Sony Considering Handing out PSP Dev Kits for Free
With Apple enjoying so much success with the App Store for its line of iPod and iPhone products, it was expected that Sony would take an aggressive approach to tap into this popular market. And with the price drop of 80% for all PSP development kits, it’s clear that Sony wants to build up their PSP Minis library fast. But that initial price drop may only be the beginning.
Because Apple’s development kit is free, Zeno Colaco from Sony Europe claims that his company may soon follow suit:
“Further down the line, we may investigate a totally free model or supported model.
There are dangers in having total open access; having six thousand applications where probably only thirty are discovered by the consumer. Some of the developers working on the App Store and PSP Minis tell us that they prefer our approach because they get more visibility.”
Despite the advantages of giving out free development kits, it’s easy to see the benefits of not letting every single programmer or development team the ability to create PSP Minis. But it certainly wouldn’t hurt.
[Source]
8 Responses to “Sony Considering Handing out PSP Dev Kits for Free”
I don’t even know C+ but I would jump on a free dev kit… what’s that tell ya?
@MakaiOokami
As would I. I’m curious to see screen shots of what a product would look like while using one of these kits. Interesting to see what develops.
I do know C+, which means I would definitely be toying around with a kit. Now all I would need is an artist…
an interesting plan if they should act upon it
It would be cool , …….. very cool
IMO it would be better to have a free dev kit and a decent vetting process than using the price of a dev kit as the vetting process. There are a ton of great programmers out there who just may not be able to afford the initial dev kit, but could make some amazing PSP games if they had access to one.
I think “registering” as a developer should give you a dev kit, and then once your game or app is done you should have to submit it to Sony for approval, similar to what they do now for the PSN. They can weed out the crap, but still make getting a game on the PSN a little more accessible.
I think they should just make the free one as a “you have to compile it from source and link it to (only) your PSP”. If you want to sell it then it gets into the moola scenario. That way I can write software for free and distribute the source anyway I want. If I don’t want to make money, why should they care? And if it is source at least there are no tricks that can be pulled by a nefarious developer trying to break things.
PLEASE SONY! DO THIS!
this would be awesome. definitely the way to make a run at iphone’s apps list. i want one please