Developers Lose Money From Dynamic PS3 Themes

The world and his donkey can’t help but be disappointed with Firmware 3.0. If it’s not SD-resolution fonts it’s those bloody ugly grey bars behind all your friends, but hey – at least we’ve got dynamic themes, right?  Well, not here in Europe, but that was expected.  As far as I’m aware there’s only three dynamic themes currently available on Japanese and American Stores – the cute Sackboy-based LittleBigPlanet one, the Pixeljunk Monsters one and the free Afrika one we told you about first.

So if Firmware 3.0 has one saving grace it’s that we’ll now be inundated with stacks of these dynamic themes.  Well, perhaps not, if Q-Games’ Dylan Cuthbert’s comment on the US Blog is anything to go by when replying to a reader complaining about the $3 price tag.  “Remember that we’ll be lucky to sell even a few thousand themes,” he said, “and so the cost of developing the theme (3-4 weeks of coder/artist time, checking, testing etc) will still far exceed any money we make from it.”

The Pixeljunk Monsters dynamic theme was the first one ever produced, with Cuthbert’s team behind the whole thing. “We’re proud to say that this is a system we were involved in developing. SCE wanted to spice up the background a bit and static pictures just didn’t cut the mustard. So we collaborated with them to make a system where developers can display what they want and animate and move them around. This definitely adds a little life to the PS3’s background so be sure to try it out.”

Q-Games were also instrumental with other aspects of the XMB, including the planetary music visualisers that play with you stream some music from your harddrive.  Dylan also confirms on the blog comments that the PSP title Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe should be available next month, and we’re hoping it’ll be in time for the Go’s launch on October 1st so we’ve got something else to download and play inbetween bouts of Gran Turismo PSP.  Can’t wait.

Via PSLS, thanks TctclMvPhase.