How can I buy the XBox 360 and PS3 SDKs?

Question

Does anyone know how I can purchase the above SDKs? Calling the standard Sony / Microsoft Sales numbers does not seem to get me anyone who knows what I'm talking about.

Answer 1

Firstup the SDKs are free, though not publicly available. If you're really keen you can probably find them floating around on torrent sites. They're interesting but of little use without any actual hardware..

So I suspect your real question is "how can I buy development hardware?"

Devkits are only available to approved developers and publishers, and cost substantially more than the consumer hardware. A simple test station (runs unsigned code) can cost several thousand, a full devkit is in the region of $10k. (they used to be around $20k but things are 'cheaper' now).

To have any chance of purchasing you need to become a registered developer, which ranges from "hard" to "impossible" based on your company, your track record, & your publisher/financial backing. If you're a new developer without either a publisher or an extremely good demo your chances are effectively nil I'm afraid.

One alternative is to look at something like XNA studio which allows you to develop on the consumer Xbox hardware, and possibly sell your game via Xbox Live later. This is one way you could create a demo to try and attract interest, though you may later have to port from C# to C/C++ if it's to become a 'proper' Xbox or Xbox Live Arcade title.

If you're interested here are the links;

http://www.scedev.net/common_licensing_info.php

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/dev/regdev.htm

http://creators.xna.com

Answer 2

You cant just purchase them. First you have to register with either company, and then once approved, you have to fork over $20K+ in order to buy the unit. For MS, I would try one of their XNA sites