Sony Opens PS2 Platform

Ars Technica reports that Sony will be removing their content approval process for the Playstation 2 so that developers require less funding to make games. "Since there are no licensing fees, the only cost to the developer would be the PS2 dev kit. In order to help alleviate some of that financial burden, Bain said that in some cases Sony will lend out dev kits. Another option for developers making small, casual titles is to purchase PS2 debug dev kits, which cost about 1/10 of a full version. Bain went on to explain another possible option for smaller local developers: the PlayStation Network. 'One thing that a lot of developers seem to forget is that PlayStation Network is free,' he explained. 'Consumers do not have to pay a monthly fee ... game developers should create games for local markets.'"

Comments

Dev kits should be free

[Nimey]

If the dev kits are free, more games will be made for the platform, and that leads to more money to Sony because of more console sales.

This is an older platform, true, but that would definitely be true for newer stuff like the PS3.

Re:Dev kits should be free

[Enderandrew]

I would really like to see a console-maker basically cut a deal with the homebrew community. Fully open up the console to homebrew development, and in turn, ask said homebrew community to police piracy.

Sony's PS3 is the most open console from a hardware standpoint. They even let you replace the HDD without voiding the warranty, and offer Linux installs. But Microsoft has been the closest to supporting homebrew development with the XNA.

Why can't Microsoft and Sony release a virtual machine to test development in for people who can't afford a dev kit?

Re:Dev kits should be free

[niteice]

The whole point of XNA is that games can run on the Xbox and Windows with (virtually) no modifications to the source code. Your own desktop PC will make a pretty good VM.

Re:Dev kits should be free

[Anonymous Coward]

If the dev kits are free, more games will be made for the platform, and that leads to more money to Sony because of more console sales.

Like in 1983?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_console#Video_game_crash_of_1983

Or like for PC? There's an open platform. Not a lot of evidence of a idie game bonaza there to refute Sony's very successful and closed PS2 business model. Things aren't as simple as you think.

Re:Dev kits should be free

[cgenman]

As dev units are custom electronics (and plastics), they'd be hard pressed to give new ones away without taking a significant financial hit. However, I've seen lots of disused PS2 equipment loitering around offices in the industry. I'm sure if Sony called back some of those (at least the ones they published), they'd have quite a few to loan out to the community.

On a side note, this may be a pretty historic change. It's difficult to see if they mean that they're removing the initial content approval but not the final quality certification, or if Sony really announced that it will be a completely open platform, ALA the Jaguar at the end of its life. Sony is either saying here "You're free to produce whatever" or "We don't care what you make, as long as it doesn't crash and meets our other requirements." Will Sony still manufacture the disks, or are they out of the loop? Is there still a cert process?

With Sony still referring to "Licensed Developers," it sounds like a process of some sort is still in place. But even with one, this is still a huge announcment in an industry dominated by arbitrary 1st party rules.

Re:Dev kits should be free

[Anonymous Coward]

Please actually get information before you post things...

The Emotion Engine is the CPU, it's a joint project between Toshiba and Sony, it's a MIPS R5900 class CPU with two embedded vector units. (One of which has a direct pipeline to the GPU)

The Graphics Synthesizer is the GPU, it's a chip made by Sony, and it's a more or less simple triangle raster with fogging/mipmap/texturing/gourad shading and some other minor features. It has no pixel shader or vertex shader. (The "vertex shader" is effectively code running on the VU1 of the CPU)

A dual core Mac G5 does have a PPC970 style core, however it's dual core. The CELL has one PowerPC processing element with two hardware threads, both "effectively" running at half the clock rate. However this misses the entire point of the CELL which is the EIB and SPUs, the PPU is there in theory to just be a C&C center for the system itself and the SPUs/EIB. (In reality it's actually where most games run.... with the SPUs offloading specific tasks such as rendering, physics, audio, and occasionally AI.)

So... porn games, here we go!

[Bragador]

Since the content approval process is being removed, I'm sure their will be games rated for adults only coming out. These will include stories with violence and what not, but also porn.

I guess more people will want to buy a ps2, or remove the dust from their old ps2 and buy new games.

Good job Sony!

Discontinued for years

[tepples]

There is an officially sanctioned Linux install kit from Sony for the PS2.

Your statement is misleading, as both the Linux kit and the specific model of PS2 that it requires have been discontinued for years. Allow me to correct:

There was an officially sanctioned Linux install kit from Sony for a long-discontinued model of the PS2.

It's not "open".

[Animats]

Sony is not making the PS2 platform "open". You still can't create a program disk for the PS2, because content has to be signed to load, and Sony is retaining control of the signing keys.

This article really should be titled something like "Sony simplifies approval process for PS2 programs."

If anybody could create program disks for the PS2, we might see it used as a business machine, in kiosks, for retail applications, call centers, thin clients, etc. It's cheap, stateless, and low-maintenance.

Hardly arbitrary

[electrosoccertux]

industry dominated by arbitrary 1st party rules.

They were put in place to ensure we don't have another Atari failure that brings down the entire game market.