According to a recent interview with SCE chief Shuhei Yoshida, Sony is looking to expand its market and embrace independent developers.
Yoshida manages Sony’s numerous in-house studios, and he feels the industry would face a significant loss without the work of independent developers.
"As an industry, we have to support those smaller teams, and let them try out their ideas," he explained. "Without doing so, the whole industry will stall, in terms of innovation."
It seems like this philosophy will be a focal point with the upcoming PlayStation Vita. Yoshida claims the handheld’s dev kit is both simple and inexpensive.
"It is small and light and easy for developers to handle," he said. "We made it so the development kit wouldn’t be too expensive."
In addition, the use of Vita’s touchscreen capabilities is being encouraged. Yoshida claims entirely touch-based games can be created by "using just a small portion of the technology."
Independent videogame development has grown in popularity over the past few years. With that in mind, it should be interesting to see what developers can come up with for the PlayStation Vita when it is released this holiday season.
[Develop]
