Sony to fully fund indie games for Vita, for exclusivity

[Hard core Rikki]

This might be very interesting for indies counting on ingame transaction or ingame ads, especially if you already have the SDK anyway.
The exclusivity requirement is also not permanent, meaning you could put back the game in other marketplaces like XBLA/Steam after the period expires. word is it could be as little as just 1-2 years.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...-Vita-projects

PlayStation exclusivity window for Pub Fund 'only a year against Xbox'
Sony Computer Entertainment America wants indie games on its new PS Vita handheld and hopes its pub-fund program can allure more developers.
The Pub Fund is a Sony initiative to match the development costs of a game project in return for exclusivity.

Games that have taken advantage of the scheme include Explodemon, Joe Danger and Burn Zombie Burn.

Ted Regulski, manager of SCEA Developer Relations, said the PlayStation exclusivity window was not permanent. Usually it means one year against Xbox, although Sony is willing to negotiate PC releases.

He said Sony was in particular looking for projects that highlight the unique features of the PS Vita, such as its dual touch-screens or gyrometer tech or its 3G capabilities.

But all ideas will be considered, he told an audience at GDC.
In a bullish start to his GDC talk, Regulski said Sony was “the only major console publisher to allow self-publishing”.

“There are others but they have publishing rules that aren’t much fun,” he said, “and there are no weird limits you have to hit in order for us to pay you”.

He also went on to claim that PSN offers a better royalty rate than what Nintendo and Microsoft offers, though didn’t reveal any numbers so the claim cannot be verified.

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[runawayprisoner]

Uh, yeah... so we can get more crap games on it? Awesome.

[SCHUMI_4EVER]

Is it me or is Indie not longer Indie if it has Sony standing behind it?

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[lagunareturns]

Originally Posted by runawayprisoner

Uh, yeah... so we can get more crap games on it? Awesome.

what crap games, all so far on Vita are good especially Tales From Space: Mutant Blob.... i understand that ps3 has some not so good ones but this is ps vita

[@ruantec]

*@ruantec rubs hands* thank you for the info Rikki!!!

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[Hard core Rikki]

Originally Posted by SCHUMI_4EVER

Is it me or is Indie not longer Indie if it has Sony standing behind it?

Its only timed exclusivity, like with Xbox Live's downloadable and retail titles. Its something MS started originally, but didnt necessarily contribute the whole budget, just part of it (this was abused by some large studios, essentially gaming the system to make games meant for other platforms later down the road in the first place).

With console indies considering Steam, iOs and Android marketplaces increasingly, Sony likely felt catering to the easy spending crowd that used to hoard 'PSP Minis' would be a good bet for easy exclusives, given how very cheap funding those would be and how much money succesful ones can make.

Minecraft's coming to Xbox too, so it had to do something to obtain exclusives to at least sell the digital side of the platforms (the Killzone 3 and Dust 514 free games are another way to get device owners to connect them to PSN).
Thing is, you cant force anyone to make PSN ports of their existing games, and existing games also cant be made exclusives to PSN, so youre really down to offering more favorable terms than the competition to drag them away from XBLA. A ton of PC's best indies originated from console indie channels and found success there, like Shatter.

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[SCHUMI_4EVER]

I know it's only timed exclusivity but I'm sure there will be additional criteria to be met so that Sony doesn't just fill their digital quota with shovelware that took an hour to make that cost them $20 to some random moron so one will still have to dance to Sony's fiddle a bit and then you're no longer Indie.

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[Hard core Rikki]

He said Sony was in particular looking for projects that highlight the unique features of the PS Vita, such as its dual touch-screens or gyrometer tech or its 3G capabilities

This makes it evident they are particularly interested by games that would be difficult or impossible to port to other platforms, hence here the focus on dual touchscreen rather than just normal touch-enabled games (who could be easily ported to ios/android/3ds).
The interest criteria also guarantees that releases would be new games specifically programmed with these features from the beginning, or enhanced ports of existing games. No quickport job.

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[SCHUMI_4EVER]

Well that then just makes it even more obvious then that it's not really Indie.

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No$GBA DS FAQ 2.0

Get it right fools! The glass is HALF-EMPTY, not half-full!!!

!!! WARNING: Emulation requires a brain !!! WARNING: Emulation =/= Piracy !!!

[Hard core Rikki]

Your game wouldnt be owned or even published by Sony. You self-publish anywhere, just offer timed exclusivity for a budget and much better terms than PSN's past ones and apparently even XBLA's now. XBLA had 2 years at least, no indie funding and charged as high as 40000$ for releasing stupid updates/patches. Even big publishers left their games unpatched due to that.

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