The first generation devkit PS3s cost something outrageous like 10000 dollars and were the size of large pizza boxes IIRC (shrunk from three pizza boxes stacked

The first generation devkit PS3s cost something outrageous like 10000 dollars and were the size of large pizza boxes IIRC (shrunk from three pizza boxes stacked on top of each other - eventually they shrunk the devkit down) and has some pretty stringent requirements to acquire. On the team I worked on only the graphics developer got a PS3 devkit, the rest of us lowly programmers got PS3 test kits, that allowed us to deploy/debug but without the same level of support tools, I think it was the same situation with the XBox 360 but the Microsoft developer tools were excellent even with just the test kits. I vaguely remember the cost of the test kits being double or triple the retail price of a regular console, and we had to warranty my test xbox 360s quite regularly since they would red circle of death.