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Sony Gives Educational Access To PS2/PSP SDKs

Posted by Soulskill on from the planting-seeds dept.

Verunks points out that senior manager Mark Danks at the Playstation Blog has announced the availability of PS2 and PSP development kits through college programs. He writes: "PlayStation-edu is a program for universities and colleges to get access to PS2 and PSP development kits ... the same ones that professional developers use to make the games you love to play. You get the development software, the hardware, and the SDK to learn and experiment with. SCEA wants to make sure that students who are graduating from college are ready to program on PlayStation hardware and that means getting it into your hands."

6 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Re:PS2? by rsmith-mac · · Score: 2, Informative

    Unfortunately not. For starters, the base PS3 OS isn't Linux. On top of that you can't use the GPU (or rather its framebuffer) when running Linux. The only way to do any kind of real PS3 development is with a SDK. This is the one thing where Microsoft has Sony completely whipped and to a lesser degree Nintendo (their SDK is much cheaper at $2500, though still not dirt cheap by any means).

  2. Cheap Xbox 360 devkit by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is the one thing where Microsoft has Sony completely whipped and to a lesser degree Nintendo (their SDK is much cheaper at $2500, though still not dirt cheap by any means). Microsoft still has the cheapest devkit for education. To any PC from 2006 or later, add Windows (100 USD from OEM), XNA Game Studio (included with Internet access), an Xbox 360 console (350 USD), and a five-year subscription to Creators Club (495 USD).
    1. Re:Cheap Xbox 360 devkit by MikeTheGreat · · Score: 3, Informative

      For students & teachers, it's even better - the XNA Creators Club subscription is free through their 'DreamSpark' thingee:

      https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/Products/XNA_Game_Studio.aspx
      (Looks like 'free for 1 year, then $100/year afterwards' is the official line)

  3. Re:PS2? by mdm42 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The PS3 OS is not based on Linux, but the devkit is. The GPU drivers are unavailable to the general public, but an OpenGL based setup for Linux does exist (it's an NVidia GPU underneath after-all).

    So although development on an ordinary PS3 with Linux is not really possible, the actual devkit is Linux based.

    --
    New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling
  4. More info on PS-edu by mdanks · · Score: 3, Informative

    There seem to be two common questions about the program.

    1) Why not PS3?

        The PS3 is a complex box to program for and the amount of knowledge which a student would get in a semester actually wouldn't be that much. The goal of the program is to help teach students about the low levels of the hardware...regardless of the platform. The PS2 is a very good teaching tool for this. I have seen too many students graduate who think that they can program "the metal" only knowing C# and Java. They don't know anything about DMA, registers, bus contention, instruction latency, etc.

    2) What about indie games?

        Again, the goal of ps-edu is instructional. However, I am in close contact with Sony World Wide Studios, so if a student creates a great game, I can easily put them in touch with WWS.

    Mark

  5. Re:Caveats by mdanks · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually, no. Universities have never been able to purchase the hardware. Previously, only licensed developers were able to get the hardware.

    While I would love to give away the hardware for free, that would be like MS giving a retail 360 with every copy of XNA. Trust me, SCEA isn't making a profit on the dev kits :-)

    Mark