Polygon recently did a investigation of their own, to find out how much it costs for indie developers to create games for the PS4.
They spoke with many different indie developer companies and found out that the PS4 dev kit costs $2,500.
An Xbox One indie developer says that their kit costed a few hundred dollars but Microsoft refrains from telling the public the exact amount. It has been estimated that the PS4 dev kit is $2,000 more than the Xbox One’s dev kit,
Even with the price of $2,500 ,Sony has been lending out the dev kits for free to use for a year. Currently, there is no PS4 dev kit being sold and Sony has been sending all their good stuff to their most favored developers.
One developer says, “All the indies I know got them for free. Sony has been amazing about kits and development thus far.”
Sony seems to not care about collecting the costs, they are more into getting their stuff there by loaning their kits. Another developer portrays it as, “They are handing them out like candy.”
A Sony representative states, “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 adapting and embracing new publishing rules to allow for more creative freedom for developers.”
The representative goes on to say how loaning out the dev kits will be beneficial.
“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.”
There are different types of dev kits, ranging from different prices, but the $2,500 package seems to be the most popular selection of them all.
Sony does not plan to change its policies on developers being able to self-publish and name their own price. They even have a page on their website where anybody can sign up to be a registered developer for Sony.
The Sony representative continues to say, “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.”
Tell us in the comments below, what you think of Sony’s move with indie developers.