PlayStation 3 Development Kit Shortage Possible

Author: by Nich Maragos, Simon Carless

A Japanese-sourced Jiji News interview with SCEI president Ken Kutaragi, partially translated by consumer site GameSpot, indicates that development kits for the PlayStation 3 may be in short supply. According to Kutaragi, more than 100 dev kits have been sent out to interested parties, but the demand is outpacing Sony's ability to produce the kits. A similar situation arose with the company's PlayStation Portable, the consequences of which (teamed with the larger scale and therefore long development time of PSP games) can still be seen in the relative drought of new releases for the handheld. Since Sony remains committed to a Spring 2006 release for the console in both Japan and the U.S., a similar problem may arise. Assuming a May 2006 release for the PlayStation 3 at latest, that would mean the more swiftly catered-for developers will have had PlayStation 3 development kits for roughly 14 months, given the comments of Epic Games vice-president Mark Rein, who indicated that Epic had development kits for two months before the E3 2005 unveiling of the PS3. [However, development may have been in progress on the PC before this, at least in the case of many engines, meaning that developers will not have necessarily had 14 months to build a game from scratch in order to become a PlayStation 3 launch title.]