Sony has first of all slashed the price of the development kits to $2000, Europe €1,700 and Â¥200,000 for those in moonland. Also packed into the kit is an update for the new PS3 engine ‘PhyreEngine’ which “allows advanced game programming and more efficient computer graphics rendering.” this programme has been used to help power codemaster’s Neon engine and can easily cross-platform to PC games (Probably an effort to make it as easy as cross-platforming between the 360 and PC is)
“With its more affordable pricing, this new model will appeal to a broader range of developers and publishers, and will help to provide a more streamlined game development environment, further accelerating the game development for PS3,”
Also improvements to the kick includes:
With a new compiler, SNC PPU toolchain for PS3, now part of the official SDK (Software Development Kit). The compiler is “optimised to the power of PS3 and generates high-quality code. As a result, not only will it contribute to raising the quality of the game but also to significantly improving productivity,” Sony said.
This has been used for games like Killzone 2, Fallout 3 and Ryu ga Gotoku 3.
This is good news, so many now the PS3 isn’t as hard to develop so making multi-platform games has become easier and more potential can be taken from exclusives, only time will tell. It’s good Sony has done this, shame it’s taken this long.
