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[Tempy]

Yeah, ideally, they'll need 100-120

I must be missing a sarcasm sign somewhere. A devkit is not a computer you use to run Visual C++, Maya, Photoshop, etc on. You do that on bog standard PCs/Macs.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Oh, I definitely agree that dev costs in general have gone up. Number of employees is climbing, technological requirements, and hell, just salaries have risen considerably over the past 5-10 years for quality folks.

However, the dev kits is what we're talking about here and they're only a sizable drop in the huge dev cost buckets were talking about here.

Absolutely, but the point I was trying to paint is that it will hurt smaller devs even more, and the more of them that die, the more we the consumer get hurt over time.

 

[TheInkyVoid]

The outcry here just shows the lack of knowledge that many here have regarding dev costs.

Yep.

 

[Fafalada]

I didn't know about the mini devkits - what do they look like?

It's an expanded debug station - package comes with a network card and a special bootable Memory Card where the network drivers also go. It needs a host PC to run DSNET manager, and the development machines then connect to the host PC IP, from there the functionality is the same as that of regular DTL10k, but with less free memory of course.
It's actually a bit less then 1k$ but I forgot the exact price so I rounded up

The bootable memory card will work with any networked debug-station, so long as it's a new enough model (I think it had to be made in 2004 or later), I think they also sell just the cards separately.

To be fair, you can also use an Xbox Debug Kit (green) as a devkit, you lose a couple of features but it has the same amount of memory as a normal devkit (clear)...I think the debugs are sub $1K?

Oh I didn't know about that - well I guess that works in a similar manner then.

 

[Argyle]

I must be missing a sarcasm sign somewhere. A devkit is not a computer you use to run Visual C++, Maya, Photoshop, etc on. You do that on bog standard PCs/Macs.

I guess so. I know what a devkit is.

Have you ever worked on a console game? Things look different on your PC monitor compared to on a TV screen - moreso when you consider an artist will be looking at it in Maya or Max, vs in-engine. Artists need to test their shit so they don't break the rest of the team, and they need to tweak it to make sure it looks right. Programmers need to test and debug their code. I guess you could maintain a PC build for people with no devkits, but that also has a cost, and it STILL looks different so it doesn't solve all the problems.

Maybe people will end up sharing devkits more (particularly when devkits are scarce), but IDEALLY, you'd have devkits 1:1 for your team.

 

[TheInkyVoid]

Absolutely, but the point I was trying to paint is that it will hurt smaller devs even more, and the more of them that die, the more we the consumer get hurt over time.

No it won't.
No they won't.
And no we won't.

 

[RevenantKioku]

No it won't.
No they won't.
And no we won't.

Thanks for the compelling argument.

 

[TheInkyVoid]

Thanks for the compelling argument.

It wasn't an argument, it was a correction.

 

[Fafalada]

Maybe people will end up sharing devkits more (particularly when devkits are scarce), but IDEALLY, you'd have devkits 1:1 for your team.

I think that will be a lot less necessary with new consoles. Think about it, both of them have PC derivates for graphic output, and with HDTV as standard we are going to be viewing games on PC monitors a lot as well (not everyone can get their own SXRD panel on the table).
So basically you are reducing the differences both in terms of screens, and the actual output, and with cross platform PC centric engines like U3 you'll basically get nearly identical output from PC dev machines.

 

[Tempy]

I guess so. I know what a devkit is.

Have you ever worked on a console game? Things look different on your PC monitor compared to on a TV screen - moreso when you consider an artist will be looking at it in Maya or Max, vs in-engine. Artists need to test their shit so they don't break the rest of the team, and they need to tweak it to make sure it looks right. Programmers need to test and debug their code. I guess you could maintain a PC build for people with no devkits, but that also has a cost, and it STILL looks different so it doesn't solve all the problems.

Maybe people will end up sharing devkits more (particularly when devkits are scarce), but IDEALLY, you'd have devkits 1:1 for your team.

Yes, I know why artists and coders need a devkit but they don't need them 100% of the time so it gets shared. It seems quite expensive to me to give everybody a devkit, and I have my doubts that there are any companies out there who do that.

EDIT: And yes we do maintain a PC build

 

[Argyle]

It's an expanded debug station - package comes with a network card and a special bootable Memory Card where the network drivers also go. It needs a host PC to run DSNET manager, and the development machines then connect to the host PC IP, from there the functionality is the same as that of regular DTL10k, but with less free memory of course.
It's actually a bit less then 1k$ but I forgot the exact price so I rounded up

The bootable memory card will work with any networked debug-station, so long as it's a new enough model (I think it had to be made in 2004 or later), I think they also sell just the cards separately.

Yeah, I think I have heard about them - it's that memory card that has all the magic in it. Never used one but it sounds pretty cool - kinda like ProDG Plus, which existed for a short while...

