Yoshida says the PS4 will be more open to indie development than PS3 was

Last night, Sony's Mark Cerny used the phrase "most open console" to describe the PlayStation 4, and Gamasutra sat down with SCE Worldwide president Shuhei Yoshida to ask him exactly what that means.


Specifically, he was asked if they are trying to make the PS4 a more accessible platform for the indie scene. And he said this:

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.

We all thoroughly enjoy the PC indie scene, so if they can get more of those folks into console development, more power to them.

There is much, much more to Gamasutra's talk with Yoshida. I dare say it is an enthralling read, in fact. You should go look at it.

Thanks, SplatteredHouse.