Sony unveils new tools to live on the Edge

[wraggster]

Empowering the development community, Sony has unveiled the PlayStation Edge: advanced graphics tools and technologies for PlayStation 3 development. A meeting on the tools is taking place later today. From the lecture announcement:

"Three first party technology teams within Sony -- the WWS Europe Advanced Technology Group, WWS America ICE team, and WWS America Tools and Technology group -- have combined to create PlayStation Edge, a set of cutting edge technologies for imminent release to all PlayStation 3 developers. Rather than overarching engine, these teams have chosen to create specialized systems that demonstrate best practices of SPU and RSX utilization. A unique tool for RSX performance analysis, extensively used in the turning of first party titles, will also be presented."

Those without technological backgrounds should find Wikipedia helpful. A video of Killzone 2 was shown last night to showcase the Edge technology. We'll be at the Edge presentation, hosted by Vince Diesi, Jon Olick and Mark Cerny, later today.

via joystiq

[mavsman4457]

From what it says it sounds like this is what normal game developers would use like EA or something but it also sounds like it would be available to anyone for free. I somehow doubt that though. There has to be a catch. If not then why would anyone buy devkits from now on? I think I am misunderstanding something somewhere. Anyone know where I'm wrong?

Edit: From what I saw on the video it sounded like Edge would only be available to official PS3 devs that already have devkits and not just the average Joe. If that is true then it would be very disappointing.