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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Developers React to HoloLens Dev Kit Price & Date

foodfather on 08 October 2015

The price is not expensive, simple as that. Its just developers with an agenda (and posters too by the looks of it) who are complaining.

If indies really do find it expensive, good, less shovelware.



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Normchacho on 08 October 2015

foodfather said:
The price is not expensive, simple as that. Its just developers with an agenda (and posters too by the looks of it) who are complaining.

If indies really do find it expensive, good, less shovelware.





Bet with Adamblaziken:

I bet that on launch the Nintendo Switch will have no built in in-game voice chat. He bets that it will. The winner gets six months of avatar control over the other user.

LivingMetal on 08 October 2015
DirtyP2002 said:
So, how is 3k for a devkit too much?
I bet they wrote this news on a 2.5k MacBook pro.

I mean that is about 2 weeks / half a month of salary for the developer who is actually working on it.


Sure.  No prob.  While you're at it, go right ahead and get you a dev kit or four.  Give them away as Christmas gifts.  That's what I plan to do.



Normchacho on 08 October 2015
the-pi-guy said:
LivingMetal said:



Normchacho said:

The context here is very different though. There is a huge difference in the amount of risk involved when developing for the next Playstation or Xbox compared to developing for a tech that is still a rather large unknown.

The big factor will be whether MS sees fit to give them out for free. The PS4 dev kit was roughly $2500 but Sony gave tons of them out to smaller devs for free.

A lot of earlier tech like this is usually overpriced like this.  Also same deal with higher end graphics cards.  Nvidia sells specialized cards for vastly higher costs. 

I'm not really sure if that's really the case.  It sounded much higher. 

These are not products for the consumer.  The consumer version isn't going to cost 3000$.  This is a specialized product for a very small market.  This market is accustomed to such high prices. 


https://www.vg247.com/2013/07/26/ps4-dev-kits-pricey-but-sony-handing-them-out-like-candy-rumour/

The official price of the PS4 dev kit was $2500 but from what we've heard they didn't actually sell them. Instead choosing to loan them to devs at no cost.

I'm sure the consumer version won't cost nearly this much. But for new tech like this, indie devs make up a vast majority of the support early on (just look at VR) so pricing it out of there reach (which is what the devs in this article are upset about) is potentially suicidal.



Bet with Adamblaziken:

I bet that on launch the Nintendo Switch will have no built in in-game voice chat. He bets that it will. The winner gets six months of avatar control over the other user.

LivingMetal on 08 October 2015
the-pi-guy said:
LivingMetal said:



Normchacho said:

The context here is very different though. There is a huge difference in the amount of risk involved when developing for the next Playstation or Xbox compared to developing for a tech that is still a rather large unknown.

The big factor will be whether MS sees fit to give them out for free. The PS4 dev kit was roughly $2500 but Sony gave tons of them out to smaller devs for free.

A lot of earlier tech like this is usually overpriced like this.  Also same deal with higher end graphics cards.  Nvidia sells specialized cards for vastly higher costs. 

I'm not really sure if that's really the case.  It sounded much higher. 

These are not products for the consumer.  The consumer version isn't going to cost 3000$.  This is a specialized product for a very small market.  This market is accustomed to such high prices. 


Since you quoted my last post, you need to turn your sarcasm detector on. It's either that, or it's broken.  If broken get one off of Amazon, not eBay.  You might get one of those defective Chinese knock-offs.



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DirtyP2002 on 08 October 2015
LivingMetal said:
DirtyP2002 said:
So, how is 3k for a devkit too much?
I bet they wrote this news on a 2.5k MacBook pro.

I mean that is about 2 weeks / half a month of salary for the developer who is actually working on it.


Sure.  No prob.  While you're at it, go right ahead and get you a dev kit or four.  Give them away as Christmas gifts.  That's what I plan to do.

So if you own an indie studio, a small one with 10 developers working for you and Each developer makes about 60-70k per year. You really have no reason to complain about a 3k devkit. Sometimes investments are necessary and 30k to equip every developer in your company with a devkit is not too much to ask for.

And why should I get the devkit? I am not a developer and don't run a business.



Imagine not having GamePass on your console...

Imaginedvl on 08 October 2015

oh dear...

The people quoted are all VR guys (woking in VR stuff) and they are now "reacting" negatively to Microsoft releasing their DEV Kit for 3000$ (which is very cheap for this kind of DEV kit if you look at other VR dev kit) in Q1 :)

That's a shock!

Title should be changed to : VR Focused developpers react to blah blah 

I esp. love the guy who is bashing Microsoft and then doubts they will send him a free kit... The kit is 3000$ and he is not even willing to pay for it but he is interrested and would "love to" port his game on Hololens if Microsoft sends him a free kit... Really guys...



LivingMetal on 08 October 2015
DirtyP2002 said:
LivingMetal said:


Sure.  No prob.  While you're at it, go right ahead and get you a dev kit or four.  Give them away as Christmas gifts.  That's what I plan to do.

So if you own an indie studio, a small one with 10 developers working for you and Each developer makes about 60-70k per year. You really have no reason to complain about a 3k devkit. Sometimes investments are necessary and 30k to equip every developer in your company with a devkit is not too much to ask for.

And why should I get the devkit? I am not a developer and don't run a business.


I'm in no position to tell a person how to run their business and how to manage their finances and neither do you.  So don't use what you've said as justification to sugar coat a potential problem for some developers just because you're an Xbox supporter.



JRPGfan on 08 October 2015
foodfather said:
The price is not expensive, simple as that. Its just developers with an agenda (and posters too by the looks of it) who are complaining.

If indies really do find it expensive, good, less shovelware.


Oculus Rift was 300$ for its Dev Kit.

Its alot cheaper, and safer (bigger market, lots of VR headsets starting selling) to develop for VR than AR like hololens.

(I ll bet my right nut its a hundred times easier to code, for VR than AR too, since you basically just have a normal game, and set camra ingame to be the headmovement) (so its easy to make 1 game, that works both normally on a console, and also for VR, the same isnt true for AR)

I know for big devs, 3000$ is probably pocket change, but for small indies... that price could hurt the amount of developement it gets.



jlmurph2 on 08 October 2015
Normchacho said:
the-pi-guy said:

The devkit is actually super cheap. 

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sony-slashes-ps3-development-kit-cost/1100-6183089/

The PS3 devkit cost about 20,000$ when it came out. 

Still about 2000$, 3 years later. 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/90414-Sony-Cuts-Price-of-PS3-Dev-Kit-by-80-Percent

It sounds like $10k is typical for a 360 devkit too.  

From what I hear prices like these are very typical. 

The context here is very different though. There is a huge difference in the amount of risk involved when developing for the next Playstation or Xbox compared to developing for a tech that is still a rather large unknown.

The big factor will be whether MS sees fit to give them out for free. The PS4 dev kit was roughly $2500 but Sony gave tons of them out to smaller devs for free.


I was corrected on this recently. PS4 and Xbox dev kits are around $5000