SCEE's Bain discusses opportunities with Home
SCEE European account manager (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe European? that's a little redundant and repetitive) George Bain recently gave a talk at the Nordic Game Conference on "Developing for PlayStation Network". Most of his lecture was in regard to the opportunities available with PlayStation Home, as well as the necessary approval processes to get stuff onto it.
He announced the Home SDK version 0.5 would be available to devs come June -- they don't need a PS3 dev kit to build stuff on Home, rather, on Maya. Sony, said Bain, is encouraging not just publishers but developers to get the Home dev kit so they can publish some stuff on Home without the need of another publisher in the mix.
He spoke about the whole "well, how much money would Sony get with the content?" question and to the relief of many smaller developers, the standard Sony royalties apply, but the lion's share of the revenue goes right into the hands of the developers.
Branded lobbies were also mentioned (like in Second Life). This way, even non-software companies could dip their fingers in the future of online matchmaking slash fake life slash digital downloading slash useless stuff. So, who knows, you might get to wear those Express low-rise jeans after all in Home.
So, what can we expect now that these little comments are out there? Smaller developers making some games for Home, less of a sting with going through a publisher who then goes through Sony, and branded lobbies as well as branded content. Sounds like a lot of potential, so let's keep our eyes open for more information. With that in mind, who here was invited to the second phase of the Home beta?
