General

[cristi_devel776]

From what I gathered it seems that Sony will require prospective developers pay for both on-device debugging and for store deployment (like Apple), once the open beta is over.

Is this the case or am I mistaken?

I'm mainly asking this because I'm sure many devs have stopped toying with the SDK and started porting / making exclusive applications in anticipation and will be caught "with their pants down".

So will it be:

A) Pay to debug (Vita) / No cost to debug (Other PSS)

B) Pay to debug (Vita) / Pay to debug (Other PSS)

C) No cost to debug (Vita) / No cost to debug (Other PSS)

That aside, it's a nice environment for prototyping and it's pretty compatible with XNA so one can do grunt work in MSVC# and add work with PSS as a platform after the huge bugs are gone.

[DracoDenesti]

From what I've read, it's a matter of paying to deploy to the store. The SDK will be available even after Open Beta.

But I suppose it's still not written in stone, the only information we have on this is in the FAQ. (See Q1 & Q4)

http://www.playstation.com/pss/developer/openbeta/faq_e.html

[jamesnorman91]

Hi cristi_devel776, DracoDenesti,

When we get to the Official Release of the PSS SDK, you will have to pay the $99 license fee to test your applications on any physical devices, and to submit them to the store. You will, however, be able to download the SDK and test your applications on the Simulator for free.

I hope this helps clear it up, but if you would like any further clarification, please let me know. 

Thanks,

James

[cristi_devel776]

Hi, jamesnorman91:

First of all, thanks for claryfing that, can't say I'm surprised though.

Well, even with the fee probably ending up being 99€ in Europe and having to pay for debugging at least it's a step up from the traditional model.

I do have another question:

Will you allow developers from any country to apply or will entry be limited to PSN-supported countries ?

[TheRealSerapth]

Hi James,

Is this set in stone? As unless PSSDK is viewed as a profitcenter ( I can't imagine that is the case ), baring people from working on their own devices just seems like a way to cut your physical audience way down.

There are two approaches to this, the one Apple took and the one Microsoft/Google have taken. The first is to charge to deploy to physical devices and the store, while the later is to charge to deploy to the store only.

Apple can (unfortunately) get away with their system, as they are currently the most popular platform. Then again, Apple are also using their eco-system to push more Mac sales, a situation Sony is not in. I would be curious to know how many potential developers Apple have lost due to that 99$ annual fee. I personally know a handful that have preferred Android as a result.

Sony on the other hand do not have the market momentum that Apple have. I can't help but believe you will *greatly* diminish the number of prospective developers if you charge to deploy to device. Even more worrying, the Simulator, although fast, is quite limited. Without on screen joystick support, or the ability to plug in a physical joystick to emulate sticks, to say nothing of being unable to emulate multitouch, makes the simulator a dead end VERY VERY fast.

Another product uses a similar approach, Mono for Android is freely available to test on the emulator, but costs 399$ if you want to test on a physical device. I can say with 100% percent certainty, I would have purchased and deployed an app using Mono for Android, if I could have started up front with full device debugging support and only paid when it came time to deploy. Taking this business model ( and the horrible android Emulator experience ) very much cost Ximarian a customer ).


I hope Sony does not take the same approach.


Coincidentally, I purchased my Vita for development reasons; not as a gaming machine. So in a sense you can already look at PSSDK as a profit driver, by increasing hardware sales. Trying to squeeze a ( seemingly paltry ) 99$ a year from prospective developers I can't imagine is worth the lost sales ( hardware and future commission ) from prospective app developers that gave the platform a pass because of the attached price tag.

Just my 2 cents.

[SFentonX]

@TRS: Same boat here.  I half bought my Vita for gaming and half bought it for development purposes.  Because I am a beginning developer, I need to work fast to see what I can develop for Vita, and even then, it's going to be an iffy $99 purchase, especially if I won 't have anything store-ready.

[Einschnaehke]

I have to agree, TheRealSerapth totally has a point. PSS would lose much interest of many potential developers if they can't debug their applications/games on an actual device without paying 99$. I wouldn't recommend taking that risk and rather attract as many developers as possible by giving them as many tools and opportunities to play around with PSS as possible.

I can also understand why the PSS team hesitates to do it that way. Only developers who really do want to develop stuff for PSS - with a real product goal in mind - should have get access to full blown PSS tooling, so that airy-fairies stay away from it. But I think those people would still be held back just by the fact that PSS doesn't allow releases of free apps. So it's already ensured that only the ones with real interest are going to develop for PSS. Why putting such obstacles on the way for those developers?

[cristi_devel776]

@Einschnaehke:

As a counter-argument to your second point being able to debug on HW has nothing to do with publishing "fart-apps" to the market. (As an aside, fees never stopped people from publishing fart-apps and the infamous "I Am Rich" on iOS ).
Also I'm pretty sure that, since we're talking about Sony who is an established publisher, there will be some set of guides for your application to be allowed into the market.

On the issue of cost, it's not that 99$/€ necessarily represents a huge sum of money (it is a decent chunk of change though), it's that if you live in an unsupported country you're not even able to pay the fee to debug.

One could see a small indie studio (in an unsupported country) working with a small time publisher (located in a supported country) that could very well pay their fee but that's simply returning to the traditional model (true, on a smaller scale, with smaller expectations).
Then again why would an actual indie studio complicate its existence rewriting their code in a managed language when their publishers can license actual debug HW & native SDKs (iirc it's cheaper to develop for Vita than it used to be in the prev. generations) and use their established C/C++ code bases.

Again, the Pss seems like it's more oriented towards the "probbyist" crowd (and indies that started on XBLIG / XBLA and wish to maintain that codebase), so to speak.

In closing, again, I very much understand that a fee is needed to cover submission costs, and that there might be some leverage reasons to restrict acces to the Vita after Open Beta, but seriously, restricting access to Android devices as well is a bit unexpected, to say the least.