PSP dev tools roll out from SN Systems, Metrowerks

Both SN Systems and Metrowerks have announced the release of their development tools for Sony's forthcoming PlayStation Portable, with ProDG for PSP and CodeWarrior for PSP both now available for purchase.

British firm SN Systems has launched ProDG for PSP, boasting a number of platform-specific enhancements, an in-house developed C/C++ compiler which is designed to optimise code for console architecture, and a completely redesigned debugger.

Metrowerks, meanwhile, has released CodeWarrior Development Studio for the platform, and claims support for Sony's communication protocols, a choice between the CodeWarrior environment or the Visual Studio .NET environment, and an intuitive C/C++ debugger.

Both firms, as you might expect, had senior development executives on hand to laud the release of their toolsets - which are available to purchase for all registered PlayStation Portable developers worldwide.

"CodeWarrior's distinct features include its precise, stable behaviour and its user-friendly interface," gushed Konami production support manager Makoto Yamaguichi. "The fact that CodeWarrior runs with such stability on a brand new platform really distinguishes it from other development tools. Metrowerks has done a great job with the CodeWarrior tools for the PSP platform, and now it's our turn to create great titles that capture the industry's attention."

SN Systems went one better, however - nabbing no less than Sega's R&D creative officer (and Sonic creator) Yuji Naka to sing the praises of ProDG. "ProDG for PSP has rich functions and is very stable while keeping up with fast changes of development environments," he enthused in a statement issued by the company. "Sega is very satisfied especially with the fact that important functions such as .NET integration, fast compile speed, and good GUI of debugger are equipped from the early version."