http://www.vg247.com/2011/07/12/sony-gaming-industry-will-stall-if-we-dont-support-garage-devs/#more-185775 

Innovation’s not dead. It’s just moved out of its ritzy bump-mapped mansion into a rustic forest cottage getaway. Or something. It’s smaller now, is what we’re saying – but no less important. In fact, according to SCE chief Shuhei Yoshida, the gaming industry absolutely needs smaller garage developers to simply stay alive – let alone thrive.

“As an industry, we have to support those smaller teams, and let them try out their ideas,” he said to Develop. “Without doing so, the whole industry will stall, in terms of innovation.”

In that spirit, Sony’s building its upcoming PSVita with an eye toward the iPhone crowd – that is, smaller developers in need of cheaper dev kits, touch tech, and digital distribution.

“Having the capability to sell their games on the network is key to giving those smaller teams an opportunity to come up with ideas, and sometimes invest their own money to come up with something special and have their projects meet with millions of users,” he explained.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wonder just how small the developers he's talking about are. Are we talking small indie teams or garage developers? Still, it's always nice to hear that Sony is continuing their support of the indies.

And I'm not sure innovation would really stall, but I think it would slow down noticably without the small developers creating games, so it may be a slightly exaggerated, but the point remains valid I think.

interesting, thats what they need to do offer cheap affordable engine thats easy to use and open it avaiable to sell games at a few dollars each. Then partner with Google and offer free games with ads. Then give free dev kits to the top notch mobile developers and get them on board with the system.

A good Digital distribution system that is managed well and reasonably priced is what is really required for the psv to get the ipod touch crowd.

Great Job SONY! Im glad they understand that hopefully VITA and PS4 are designed with helping them out in mind.

SONY is really starting to sound like a leader again, maybe they still do have it..

Cheap 5 minute long throw away games should be a key to counter smartphone gaming imho.

The main thing stalling innovation is the patent system. Everyone suing everyone else as soon as someone is making money.

Galaki said: The main thing stalling innovation is the patent system. Everyone suing everyone else as soon as someone is making money.

Very Far from the Main truth( its actually very hard to prove infringement in a Videogame remember Fire Emblem vs Tears to Tiara?), if that was the main Case more then half wouldn't be exist. Lack of Innovation comes from alot of more prominent issues like Fanbase catering( japanese company's suffer this issue), Money grubing( if somebody told activision they sell 20mill selling the same game from this point on..they would do it) , wrong game design values( lots western developer suffer from this, the confuse things like graphics or story as a game design element when its not, so we have dumbasses like Ubisoft asking for new consoles because they feel they maxed out graphics)

True, but making small and cheap games is not a solution as many developers are thinking. Just think to an iPhone situation on the next gen consoles, who would buy a full retail game when with the same money could buy 50 out of the 300.000 games? That's a situation which could happen if they try to take too much elements from he smartphone market...

Xxain said: Galaki said: The main thing stalling innovation is the patent system. Everyone suing everyone else as soon as someone is making money. Very Far from the Main truth( its actually very hard to prove infringement in a Videogame remember Fire Emblem vs Tears to Tiara?), if that was the main Case more then half wouldn't be exist. Lack of Innovation comes from alot of more prominent issues like Fanbase catering, Money grubing, wrong game design values( lots western developer suffer from this, the confuse things like graphics or story as a game design element when its not, so we have dumbasses like Ubisoft asking for new consoles because they feel they maxed out graphics)

Innovation in general, not just gaming. Gaming is not affect (yet) since they can't get much money from suing the devs. They sure as hell are using the hardware part. i.e. 3DS screen

Good that they significantly lowered the production cost for their console then, compared to the PS2. Job well done, Sony.

This is exactly why I look forward to games from companies like DontNod...new small devs = great ideas

another great example would be Sound Shapes for PSV, one of the most unique titles I have ever seen