1. This is good news as cheaper development labour resources should result in cheaper prices on the PlayStation Store.

   However, I am not looking forward to the day that the copper wire carrying all the InterWeb traffic between the UK & India breaks & every outsourced call centre can no longer cope with demand.

   Investing in countries actually in Europe would be an equally worthwhile venture, but I’m probably in the minority with this viewpoint.

   BFN,

   fp.

   
   Comment by fanpages — Sep 19, 2008 @ 3:28 pm

2. @fanpages

   No you are not the only one with that view point.
   Don’t hold your breath about the cheaper psn games. The only thing that will lessen is the quality and the only thing that will increase will be the Sony profit margin. A good example would be all the major companies that have their call centres in India, the services that these companies provide have not got cheaper in most cases, but the quality has deteriorated. Profit up, quality down, that’s the way they roll baby!

   
   Comment by manley — Sep 19, 2008 @ 3:43 pm

3. Ahh… Indian call centres, total bane of my life to ring, and I am of “indian heritage”
   (think that speaks volumes)

   Scee is actually been investing in the industry over there and funding new studios for a while now, some of the games are just going to be localised for the Indian market and not see the light of day outside the country…

   As for outsourcing, its going to be bulk coding thats done to cut down dev time here in the west, only problems I see is, we don’t know what the quality of QA will be like and thus how many bugs will slip through…

   Could just make development time just as long as it is now. That said the new upstart devs now, could be the killer coding ninjas of the “next” gen. PS4 games could owe a lot to the investments SCEE is making now, only time will tell…

   
   Comment by Mr. Monkey — Sep 19, 2008 @ 4:16 pm

4. Ohh and no, Last Man Standing wasn’t made in India, the dev video “was” a parody, but you will be surprised some took it as serious…
   *rolls eyes*

   If only there was a way to harness peoples stupidity and use it as a power source…

   hmmm… think I am on to something there…

   
   Comment by Mr. Monkey — Sep 19, 2008 @ 4:25 pm

5. @manley
   I had a much longer rant typed out but then it was too long to read and likely based too much on the great time I had in India. The short of it was I’ve been there as a trainer in a call centre and found the problem was not with the people themselves but how our companies set up their operations there and conducted them thereafter.

   They can work but as with poor operations anywhere the problem there is not proper investment. And I mean that in terms of time, money, training, sustainment and in general not considering the people.

   So saying it will be just like with call centres is a bit of a narrow view, that sounds like an argument based on your own negative experiences. I’m not saying your not totally wrong though could still be true but Mr.Monkey I think is a bit closer to where the issue will lie.

   If the QA for the outsourcing of western coding is setup properly (there is no question if there is talent there) then we will not notice. If SCEE treat India in the same way I’ve seen other companies treat it, as a quick’n'cheap solution then yes there will be problems.

   However you can use the same argument about pretty much any industry in any country - and this most definitely includes ours.

   
   Comment by Shrui — Sep 20, 2008 @ 7:05 am

6. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
   I’ve worked with India software development companies and it’s a nightmare. Expect poor quality, buggy software, that misses deadline by months. Of course you could argue that already happens, but trust me that will be nothing compared to what it will be like. Some IT firms are ‘returning’ from India because of these problems.

   
   Comment by Rub69 — Sep 20, 2008 @ 12:10 pm

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