Sony Offers Universities PSP, PS2 Dev Kits

via Gamasutra

Sony has announced PlayStation-edu, a new initiative that will sell PS2 and PSP development kits to universities for students to learn engineering and programming skills on real-world console and handheld hardware.

The announcement came via Sony's official PlayStation.Blog, where senior developer support manager Mark Danks said the company wanted to ensure "students who are graduating from college are ready to program on PlayStation hardware."

Danks clarified the program was meant for "computer science and engineering students who want to understand how the hardware works in the PlayStation consoles," and not more general game design or art programs.

Paying university partners can get access to both PS2 and PSP development kits, as well as "development software... and the SDK to learn and experiment with."

"Participants will get demo code and samples, as well as documentation about how things work," Danks added, and noted that "students in PlayStation-edu will have access to our support web site where they can talk with other students in the program on our forums."

But seriously, Who will own the rights?

The Student, the University or Sony?

Just seems like a way to screw homebrew.

Aristotle says Tyrants should know where everyone is at.

So, the School will buy a liscence? So, the school will have publishing rights, not the student. And Sony gets a piece of the pie.

And I thought professors stealing theseis was a bad thing: Universities steal all the time.

Sorry to rain on an otherwise nice and quiet parade.