Both Microsoft and Sony are hungry to get indie developers on their side so they'll put out games for their next-gen consoles, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. While the fight's far from over, it appears as though Sony currently has the advantage of luring in smaller developers; Sony's designed the PlayStation 4 to be easy to work with, and Microsoft will not let indie developers self-publish their work. Mark Cerny, the lead designer of the PlayStation 4's hardware, gave his two cents on the indie game market explosion during a Develop Conference interview in Brighton, England.
"I see it that on PlayStation 4, [indie development] trends are going to accelerate. I think we now finally have the proper business structure to really support indie development. And the PlayStation 4 overall user experience is also set up very well for indie; you can share screenshots and videos of the games and elevate their visibility within the gaming community quite easily."
The rise of indie developers could be the deciding factor over which next-gen console is the most successful. While big budget games like Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts will always get the lion's share of attention and sales, the combined weight of indie games represents a sizeable portion of overall revenue the systems can take in. In addition, games such as Journey and The Walking Dead have become some of the most acclaimed games in recent memory, and many consider those games as more worthy game of the year contenders than their big budget brethren.
In any case, Cerny has prepared the PlayStation 4 to try and make it possible for all developers to easily create games for Sony, and port them as well to the Vita. Now it is up to indie developers to continue their recent success in the market and bring the next wave of successful indie games to next-gen systems.
- Contribute to this Story:
- Send us a tip
- Send us a photo or video
- Suggest a correction
