At least somebody is getting a PS3 price cut: Sony has slashed the cost of the PlayStation 3 development platform by more than four-fifths.
Sure, Sony might be obstinately digging its heels into the ground, covering its collective ears and screaming “I can’t heeeaaar you, la la la la~!” when it comes to the issue of price cuts for their gargantuan PlayStation 3 … but that doesn’t mean they aren’t willing to compromise somewhere.
They’re willing to compromise with the developers, in fact. The PlayStation 3 Reference Tool (also known colloquially as the developer kit) can now be licensed for a paltry $2,000 – a whopping 80% decrease from the previous price of $10,250. This new price is a meager tenth of what the PS3 dev kit originally cost: Its price was halved back in November of 2007.
“With more and more new and exciting PS3 titles scheduled for release this year from third-party developers and publishers as well as from SCE Worldwide Studios,” announced Sony, “SCEI will deploy various measures to further reinforce game development for PS3 and will continue to expand the platform to offer attractive interactive entertainment experiences only available on PS3.”
Of course, to be fair, even slashing the price by eight large won’t make all that much of a difference for the big companies with budgets in the multi-million dollar range. Where we might see the biggest benefit of this is the PSN store with smaller indie titles. Independent game developers need to squeeze every penny they can, and having a significantly cheaper development platform might make the PS3 an attractive prospect for a would-be indie designer.
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