Culver City (CA) - Sony has great news for game developers looking to latch on to the Playstation 3 - the price of its development kit is now almost half of what it used to be.

The Playstation 3 software development kit is now available for $10,250, according to Sony. That’s just about half of what earlier reports claimed it was less than a year ago.

In a statement, Sony Computer Entertainment Incorporated said, "As more and more new titles are developed for the PS3 format, SCEI will significantly reduce the price of the Reference Tool in order to contribute to the cost saving measures of the development community."

Since its conception, one of the biggest, and probably most troublesome hurdle has been that development costs were sky high compared to the Xbox 360 and Wii. This move will put the PS3 on a more level playing field for developers.

The price cut is thanks in part to a new partnership between Sony and SN Systems, which specializes in the technical side of video game programming. Much of SN’s technology will become integrated into the PS3 SDK.