GDC: Sonys Plan to Lure in More Exclusives

Sony plans to bait in more developers into creating games exclusively to the Playstation Network by helping fund their development. Interesting and very sneaky at the same time, a very nice generosity wouldn’t you say?

The devs will get financial assistance via the Pub Fund and in return, Sony asks for exclusiveness. Really not that bad of an offer if funding is the biggest issue. Sony has no plans of buying the titles, the IP rights nor any control of the game what-so-ever.

It’s very arguable how this may effect developers but we hope to see many new games blast off and bring out the potential from developers. It would certainly be a great cause to the gaming industry. The first game to take advantage of the deal is Doublesix’s Burn Zombie Burn, which goes live via the PlayStation Network today. Sony has indicated it’s “looking for many more great titles” to take advantage of the fund.

Chris Eden, Sony’s development relations manager explained at the GDC:

“It’s all very well for us as platform holders to say, ‘Put all your money into PlayStation Network, it’s a fantastic idea,’ but are we prepared to put or money where our mouth is? The answer is yes.”

“We’re looking for a number of great games, and in return for exclusivity we’ll match your development budget with guaranteed royalties. A really important thing to point out is that this is not first-party publishing, this is not Sony buying your product.”

“You’ll be the publisher, you’ll own the IP and you’ll control your product. This is assisting you to make your next step from developer to publisher.”

Although this may suck a bit Xbox and Wii owners, but” hopefully” it does bring out a bigger variety of games and maybe even some really big hits. It’s a great opportunity for small or new developers to really get into the business from a developer into a publisher.

http://www.gossipgamers.com/gdc-sony...re-exclusives/

Sony does seem to be doing more things right lately - making the development tools cheaper, promising more support, etc. This is a good step, too. I still wonder about the PSN publisher download charge, but it's nice to see Sony putting some effort behind marketing the PS3 to developers.