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Game Informer: Shuhei Yoshida talks PS4 (also indies can self price/publish)

beast786

Member
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/02/21/interview-shu.aspx


Immediately after the PlayStation 4 press conference, we sat down with the Sony president of worldwide studios Shuhei Yoshida to discuss the new controller, the ambitious self publishing service for developers, and the expansion of cross-play functionality.

With Jonathan Blow being here, you kind of addressed how you are going to look at an indie market. Can you tell us a little bit more about that plan?

Yeah. Last year, the game awards were swept by games like Journey or The Walking Dead. More people and media are excited about small games. This trend is going to continue. Console games on the big stage are just going to keep getting bigger and bigger, but it has been brutal for the mid-range titles. It’s all about $60 million or $100 million budget games. If we just continue doing it as an industry, you won’t see lots of new and exciting stuff that much, especially for those young people wanting to come into the industry. They need to learn by being able to make games of their own, and have creative control. The same goes for the consumer. We work with people like Jenova Chen. They are so creative and think outside of the box. We learned, and our producers learned from them how they approach games.

Is Sony going to give these teams and people a new pricing structure? The biggest fear that indie people have had is the barrier for them getting into game development.

For the people that self-publish, it’s their product. They are the publisher. They are free to set the price from free to, you know, $30. It’s their fee. For independent publishers we work with, we are the publisher, so we make the final decision, but for our store, it’s very easy to set the price for each product, and it’s easy to make promotions or bundles. It’s very easy to do.

You showed us how you could use the Vita as a second screen in your living room. Is that local only, or is there any ambition with Gaikai to use that as a server and get further away in the living room?

Technically speaking, it works from anywhere, as far as you have a wi-fi connection from your Vita to the PlayStation 4. It needs to be wi-fi. However, for some games, when you play or connect from far away, it accumulates latency. Some games may not be playable, like fighting games or shooting games. But some other slower paced games will be playable. As long as you have home routers anywhere in your home, you can play every PlayStation 4 game. We ask developers when they finish the PlayStation 4 product and submit a master to make sure that they have the appropriate controller mapping to work on PS Vita. All games will work – unless it is a dance game [laughs].

You talked about the new streaming technologies and being able to start playing downloads and demos immediately. There was no mention of physical media. Is that still planned for PlayStation 4?

Oh yeah. It’s going to be Blu-ray based. The same as PlayStation 3.

As far as the games you are working on, we didn’t get a Gran Turismo, which is kind of a classic reveal for Sony. Is that still as series you are looking forward to releasing?

Working toward this event has been so much fun. I’ve never had this amount of speculation. Everyone has a list of 20 things they want to see at this event. This is just day one. We have more days ahead.

You showed the camera and how it works with the controller. Are you packing in the camera with every PlayStation 4?

We are not talking about the final compilation or pricing or the release date right as of yet.

You announced a new Killzone game. Is the development team bigger or is the same size as the Killzone teams for PlayStation 3?

We’ve been supporting some of the studios to grow. Many of you already know that studios like Naughty Dog moved from one team in a studio to a multi-team studio. Our studios are growing. As far as individual titles are concerned, because of the production values you can put into PlayStation 4, games can be larger. Comparing Killzone: Shadow Fall to Killzone 3, I think the number of people working on it is slightly larger, but it depends on the title.

Is your plan that the Vita is kind of a PlayStation 4, where it supports similar titles much like Sound Shapes? Cross-play has worked well. Can you push it further using streaming?

What we’ve been doing on PlayStation 3 has been experimentation. We like the idea of cross-platform play and the ability to continue from Vita to your home and play against each other. We will continue that. It was difficult to get PlayStation 3 to do more things because the system was made eight years ago. We’ve been working closely with the PlayStation 4 system software and hardware games to make it easy for developers to do this.

Media Molecule’s demo was amazing. Can you tell us a little about that game?

