Sony has announced it's seeking "Expression of Interest" from
universities hoping to get their hands on a PlayStation
4 dev kit.
The dev kits are being awarded as part of the Academic
Development Programme, which is an academic licensing programme
for universities and academic groups that want to use PlayStation
development tools as part of further education.
"The [desire for the programme] came out of staff members also
being graduates and wanting to give back," Maria Stukoff, Head of
Academic Game Development, told Wired.co.uk. "We know the next
generation of talent and the future indie game developers are in
education. It's of huge strategic importance for Sony Computer
Entertainment to provide an environment where this talent can
actually choose the PlayStation as a platform to get their skills
and to create and innovate on."
Current offerings as part of the programme include PlayStation
3, PSP, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation Mobile and Move.me. According
to the official announcement, institutions currently holding one of
the Vita licences qualify for a follow-on license for PS4. "The PS
Vita is the one we want to champion right now and we just got
permission to move up as a natural progression to PS4," said
Stukoff.
"I think one of the really exciting parts is that the SDK
[software development kit] of PlayStation Vita has a lot of
similarities in the operating system and the way it works to PS4."
The compatibility of the systems is part of what Stukoff refers to
as the connected experience where companies with multiple devices
seek to use them in order to offer multiple access points to the
same piece of content or experience.
There are two types of academic programme offered by Sony. One
is the dev kit programme which has been taken up by over 70
universities in Europe and is all about learning skills. Some of
the courses using the dev kit program also set up student-based
companies meaning artists, animators and producers end up with
experience of the development pipeline. Stukoff also says that Sony
offers support services to the students.
The second programme is PlayStation First -- a partnership
programme where the company works with universities that integrate
PlayStation technology far more deeply into their courses. "This
means they teach from the second year onward on our platform just
like any other design school might choose Macintosh as their
preferred computer or have a programming course choose to be
PC-based," said Stukoff. "We get involved to support either their
own IP to be self-published -- so we provide feedback and mentoring
-- or we also work with particular prototyping labs at universities
that help develop ideas that come from our studios and are linked
to our studios."
The business benefits to Sony from this arrangement are clear
and Stukoff doesn't shy away from the fact. "Through PlayStation
First we're able to offer these universities access to PlayStation
Vita and PlayStation 4 dev kits because they are going to be the
next generation of indie developers.
"Our priority with our academic programme is to enable that
talent to start learning the pipeline, getting their IP published
and in that process we may find the next team that will take us on
the long journey in the same way that thatgamecompany was able to
do." Thatgamecompany being the developers that made PlayStation's
Journey.
When asked what happens to these student projects, Stukoff
reveals several are on the cusp of publication. "We are on the
verge of having our first PlayStation Vita game published. It's
more than that actually. One is on the verge of being published and
we probably have another five that will come onto our PlayStation
Network soon. They're our flagship IPs to show what's possible.
What I'm excited about is this will be the first time we really
support our student developers to come onto our platforms.
Hopefully they will set the scene for the future and become our
next generation of indie developers."
