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Forums - Sony Discussion - How much does a PS4 dev kit cost?

Because Sony is making it easier than ever for indie developers to make games on their systems, I googled the price of a PS4 dev kit to see what a Playstation self-publisher would have to pay in order to get a game on the nextgen system.  I didn't find much (didn't go too deep), but one of the first articles I came across stated:

"Yoshida explains the cost is still a hurdle and isn't sure 'if it's cheap enough for those indie guys.' His suggestion to indie studios is to explore the PlayStation Mobile platform, because it doesn't require the purchase of a dev kit as it is "totally software driven.'"

http://www.psu.com/a018466/

From this statement, I'd deduce that fewer less-established indies will make it to a home console than the indies with proven track records who have made enough money to make the investment.  I'm wondering what kind of figure we're talking about that is "still a hurdle" for indies?

By the way, this is  my first VGC thread started even though I've been on the site for a little bit.  I chime in on other's posts sporadically and you may (or may not) associate my name with long drawn out posts, haha.  Just saying hi, and sorry to all those who've had to scroll down past the blobs of text I've written.  I'm not much for small talk, but I love to debate!



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The best article about self-publishing.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/196253/When_selfpublishing_on_PlayStation_4_heres_what_to_expect.php

The DevKit is not that expensive I guess... the prices will be close to the PS3 DevKit.

Launch: $20,000
2008: $10,000
2009: $2,000



Oh wow, thanks. That's not a lot for an indie who has a clear vision and team to make something of it. They could just take out a loan if they didn't have 20k sitting around. But I doubt many will dabble with nextgen devkits on their own haha.



some are given out for free



$1,000,000 dollars muah hahahahahahahaha kidding of course.



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danasider said:
Oh wow, thanks. That's not a lot for an indie who has a clear vision and team to make something of it. They could just take out a loan if they didn't have 20k sitting around. But I doubt many will dabble with nextgen devkits on their own haha.

I think... I'm sure in that one... that most indies with a good projets received the DevKit withou pay anything (free) like the ones behind The Witness and Warframe... and possible all the indies devs that Sony showed at E3.

Take a example...

The Soul Saga guy have a lot of conversation with Sony and Nintendo to port the game to PS4, Vita and Wii U... and at the end it just asked more $10,000 to buy de the devkits and make the ports... he said it will work for free... so he was just asking for the money to make the ports happen (I think costs to buy the devkit, etc... the code will be made for free by himself).

So I think just sell the DevKits at full price for the second or more DevKit or for projects that they don't see future... most cases the first DevKit is free or with really good deals.



sniper989 said:
some are given out for free

Yeah... if the project is good Sony give the first devkit for free I guess... most Indies games showed in E3 used free devkits for sure.



That's good news to hear Sony is giving away free devkits. I'd love to work on a game in the future (not anytime soon). Of course I have lots to learn and I feel I barely have gotten much real programmer experience in my computer science program at my University. I'm barely a novice, actually haha but this kind of news works as good motivation to really practice and get better.



I wouldn't be surprised if Sony has some kind of deal like if the indie dev agrees to put their game on the IGC Sony gives them a free kit.



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danasider said:
That's good news to hear Sony is giving away free devkits. I'd love to work on a game in the future (not anytime soon). Of course I have lots to learn and I feel I barely have gotten much real programmer experience in my computer science program at my University. I'm barely a novice, actually haha but this kind of news works as good motivation to really practice and get better.

There are a lot of tools in PC that makes easy conversion for consoles after... so you can start on PC, send some good things to Sony and mayve receive a DevKit to finish your work... so you only need to make the conversion from PC to PS4 (if you use the right tools is automactly).