They totally approached what PS Move does. It is a robust 3D input system. We’re not talking about motion gaming at all. They used the Move’s 3D input capability with their new, groundbreaking way to render images. You can just go in and create like you are playing with Play-Doh. So when they are talking about sculpting, they are not talking about professional 3D graphics, they are talking about artists molding or children playing.

Is that the same Move controller you can buy now?

Yes. That works with the new camera. It’s going to be better because the new camera has higher resolution and has two fields. The two cameras are good for augmented reality games. On PS3, the vision was a bit blurry, right? Now, it’s in HD. One camera is dedicated to getting the best picture of you on the screen, and the other camera can work with PS Move. That’s how we use different cameras. More to come. [laughs]


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

Self publishing probably was one of the biggest change in Sony philosophy , something apple got right. And could get some exclusive indie stuff for PSN, as these indie developers can usually concentrate at one platform at a time. The witness as stated benefit from first self publish PS4 title .. http://leviathyn.com/games/news/201...-the-witness-to-be-self-published-on-the-ps4/

Seems Sony has learned to adjust with time
 
Out of everything, this is the most important part that the media/people on forums/etc... should probably learn to deal with and understand:

As far as the games you are working on, we didn’t get a Gran Turismo, which is kind of a classic reveal for Sony. Is that still as series you are looking forward to releasing?

Working toward this event has been so much fun. I’ve never had this amount of speculation. Everyone has a list of 20 things they want to see at this event. This is just day one. We have more days ahead.

It's going to be a loooooong year. Also +1 on supporting more indie titles.
 
For the people that self-publish, it’s their product. They are the publisher. They are free to set the price from free to, you know, $30. It’s their fee. For independent publishers we work with, we are the publisher, so we make the final decision, but for our store, it’s very easy to set the price for each product, and it’s easy to make promotions or bundles. It’s very easy to do.

Very big news.

This just made PSN a much more attractive and open platform in comparison to Xbox Live. Microsoft needs to follow suit or loosen their restrictions or they face losing support from more and more indie developers.
 

Drencrom

Member
Is Sony going to give these teams and people a new pricing structure? The biggest fear that indie people have had is the barrier for them getting into game development.

For the people that self-publish, it’s their product. They are the publisher. They are free to set the price from free to, you know, $30. It’s their fee. For independent publishers we work with, we are the publisher, so we make the final decision, but for our store, it’s very easy to set the price for each product, and it’s easy to make promotions or bundles. It’s very easy to do.

Great news, indie games are always welcome
 

beast786

Member
Very big news.

This just made PSN a much more attractive and open platform in comparison to Xbox Live. Microsoft needs to follow suit or loosen their restrictions or they face losing support from more and more indie developers.

As I stated in OP, this is huge. this is the philosophy what really made the " App Store" a big success.

Sony is learning to open its platform. The first sign was steam integration from portal and now this. I was shocked how they just said it in theconference as if it was not a big deal.
 

Takao

Banned
I'm struggling to see how that's any different from the current PSN structure ... You have been able to self-publish, and AFAIK set your price for ages ...

Yoshida provides a better response to Gamasutra:

I understand that the PS4 is accessible from a development standpoint -- once you are a licensed PlayStation developer. What I'm wondering is if Sony is lifting any restrictions, perhaps? Or making it easier for a smaller developer to get onto the PlayStation 4 than it was for the PlayStation 3?

Yeah, that we really want to do. We believe in smaller developers. They are very creative and they go out of the norm to do something really amazing. So we really want to make it easier for them to come to our platform and publish. And we know there are many things we can do, in talking with these guys and asking what they want us to do. And one effort we've been doing in that context is the PS Mobile platform. That doesn't even require the purchase of a dev kit. It's totally software driven, and they can develop games… on PC, for example. And once you decide to publish it, you want to test it on the final hardware, but you don't have to acquire a pricey dev kit.

