14 DAY TRIAL // Sony says that the indie revolution much of the gaming industry has been expecting is already happening and the PlayStation 4 is one of the devices that will benefit from a lot of releases coming from small studios.
Shahid Admad, the senior business development manager at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, believes that indie titles will become a driving force for sales on next-gen consoles and are changing the way major publishers are delivering their own content.
MCV quotes the executive as saying that, “When the power structure shifts to the content creators, the old buildings might still be standing but there’s new people in there. New content creators, with new ways of doing things. That’s what’s happened to PlayStation.”
Admad says that Sony understood that it had to work with indie developers in 2012 when it needed to find a way to deal with the limited appeal of the Vita handheld.
Since then, the company has tried to create a new way of working with small teams, giving them all the resources they need to port their titles, embracing Unity and Game Maker and acknowledging that there’s strong competition coming from mobile devices.
The executive adds, “Operating in an environment of trust was the only way to work. We’ve forged open and friendly relationships with developers – in fact our relationship with developers are better than they have ever been.”
Ever since the PlayStation 4 was announced, Sony has explained that it wants to launch as many indie titles on the platform soon after launch, including The Witness from Jonathan Blow.
Since then, Microsoft has also announced a special initiative for smaller, downloadable title for its own Xbox One.
The new Sony platform will be available in Europe on November 29 and is set to launch in the United States tomorrow, for 399 dollars or Euro.