Sony Pursuing Cheap Indian Game Development

25
In an effort to reduce game development costs, PlayStation maker Sony Computer Entertainment intends to bolster its development efforts in India--a popular choice for outsourced labor.

If successful, the initiative could break even in three years and lead to a dedicated Indian development facility, SCE country manager Atindriya Bose told news site DNA.

Using technology and talent from other SCE branches, such as SingStar and Getaway veterans London Studio, Sony will be coaching local programmers in game development and loaning out development hardware.

Four Indian developers have been tasked with five projects thus far. Sony hopes the effort will help lower game costs, with an 18-month PlayStation 2 game currently budgeted between $3-5 million while a PlayStation 3 title is estimated at $20-30 million.

"The future of the Indian game development market will depend on the quality of the game developers who are starting at a zero base," Bose noted.

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    August 5, 2008 2:34 PM

    And now, shitty conference calls that go nowhere are brought to gaming development...

    • reply
      August 5, 2008 2:53 PM

      LOL exactly what I Thought when I read this... if only they knew what they were getting into.

    • reply
      August 5, 2008 4:35 PM

      I agree, I mean honestly have no major corporations/businesses/companies etc learned that outsourcing to India of all places in the world is a huge mistake? I call up to talk about my bank and the guy on the end of the phone hasn't got a clue what I'm talking about and hes GUESSING answers to my questions and I can hardly understand him, shame my bank manager doesnt guess figures too cause i'd be rich by now if he was anything like the callcentre.

      anyway, I don't really like Sony, though they make reliable hardware I hate their consoles, so If they want to put the final nail in the coffin for me then they will go ahead and do it, I've left every other company behind that outsources.

      But untill India starts rolling out crap games we always have EA if you want to buy a half finnished pile of shit, that could have been a good game if they hadn't rolled it out 3 months early.

      • reply
        August 5, 2008 7:11 PM

        i know, you'd think big companies like intel would've learned its lesson and stopped highering well qualified graduates from india.



        OH MY BAD, YOURE TALKING ABOUT A HIGHSCHOOL DROPOUT PHONE DUDE, NOT PROGRAMMERS WHOOPS!

    • reply
      August 6, 2008 7:35 AM

      Oh Jesus christ tell me about it. In my experience with outsourcing to this area, any time you have a legitimate issue with their product or their service, at least half of the communication between yourselves will be their attempts to tell you why their solution is perfect and that there is nothing wrong, rather than actually fixing a problem, or adding a feature--just because you asked. At first I thought it had to be that they were just distanced from their clients/users/market/customers. Lately I am more thinking that these guys literally develop everything in their own fucking vacuum

Hello, Meet Lola