The approach to PS4 we're internally working on is, I hope to see somewhere in-between the current model that we have on PS3 and the PS Mobile totally software-driven model. We could continue and go and expand the PS Mobile approach, but the beauty of developing games on console is we allow the developers to go really deep into the hardware, and to unlock the potential. And so in order for us to do that, the developer has to have the dev kit to work on. So at least initially, we have to provide the dev kit to make games on PS4.

I just want to make sure I understand what you said, you said your vision for you want to go with that program is somewhere between PS Mobile's open accessibility and the PS3's closed gates, somewhere in-between?


Yeah, that's our direction.

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/1870...st_open_console_promise_mean.php#.USaMkHf4URq
 
As I stated in OP, this is huge. this is the philosophy what really made the " App Store" a big success.

Sony is learning to open its platform. The first sign was steam integration from portal and now this. I was shocked how they just said it in theconference as if it was not a big deal.

Indeed.

One has to wonder what Microsoft are thinking right now. They can't realistically keep the status quo of strident restrictions on self publishing games and pricing on Xbox Live.

I sincerely hope they are looking at this closely and gauging feedback/opinions from indie developers, to not do so now would be an indication of extremely poor foresight.
 
Indeed.

One has to wonder what Microsoft are thinking right now. They can't realistically keep the status quo of strident restrictions on self publishing games and pricing on Xbox Live.

I sincerely hope they are looking at this closely and gauging feedback/opinions from indie developers, to not do so now would be an indication of extremely poor foresight.

They can as long as indie games sell more on their platform. PSN doesn't have anything that sold like Minecraft. So any changes that MS makes will be of their own decision and not something that they were forced into.
 

daoster

Member
I thought the Self Publishing part was pretty big, but didn't seem to gather that much attention on GAF...maybe the OT topic was talking about it, but it was moving too fast to follow!
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
I thought the Self Publishing part was pretty big, but didn't seem to gather that much attention on GAF...maybe the OT topic was talking about it, but it was moving too fast to follow!

There too many things to nitpick like.........it's not iOS or they didn't blow their load :p
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
They can as long as indie games sell more on their platform. PSN doesn't have anything that sold like Minecraft. So any changes that MS makes will be of their own decision and not something that they were forced into.

Minecraft would never happen on Xbox. Never.
 
They can as long as indie games sell more on their platform. PSN doesn't have anything that sold like Minecraft. So any changes that MS makes will be of their own decision and not something that they were forced into.

Minecraft is a phenomenon, it would and will sell well no matter what the platform.

Sony's main problem this generation was content discovery and advertising, they seem to have addressed this implementing a dashboard that might eventually or will allow for advertising of content from the very first day PS4 PSN goes live.

They've also implemented a feature whereby the console automatically downloads content that you might like based on your purchases.

These two should work well in promoting and increasing awareness of games on PSN.
 

Oppo

Member
Yoshida said:
We ask developers when they finish the PlayStation 4 product and submit a master to make sure that they have the appropriate controller mapping to work on PS Vita.

As an aside to the main topic – this in particular is really nice to read.
 
The approach to PS4 we're internally working on is, I hope to see somewhere in-between the current model that we have on PS3 and the PS Mobile totally software-driven model. We could continue and go and expand the PS Mobile approach, but the beauty of developing games on console is we allow the developers to go really deep into the hardware, and to unlock the potential. And so in order for us to do that, the developer has to have the dev kit to work on. So at least initially, we have to provide the dev kit to make games on PS4.

What does this mean? Eventually smaller devs that don't need the raw hardware horsepower would still be able to produce PS4 titles without purchasing a devkit?
 
GAF I'm scared. PS4 sounds too good to be true.

We've been here before with the vast and outlandish promises with the PS3. My advice? Take everything with a very light pinch of cynicism and don't become too attached to everything we've heard about over the last 24 hours, at least not until the console is out and is confirmed to do everything they've said it will.
 

