Some thirty PS Vita development kits have been supplied to Abertay University in Dundee as part of a joint effort to give graduates more hands-on experience as well as strengthen Sony's bonds with the next generation of developers.
The new development kits, in addition to the PS3 and PS4 hardware already available at Abertay, have prompted the university to claim it now houses "Europe's largest teaching laboratory of Sony PlayStation consoles".
As part of the partnership between Sony and the university, every programming student at Abertay will be given access to the Vita and PS4 development technology.
"The next generation of PlayStation-savvy developers are now in education and Abertay University is at the forefront of bringing young and talented developers to our platform," said Maria Stukoff, PlayStation UK's head of academic development.
"It is these students who will influence the future of video games and we are delighted to work with Abertay University to make this a PlayStation training hub."
Abertay is widely known within the UK industry as a leading education centre for aspiring games developers. Undergraduates in their third year will take part in a major project to build a game.
Two student teams are currently building software for PS Vita with the hope that their prototypes could possibly lead to a commercial game release. One project is a new edition of Velocity, a game series created by Brighton studio FuturLab, while the other will be an entirely new IP.
FuturLab co-founders James Marsden and Kirsty Rigden are advising both teams during their development.
"We think this initiative is fantastic. It's great for us because we're able to effectively triple our workforce developing new prototypes," said FuturLab co-founder James Marsden.
"It's great for students because they get valuable experience working as a project team all the way from concept development and pitching, through to a playable demo suitable for pitching to a publisher."

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