvious stuff, like initializing the system, checking the controllers etc)? Did I understand that right? Or am I using openGL just for giggles, and will have to port everything later on to something really used on the PS3, like that mysterious Phyre Engine...?

greets,
and thanks,
Mike

Jim · Post by **Jim** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 8:44 am

If you write the code properly, it doesn't really matter what back end you use for finally rendering the triangles. And it should be a relatively simple piece of work to throw out OpenGL if you need to and put in something else.

Jim

rapso · Post by **rapso** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 6:19 am

Steril707 wrote: Let's say I'd have something developed in C/C++ using openGL (what's "cg" by the way? (edit: nevermind, found this here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_for_graphics), is there an openGL port to whatever the official devkit uses, so I can simply rewrite the Rasterization target, and really, that's about it (apart from the other obvious stuff, like initializing the system, checking the controllers etc)? Did I understand that right?

to get intouch with sony/ms or any publisher, your prototype doesn't need to represent final graphics or architecture. it's more a prove that your idea works, that your team is capable to ramp up something useful, that you have a unique vision and also capable artist (the prototype shouldn't run with 3fps cause they build some cg-movie-art).

then you can check yourself how much you need to change, maybe your publisher will say "we'll sign that, but just if you write it for at least 3 plattforms".

so, your main goal shall be "get your idea working"
no matter how hacky, ugly, incompatible your code is and how many stupid work needed to be done by some poor artist just cause some simple tool is missing, yet.
just get it done ;)

Steril707 · Post by **Steril707** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 4:43 am

rapso wrote:
Steril707 wrote: Let's say I'd have something developed in C/C++ using openGL (what's "cg" by the way? (edit: nevermind, found this here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_for_graphics), is there an openGL port to whatever the official devkit uses, so I can simply rewrite the Rasterization target, and really, that's about it (apart from the other obvious stuff, like initializing the system, checking the controllers etc)? Did I understand that right?
to get intouch with sony/ms or any publisher, your prototype doesn't need to represent final graphics or architecture. it's more a prove that your idea works, that your team is capable to ramp up something useful, that you have a unique vision and also capable artist (the prototype shouldn't run with 3fps cause they build some cg-movie-art).

then you can check yourself how much you need to change, maybe your publisher will say "we'll sign that, but just if you write it for at least 3 plattforms".

so, your main goal shall be "get your idea working"
no matter how hacky, ugly, incompatible your code is and how many stupid work needed to be done by some poor artist just cause some simple tool is missing, yet.
just get it done ;)

Understood ;)

thanks for the advice,
greets,
Mike

Steril707 · Post by **Steril707** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 6:11 am

Anybody here read the book "Programming the Cell Processor: For Games, Graphics, and Computation" by Matthew Scarpino? Is it any good?

I probably won't need it at first, but the Cell interests me anyway...

greets and thanks,
Mike

Ameen · Post by **Ameen** » Sun Aug 30, 2009 3:35 am

Steril707 wrote:Anybody here read the book "Programming the Cell Processor: For Games, Graphics, and Computation" by Matthew Scarpino? Is it any good?

I probably won't need it at first, but the Cell interests me anyway...

greets and thanks,
Mike

I've read this book, and to be sincere I didn't have the chance yet to complete it due to work and some other stuff.

Anyway, the book is just awesome, it gives you a lot of details about the Cell processor, and how to install the needed compilers on the PS3 or any platform.

My advice, reading this book is great but when it comes to code and handouts seek one of the online repositories.

Cheers,