Withnail

Member
So it's the same as current PSN then?

Edit: in respect to self publishing and pricing which has been the policy of PSN since day 1.

The most interesting part of that interview for me is the Mm stuff. I think people were a bit sidetracked by the Wii Music comparisons but what they were showing was tech that will enable a true 3D next gen version of LBP.
 
Is Sony going to give these teams and people a new pricing structure? The biggest fear that indie people have had is the barrier for them getting into game development.

For the people that self-publish, it’s their product. They are the publisher. They are free to set the price from free to, you know, $30. It’s their fee. For independent publishers we work with, we are the publisher, so we make the final decision, but for our store, it’s very easy to set the price for each product, and it’s easy to make promotions or bundles. It’s very easy to do.

Interesting, maybe they will change the pricing policy on PSM to allow for that as well.
 
I'm struggling to see how that's any different from the current PSN structure ... You have been able to self-publish, and AFAIK set your price for ages ...
Not according to devs like Frozenbyte or Nexon. Both were forced to go with large established publishers to get their games on PSN, and both also brought it up as a stark contrast to how they were able to proceed with the same games on eShop.

Unless you mean the Minis Ghetto?
 

Withnail

Member
Once again self publishing has been a feature of PSN since day 1. It's the reason why games like Machinarium, Oddworld Stranger's Wrath, Dyad, Papa & Yo etc are de facto PS3 exclusives.

Most people seem to think they are talking about getting rid of the certification process for PS4 but it doesn't mean that at all.
 

bobbytkc

ADD New Gen Gamer
Sony has been notoriously hard to work with for smaller developers.
Hopefully they will change their ways with the PS4.

Sony hard to work with for indies?

I think you meant Microsoft. Jonathan Blow's issues with MS's draconian certification process is the reason why witness is debuting on the PS4 first.
 
Anyone ask him about

- If online play is going to paid

- If they are doing anything to make it easier for developers to Patch there games and release games across regions on PSN?
 
It feels like a new Sony, they "get it" all of a sudden. The PS3 struggling was the best thing that could have happened to them.

I do think they learned some lessons and get it now. Hopefully they can evolve in these aspects with staying true to who they are. I am excited for them and the future of the PS4. I think they are setting themselves up to be very successful, although they still need to execute on things like marketing, etc..
 

Takao

Banned
Anyone ask him about

- If online play is going to paid

- If they are doing anything to make it easier for developers to Patch there games and release games across regions on PSN?

Shu has hinted that they want PSN to be a bit more like PSM than it currently is. PSM features a single global submission process, which means if SCEA approves your game, it's approved for release in SCEJ, SCEE, etc.
 
Most people seem to think they are talking about getting rid of the certification process for PS4 but it doesn't mean that at all.

Takes some of the positive wind out of the sails for this news. The certification process has been a nightmare for those living in the EU.

Trine, Trine 2, etc. We still don't have Counter Stike: GO. Unforgivable.
 

Dwingvatt

Banned
Is Sony going to give these teams and people a new pricing structure? The biggest fear that indie people have had is the barrier for them getting into game development.

For the people that self-publish, it’s their product. They are the publisher. They are free to set the price from free to, you know, $30. It’s their fee. For independent publishers we work with, we are the publisher, so we make the final decision, but for our store, it’s very easy to set the price for each product, and it’s easy to make promotions or bundles. It’s very easy to do.

Your move Microsoft.
 

sublimit

Banned
The most interesting part of that interview for me is the Mm stuff. I think people were a bit sidetracked by the Wii Music comparisons but what they were showing was tech that will enable a true 3D next gen version of LBP.

Indeed.I'm surprised so many people failed to realize the true potential they showed with that tech.
Personally i was never really interested in LBP and one of the main reasons for that was the 2D restriction (i'm not a very big fan of 2D platformers anymore) but with this new tech if they give us a 3D space to work on oh boy...the sky is the limit.
 

aeolist

Banned
The next real question is if they charge for patches and/or force a lengthy cert process for every update

I know they won't make it all the way to being Steam-like but they need to get as far down that road as possible
 
D

Deleted member 80556

Unconfirmed Member
Oh god, we have another one.

