PS2 Devkits: Are the Devs still keeping an eye out for more machinery?

[Rustic]

From time to time, equipment still pops up on places like Ebay-

Example-

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Playstation-2-PS2-DEV-TOOL-Developer-Development-kit-/181852000067?hash=item2a57394f43:g:zM8AAOSw~gRV410u

Are they still actively attempting to acquire replacement equipment? At this point, $1000 seems a small price to pay to extend the life of the game- and outside of stuff like "Freshly Picked Vana'diel" I haven't seen mention of the hardware issues that are ending updates for the game.

A little public advertising in the right places might actually help.

[Zarchery]

This is a business. Not a bunch of hobbyists. They don't buy secondhand equipment from auction sites.

[Rustic]

This is a business. Not a bunch of hobbyists. They don't buy secondhand equipment from auction sites.

Considering there's no source for further replacements otherwise, secondhand is precisely how you get more equipment- odds are any previous replacements were sourced from now-defunct companies getting rid of used devkits they no longer used/bought from same going into liquidation from...you guessed it, auction sites.

Every usable piece acquired extends the lifespan of FFXI.

[Alhanelem]

Considering there's no source for further replacements otherwise, secondhand is precisely how you get more equipment- odds are any previous replacements were sourced from now-defunct companies getting rid of used devkits they no longer used/bought from same going into liquidation from...you guessed it, auction sites.

Every usable piece acquired extends the lifespan of FFXI.

I don't think you understand. No major corporation is going to turn to ebay for development equipment. If ebay is the only option, then they don't get more development equipment. Especially considering it would probably cost much more to buy the equipment there than directly from another company with old units to get rid of.

Frankly, I believe the producer and his team want to keep FFXI going in any way possible, it's the bean counters that are getting in the way.

[Zarchery]

Considering there's no source for further replacements otherwise, secondhand is precisely how you get more equipment- odds are any previous replacements were sourced from now-defunct companies getting rid of used devkits they no longer used/bought from same going into liquidation from...you guessed it, auction sites.

Every usable piece acquired extends the lifespan of FFXI.

The link you posted is to exactly ONE development kit. Something tells me that occasionally finding one development kit here and there is not going to cut it for a working, multibillion dollar company.

[Rustic]

The link you posted is to exactly ONE development kit. Something tells me that occasionally finding one development kit here and there is not going to cut it for a working, multibillion dollar company.

That's correct. However, it's not the first so posted or likely the last. It's not like there's a tremendous demand for them two generations of Playstations later, so odds are there's others in private ownership gathering dust. Even half a dozen would likely keep FFXI functional for years given their use more for bugfixing and maint issues vs. new content development. S-E is probably the last developer of official PS2 gaming active in the world, FFXI the last PS2 game still receiving new content- and as they won't rebuild FFXI from scratch due to cost vs reward, the only option is to find cost-effective methods of extending it's service life. That means finding more devkits. S-E is a multibillion dollar company. FFXI has a very small chunk of that pie at this point in terms of development dollars, likewise a small number of people- and a thousand dollars per devkit is chump change.

Of course, the Holy Grail would be actually having access in full to PS2's development data to allow non-Linux kits to be remade and reviving the system entirely, much like many older gaming systems have.

That FFXI could outlast FFXIV -again- would be an interesting bonus. S-E was preparing to put down FFXI with Abyssea, and is doing so again with Adoulin -

[Angemon]

It is just a scapegoat man. This is a billion dollar company... you really think something silly such as PS2 devkits is holding them back? They have the capability to put this game on PC only but it would cost them much more than they are willing to invest. Sadly they want the game to be in this position as they feel the dev's would bring more revenue in through other projects.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

It is just a scapegoat man. This is a billion dollar company... you really think something silly such as PS2 devkits is holding them back? They have the capability to put this game on PC only but it would cost them much more than they are willing to invest. Sadly they want the game to be in this position as they feel the dev's would bring more revenue in through other projects.

This, it's just another excuse they are using, and FFXI's devs love using the PS2 as a reason one way or another.

[Alhanelem]

It is just a scapegoat man. This is a billion dollar company... you really think something silly such as PS2 devkits is holding them back? They have the capability to put this game on PC only but it would cost them much more than they are willing to invest. Sadly they want the game to be in this position as they feel the dev's would bring more revenue in through other projects.

It's not a scapegopat. PS2 devkits are absolutely the problem. They can go PC only but they can't develop new content unless they completely and properly port the ps2 game engine code over to native PC code. That would be a monumental undertaking and probably their remaning dev kits would fail before they could complete the task. The devs themselves said they've obtained many of the last few working dev kits. There are probably legal reasons why they can't or aren't buying the odd ps2 kit that shows up on ebay, partially because the people who have them aren't really supposed to have them in the first place.

Every usable piece acquired extends the lifespan of FFXI.

It would but are you content with the game simply being on life support and every new update depending on whether or not they can find another useable dev kit? It makes more sense to just stop updating it now, rather than say "we have this update in progress but we have no idea when we can get it to you because another devkit failed and we have to search ebay to find another one."

Eventually they will run out and if they haven't ported the game (properly) by that time, we'd still be SoL.

The best solution logistically would be a compatible remake that can use our existing character data. But that was ruled out as too expensive.

[Atomic_Skull]

It's not a scapegopat. PS2 devkits are absolutely the problem. They can go PC only but they can't develop new content unless they completely and properly port the ps2 game engine code over to native PC code.

FFXI is not PS2 code running on an emulator, there is no way the game could have run on PCs back in 2004 if it were. The source code was written for the PS2 but the PC version is native PC code. I suspect what they did is replace the parts of the source code that interface to the PS2 hardware with "wrapper" code for windows and Direct3D before compiling it into machine code. (most computer programming is done using a high level language like C and then compiled for the target platform)

Starting around 2008 SE should have started porting the development tools for content creation to the PC. But from 2004-2010 Tanaka was too busing taking the development budget that should have gone to keeping FFXI running and funneling it into FFXIV 1.0 to create a circa 2006 PC game engine with 2010 hardware requirements that would get thrown into the dumpster.

And that's what really burns me, that they sacrificed FFXI's future for NOTHING. They could literally have NOT started working on FFXIV until 2010 and the only difference would have been that FFXI wouldn't have been left to rot.