The goes for the PS2 as well. I have been e-mailing both Microsoft and Sony but have not gotten any positive feedback on becoming a developer for either of these systems. Does anyone have a point of contact that I may use? Currently Sonalysts has produced two PC games for Electronic Arts; 688I Attack Sub, and Fleet Command (however not by my group). My group has two major projects. The first is creating virtual reality simulations for the Navy (NAWC-TSD). The Navy has expressed great interest in the X-Box, PS2 as well as other high end, low cost hardware solutions for their simulation training (Dreamcast, Dolphin). Current development is done on SGI machines, however the Navy has deemed this hardware as unacceptable to deploy to the fleet(too expensive, hard to maintain, etc.). The second project that I am heading is a commercial video game for the PC, but would additionally like to develop this title for the X-Box and PS2. This project is a bit of a departure from our previous titles in that while the game is still militaristic in nature, there is a decidedly science fiction slant to it. The project is still in the design stage, but I have licensed the LithTech engine to cut the development time of this title. After the impressive demo of the X-Box at this years Game Developer''s Conference I had stopped by the Microsoft booth to discuss becoming a developer. I was told to send an e-mail from the X-Box site, but I have not received any real information. The same goes for Sony''s site as well. So I appeal to other developers for help. Thank you.

Hmmm. I don''t have an answer. I''ve been accepted into Microsoft''s DirectX 8 beta program, and I sort of hope to wedge my way into being an X-box developer through that---somehow (and perhaps given that we''re going to be developing advanced game physics technology). But I''m in your same boat. Sega at least has some info on their web page about becoming a Dreamcast developer, including a questionnaire about games experience and capabilities.

I''d love to hear the advice of others as well. Sorry that I cannot advise Thor myself.

Graham Rhodes
Senior Scientist
Applied Research Associates, Inc.

The well known problem. It happens mostly that these big publishers aren''t much interested in the beginning in independend developers of a third party.
They prefer working with there internal development studio''s and they hire some development studio''s for some assistance for there projects. Or developing a whole project. When a third party developer wants to give/send a demo of for instance a cardriving game, you will have problems when EA, Infogrames/GTI, Microsoft (and some
others)al ready have a cargame where they invest much money in for developing/promotion/marketing/sales/logistics.
With developing I mean funding new versions of the cargame.
So a third party developer will have it not easy.
EA Need for Speed, Infogrames Test drive series, MS Midtown/Monster truck.
So you see how hard it is in this industry.

True enough. Sony and Microsoft want the launch titles for their hardware to be as solid as possible, which pretty much precludes unknown quantities among the third party development community.

Once they''ve been around for a year, the floodgates open and pretty much anyone can get a dev kit. On the plus side, many of the bugs will have been worked out and additional developer resources will be available after a year or so. The Dreamcast for example has not been out for all that long and they''re already on the tenth version of the development tools...

$0.02

This is unfortunate. The only assistance that I am seeking at this point is a development kit (especially for the Navy work), or some information that I can relate to my customer. The points that were raised are interesting, and certainly sheds some light on my ignorance of the console industry. That doesn''t mean that I am going to stop trying though.
Thanks again.