Yoshida: [laughs]

I would love an interview with Iwata were the only piece of interview is:

Iwata and Yoshida: laughs

Anyone ask him about

- If online play is going to paid

- If they are doing anything to make it easier for developers to Patch there games and release games across regions on PSN?

I think that some important questions have not been done. Or at least, are not specially emphasized.
 

Hex

Banned
I would love an interview with Iwata were the only piece of interview is:

Iwata and Yoshida: laughs



I think that some important questions have not been done. Or at least, are not specially emphasized.

They would not have been answered.
Why can people not understand this.
It does not matter if people ask about the online system and pricing, they will not be ready to answer it yet and will not answer it yet.
 

Liamario

Banned
We've been here before with the vast and outlandish promises with the PS3. My advice? Take everything with a very light pinch of cynicism and don't become too attached to everything we've heard about over the last 24 hours, at least not until the console is out and is confirmed to do everything they've said it will.
I have to agree. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is- unfortunately.
 

eot

Banned
Sony hard to work with for indies?

I think you meant Microsoft. Jonathan Blow's issues with MS's draconian certification process is the reason why witness is debuting on the PS4 first.

No, I mean Sony. Not that MS have been a shining beacon of indie friendliness, they screwed Team Meat on their promised promotion, but Sony wouldn't even return their emails despite them having a PS3 devkit and a working version of SMB. You can believe what you want, but ultimately what they did with the PS3 won't matter if the step it up for the PS4. I hope Blow showing up is indicative of that but we'll see.
 

GMM

Banned
We really need some information on the entry price for indie developers. Will there still be a need to buy a 10.000$ development system, or will we be able to register PS4 units to run privately signed software that was made using an SDK everyone could access for something like 200-500$?
 
Sony hard to work with for indies?

I think you meant Microsoft. Jonathan Blow's issues with MS's draconian certification process is the reason why witness is debuting on the PS4 first.
All 3 had major issues last gen. Nintendo had an insane royalty payment threshold, Sony charged publishers for bandwidth, Microsoft charged for 2nd+ patching. All 3 had rough publisher requiements, various certification hoops, slow ass turnaround, price guidelines and ridiculous release "scheduling".

Nintendo, and now Sony, have seemingly fixed most of those issues this time around though. We'll see what MS does.
 

Corto

Member
I really hope they develop an easy to work with SDK without the need of a hardware dev kit. The architecture of the PS4 being so similar to a PC would make it simple enough to achieve I would think. Make PS4 as easy and streamlined as possible to develop for.
 

AzaK

Member
Sony hard to work with for indies?

I think you meant Microsoft. Jonathan Blow's issues with MS's draconian certification process is the reason why witness is debuting on the PS4 first.
That or he's just paid a tonne for exclusivity.
 

ant1532

Banned
Technically speaking, it works from anywhere, as far as you have a wi-fi connection from your Vita to the PlayStation 4. It needs to be wi-fi. However, for some games, when you play or connect from far away, it accumulates latency. Some games may not be playable, like fighting games or shooting games. But some other slower paced games will be playable. As long as you have home routers anywhere in your home, you can play every PlayStation 4 game. We ask developers when they finish the PlayStation 4 product and submit a master to make sure that they have the appropriate controller mapping to work on PS Vita. All games will work – unless it is a dance game [laughs].

this sounds a little sketchy too me.
 

Corto

Member
That or he's just paid a tonne for exclusivity.

Blow already said in an interview that zero money was exchanged. Of course marketing and publishing on Sony's platform will be dealt by Sony, and that's a cost that Blow doesn't need to worry about. But, that was a given.
 
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