Sony is very serious about courting indie developers and helping them put content on the PlayStation 4 when the console launches later this year. Polygon is reporting that Sony is so determined to get indie developers on their side that they are giving them development kits for free for a limited time. Sony is giving away the development kits, which normally cost $2,500, with such vigor that one source is saying that Sony is "handing them out like candy," and another source claiming: "All the indies I know got them for free...Sony has been amazing about kits and development thus far."
Sony released a statement explaining the strategy. Self-publishing was successful in the past, so it's just smart business to give indie developers PlayStation 4 development kits, said Sony.
"Self-publishing has been available on PlayStation platforms for over five years, so it's nothing new...The process of devs bringing their games to market has continued to evolve, and PlayStation has led the charge in adopting and embracing new publishing rules to allow for more creative freedom for developers," said Sony in a statement. "With self-publishing, we keep things really flexible for developers and give them lots of options, including funding through the Pub Fund, which is back-end funding paid upon completion of the game, we waive patch fees for indies and all digital titles and we embrace new business models like F2P, episodic and subscriptions. We've had more than 500 games self-published on PSN."
Sony's stance of giving indie developers free reign over their games has been mirrored by Microsoft, who recently reversed a long-standing policy requiring indie developers to find a third-party publisher for their games. Now Microsoft will not demand this costly step for indie developers, and has announced that the Xbox One can be used as a dev kit, meaning indie developers just need to buy a $500 Xbox One to start developing games for the system. Perhaps this is why Sony is loaning out PlayStation 4 dev kits so freely. Sony's spokesman stated that the company is committed to making indie games one of the key features of the PlayStation 4:
"By and large, indie development has become extremely accessible, especially on our platform...We offer a lot of freedom and flexibility and we've built our in-PS Store promotions around indie titles and their launch dates. Also, we provide indies with additional support like putting them on stage at E3, hosting indie-focused events like our Indie Arcade at GDC, etc. Most importantly, our Developer Relations team has really developed relationships with the devs. They talk daily, offer advice and really advocate for them and their particular needs."
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