Oh I didn't know about that - well I guess that works in a similar manner then.

Yeah - I'd say the Xbox debug solution is a bit more usable as a full devkit replacement tho, you can literally do everything exactly the same as the regular kit except for a couple of things that I'd bet most people would never need to use. I wouldn't be surprised if lots of companies never bought more than a couple full XDKs and just bought debugs for everyone...

 

[RevenantKioku]

It wasn't an argument, it was a correction.

Explain then please. I wasn't born on this world knowing everything about business, unfortunately.
If they have less money in general, higher costs have higher risks involved with it, and can more easily wipe out the company. That's all I thought. What am I missing?
I may be exaggerating the damage it can do. I guess that's what my problem is.

 

[Argyle]

I think that will be a lot less necessary with new consoles. Think about it, both of them have PC derivates for graphic output, and with HDTV as standard we are going to be viewing games on PC monitors a lot as well (not everyone can get their own SXRD panel on the table).
So basically you are reducing the differences both in terms of screens, and the actual output, and with cross platform PC centric engines like U3 you'll basically get nearly identical output from PC dev machines.

Good points - probably as the development environments mature, you may be right...

I still don't think you'll get it to be 100% though - even though the APIs may be the same, there could be differences like special X360 extensions to DirectX, or extensions to OpenGL that your videocard might not implement the same way...and you still can't accurately judge how, say, a new hunk of artwork affects the framerate on the target platform from a PC build.

Yes, I know why artists and coders need a devkit but they don't need them 100% of the time so it gets shared. It seems quite expensive to me to give everybody a devkit, and I have my doubts that there are any companies out there who do that.

EDIT: And yes we do maintain a PC build

Believe.

That's not to say that a game can't be built with < 50 devkits on a 120 person team, but I think a lot of people will be sitting there twiddling their thumbs. When you consider people's salaries, maybe the up-front cost of springing for some extra devkits might be worth it?

 

[Tempy]

That's not to say that a game can't be built with < 50 devkits on a 120 person team, but I think a lot of people will be sitting there twiddling their thumbs. When you consider people's salaries, maybe the up-front cost of springing for an some extra devkits might be worth it?

Eh, I guess other companies do things differently, but there's no thumbtwiddling here.

 

[Animal]

thats facking ludacris on sony's behalf.
I agree with the idea of paying 1K for the machines and a one time fee for the documentation (but not 20K).

 

[Ecrofirt]

On the Xbox side, what's the difference between a devkit and a debug kit?

 

[killermmn]

dev kit is were you create and debug is were you beta testing it!!

 

[Chittagong]

Dev = PS2 Tool

Debug = PS2 Test

 

[Ecrofirt]

dev kit is were you create and debug is were you beta testing it!!

But you can create a game with a debug kit, so I don't understand the difference.

 

[Mayor McCheese]

I don't know who you work for or which company you're basing these numbers on, but a development team of 120 will NOT need -50- devkits.

Look these are rough numbers. They are based in reality though. 120 is the average size for a big developer. Some indies can probably get away with a lot less. Trouble is there aren't really that many. Darwinia was done by two guys though right? That's 2 dev kits max.

 

[Cheerilee]

So, to try and round up all/most of the dev kit prices being tossed around...

PSone - $4-to-5,000 to start
probably got really cheap

PS2 - $20,000 to start
dropped to $10,000 when XBox and GCN kits arrived
currently around $1000

XBox - $10,000 to start
dropped to $3,000
probably lower now

GCN - $10,000 or more to start
probably had some drops

PS3 - $30,000 to start


Are technology prices really supposed to constantly keep going up and up (despite the regular dropping), or is this just more an indicator of the "agressiveness" of the design and pricing of some of these consoles?

 

[Zeenbor]

I programmed on the GameCube a few years back... And back in 2002, the DDH devkits were around $7k and the GDEV devkits were around $5k, IIRC. Debug kits were sub $500.

 

[TheInkyVoid]

Never used one, but I seem to rember dolphin tdev kits were only about a thousand a year or so ago.

 

[inpHilltr8r]

Sarcasm aside, as a point of interest, PS2 devkits always had an internal HDD with Linux installed in there.

That HDD is for the PC host that's also inside TOOL, not the actual PS2 board. PS2+HDD dev requires an external drive (inna v1 Jap PS2 stylee) IIRC.

...hey, it's out the developer time!

 

[Marty Chinn]

Heh, since we're talking about TOOLs, anyone know the EE and IOP Boot Param values to boot a game off the disc? Also what are the values for booting from the debugger on the PC? Currently I have it set up so I can debug and load from the PC, but not lose the ability to do that by changing the value to boot off a disc.

 

[inpHilltr8r]

Towards the end of \usr\local\sce\doc\tool\dsnet_3.0.pdf