The following is a summary of a recent Japanese article about PS3 developer support. The full text in English can be found here.

The battle between the PS3 and Xbox 360 for Japanese developer support is similar to the recent Japanese general election. The industry is waiting to see whether Ken Kutaragi’s commitment to hardware evolution will result in a victory for Sony, or whether Microsoft will succeed in garnering more development support for the Xbox 360. The initial investment required for Playstation 3 development is reported to be as high as US $17.6 million – a figure which is causing many Japanese developers to think twice about developing for the PS3. Microsoft is certainly gathering support from software developers and game creators for the Xbox 360 console, and it remains to be seen whether Sony’s PS3 will wind up positioning itself as a Macintosh in a PC world. Whatever the outcome, it will certainly be a hard-fought battle for supremacy in the Japanese console market.