If you hadn't seen the PS9 trailer, you're not qualified for Sony fanboy... 

i thought it's royalties... but it's just the fees you pay for a dev fit.

well, it's better than nothing.

WiiWare is still more attractive to indie developers, due to it's smaller costs and larger install base. Anyway, this is very good news for developers, who want to develope for PS3 and couldn't afford the dev kit. It's a whole different matter then, that can they afford the current price. Still, this doesn't hurt PS3 by any means.

@Rath: Well, it depends how you look at it. I don't think Konami pays any royalties from MGS 4 of Square from FF13. I also think, that every PS3 exclusive has "special contract" about royalties.

@Branco: Yes, PS2 was hard to program for, but it sold like Wii at the moment. Something that PS3 doesn't. PS2 had install base, that made practically everything profitable.

 Ah yes. the PS9 commercial, thinking back on it, i remember seeing it around the launch of the PS2. It was also the time when nintendo fanboys (like you) were saying how the "dolphin" was just going to crush the PS2 upon release..... i wonder how that turned out?  =X

DP

It's true that I prefer Wii over the over 2 consoles, but fanboy is an over-statement.

At home, I prefer the PC. On the run, I prefer the DS. The only reason I picked DS Lite over PSP was portability and the design. 

There are a large amount of games on all systems that I would love to play but lack the time. (Wii being the console with the most games that has my interest)

The PS9 was simply to lighten up the thread but I guess people took it the wrong way...

I really don't think making fun of sony would lighten up a thread in the Sony forums... maybe you said it in the wrong way

The PS2 had some serious design issues as well, but nowhere near those of the PS3, and it was in SD. I'm seriously starting to believe that the reason so many otherwise great recent games (Gears, Heavenly Sword, Uncharted, CoD4) have been so short is the cost of producing HD graphics. I dunno how reliable it is, but someone gave me the following quote a few days ago:

Kazunori Yamauchi (Polyphony Digital) said that it took about 30 days for one person to build the complete model of a single car for a Gran Turismo game on the PS2, compared to 1 day for the PS1 games. On the PS3 it takes 180 days.

In any case, I won't pretend to know the numbers, but this should help a bit. The PS3 is out of indie-developer pricing by design, but incentives to existing developers is a smart move from Sony.

(edit: I thought this meant Sony would halve the amount of money it takes for every third party game, but looks like it they're only starting to sell development kits cheaper. not sure useful this is, since just about every notable developer bought truckloads of these back when it looked like the PS3 would be winning this gen) 

Well, I really wouldn't say HD graphics is the reason why it takes so long. I mean look at the developement time for Twilight Princess and MP3. It's really just the advancement in technology, with more complex physics engines, pixel shaders, AI programming, file compression, HDR, lighting and post processing.... not to mention online fuctions. But most importantly it's all about knowing the platform and finding a way to achieve something close to the target renders. If you're going to make a 60 dollar game that was very expensive to develope for, you have to get the job near perfect and perfection takes time. HD does take alot of the machine's resources though.

In any case, I think we agree that the increased amount of eye-candy on the PS3 and 360 is causing the development of games to become more expensive. Just look at the budgets of last-gen and current gen games, it's not like there's anyone denying it really. There is, in my opinion, sufficient proof to say this is causing games to become shorter/more multiplayer oriented, and I believe it's leading to less truly "different" games, and discouraging developers from deviating from traditional million-seller formula, but ultimately it remains to be seen if I'm just worried for nothing again.

I would argue that the two Nintendo games you mention were delayed for a completely different reason. The Gamecube was pretty much dead by the time Twilight Princess was nearing completion, so the suits in charge decided to bump it as a Wii launch game. This made the fans wait a while longer, but delivered arguably the strongest launch title since Super Mario 64, and gave the Wii a very strong initial momentum.

Kinda like if Sony had decided to not release God of War 2 on the PS2, but instead take the time to upgrade the visuals, and make it a PS3 launch title. The decision to not do so could be called either arrogance at assuming everyone wants to buy a PS3, or confidence in knowing that the PS2 was still selling strong. I would say a bit of both.

As for Metroid, it was scheduled to launch early in the Wii's first year, but what probably happened is that Nintendo saw how the console was still selling out everywhere, and bumped all their major first party games by several months. That's probably why we're getting Smash Bros in 08... damn casual gamers ruining my fun as well. =P