Console game development

[longbyte1]

Anyone know of any public resources to develop on consoles? Oh wait, that's right, they're all locked away behind NDAs.

I'm kind of both disgusted and curious about how development goes on the PlayStation and Xbox.

General price of PS3/360 console dev kits - between $10,000 and $0, depending on how you'd like to stand with the FBI

Minimum price of Windows development - $0

This is turning into a rant now, but what's the internal difference between a robust API for a general-purpose operating system and a secretive API for a single-purpose gaming machine that makes the latter so expensive?

If anything, a full version of the Windows SDK should cost some money. Microsoft already charges for code and driver signing, but code signing isn't required to distribute a program. All this for about $150, the price of a Windows license. If you include the hardware, it's $1000 total.

And a PS3's cost varies wildly, from $150 to $550. Not to mention the games, which are around $30-60 each. $30×25 (this is the average number of games people have, as seen on forums) + $400 = $1,150. I expect 360 players to have even more games, but what I'm saying is that I don't understand why these dev kit costs are reasonable, when consoles are such limited pieces of hardware and revenue must be recouped by distributing more and more games for consumers.

How exactly does a lonely developer get into developing games for consoles? They have no contacts with publishers, no money to develop alone, and no experience with the inner workings.

This is like the MPAA all over again: only the big six are allowed to distribute to the masses. Literally. Those are the only members of the MPAA.

Please, enlighten me.

[H2O.]

Well, that is really a case of proprietary vs open-source problem here; and barriers to entry.

[NFUN]

but what's the internal difference between a robust API for a general-purpose operating system and a secretive API for a single-purpose gaming machine that makes the latter so expensive?

The latter is more greedy than the former, the latter has more of an ability to keep it locked/secret than the former, or both.