Playstation Development Experiences

Oh well hello there! Thank you for joining me on this thread on this fine sunny afternoon (at my location, sorry if your weather currently sucks).

Would anyone, or everyone applicable, be willing to share their experiences registering for the Playstation Developer Network? The website is a little foggy on exactly what is needed. Some parts are clear, but mainly the requirement for previous releases. I've heard rumor you need one but I'm not seeing it. On this site: https://partners.playstation.com/apex/PO_AccountAppliPTR?lang=en it looks like you just need to have something legit at least in the works.

Also some words on your experiences regarding timeliness, follow-through, etc. Things we should be aware of when starting the process and things to be prepared for.

Thanks in advance for any advice and input. It will be thoroughly appreciate by all who are <= as ignorant as I am.

 

I believe I heard somewhere that Sony's requirements are a little more relaxed than Microsoft's and they're more willing to bring developers into the fray. That being said, part of the program involves signing an NDA so you probably won't get any information beyond the registration process.

 

That's fine. I'm mostly just trying to prep for the registration process. We're in flight on a game and I'm trying to decide now if we should back up, release something small as a demonstration of our "prowess", and then use that as an "in" for our medium sized game, or to just keep pluggin away at our current game and use the demo as our "in".

 

Yeah, the NDA stuff makes talking about much of anything kind of awkward. I can say that I got in and don't have anything beyond a couple of hobby XNA/XBLIG games and a tiny mobile game ever published. So I don't know if it's all that important to have anything to show, unless you have published literally nothing. If you have zero published games, it may well be worth it to release something small at least to be able to list it. It's hard to say what they actually look for. It might not take all that much.

I believe it's listed on the application form that you do need a legal business entity and a static IP address.

It does take some time to go through the process. There are documents to sign that happen in a particular order and you have to wait for them to get back to you at each step. I get the impression that it's much faster than it was at first (they may have had a backlog to deal with back then).

Sorry, I guess that doesn't really answer your question.

 

No way man, that's great. That's exactly what I was asking for. Thanks for the contribution to the thread!

 

Hello guys,

This is a perfect thread for my current situation where I am getting ready to apply for playstation developer program. Playstation asks for a description of planned projects. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to do that correctly, based on your own experience? That would be very helpful.

 

I didn't do much on mine. I put down two games, with just the titles, very short descriptions, planned platforms (I only mentioned the Sony platforms, hehe), and planned release dates.

 

Thanks Steve for your reply! I just sent the application, how long usually it takes to get approve? Can share some knowledge about this? I appreciate your input brother.

 

For me it took around three months to get to step 1, a month for step 2, and then five days for the final step. I believe in the past it could be up to six months each for 1 and 2 though.

 

@Steve Tack, did you have a company or were you applying under some other business structure? The US stuff is clear that you should be a company, the EU stuff not so much.

 

I created a Colorado LLC. Which for some reason only cost me $1. Coupon day I guess.

 

Hah, nice! Mine's going to cost a fair bit more than that.

 

Ya dang. My business cost $100 to register. State of Oregon. Also an LLC.

 

Mine will be around $500. Here it's over $100 just to register a name.

 

O_O Good heavens, man.

 

On a different note, I would like to encourage people to keep this thread going, and of course don't disclose anything covered by your NDA. The information provided thus far has been great. Keep it comin'.

 

I like that this thread is coming alive again. There is not too much information related to Unity3d for Play Station. My LLC cost me $540 and I did it through Legal Soon, a website that is dedicated to do that kind of stuff. That is a lot of time to I have to wait now ( 3 month!) I just filled the application today. Boomer! Anyway, I appreciate any other helpful tips people would like to share about the whole experience on Unity3d for Play Station. Anything would be very helpful to people like me who is starting. I will keep posting here during the whole process as permitted.

Regards

 

Assuming you guys, get in, maybe I can catch you "on the flip side" in the DevNet forums.

I don't know why they're so secretive about stuff. For one thing, they should be open about pricing on dev and test kits. I'd think they'd save themselves some time, as I imagine some folks wouldn't bother applying.

I enjoyed the XNA/XBLIG experience. No NDA's, so you could just talk about stuff on forums or whatever. You could use a retail 360 as a dev kit, and anybody with $99 a year who could pass peer review could get a game on Xbox. Maybe they'll eventually do the "retail Xbox One as a dev kit" thing like they said they would initially.

Probably the closest thing to XBLIG in today's world is the Sony PSM deal. You use a retail Vita as a dev kit, it's easy to deploy to from Unity, and there's no NDA wackiness. The program doesn't even cost anything.

On a side note, I also got in as a Wii U indie, but haven't done anything with it. No legal entity or static IP's required. I've heard it's a real pain in the butt to deal with their dev kits, deployment process, etc.

 

I heard that play station is loaning the dev kits. I really hope this is true because for I have heard the cost would be around $2500 otherwise.

 

"It's classified. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." - Maverick

"Look, there are certain rules I have to abide by. I'm not authorized to communicate with you except... to say I can't communicate with you..." - Agent Simmons

 

I get it. I read those figures in some online interviews. I just hope that the loan path is true.

 

They're secretive because of the competition between the consoles. The XNA/XBLIG path had no NDA because it was largely aimed at hobbyists and not really for professional game development. It existed primarily to scout for potential talent but it also served to bring in more console users.

 

That's the conventional wisdom, but I'm not convinced that allowing a bit of open discussion would be that destructive.

 

Ranpant speculation: The thing is that it'd only be beneficial to the group with the friendlier processes, and only if both parties dropped the NDAs so they could be compared. Nobody wants to go first since there's nothing to gain from that.

Plus, keeping things locked up gives at least some feeling of exclusivity.

 

So far it's been fine but pushing for more discussion about dev kit prices and so forth is under NDA and any serious developer does not want to ever come close to breaking NDA.

 

I'm no moderator but I'd like to ask that we refrain from too much discussion about NDA reasons and policies as well, since I'd like for this thread to be specifically about experiences and the like. The aim is to aid those who are about to go through the process in an attempt to make things go more smoothly and balance expectations. Thanks guys.

 

They're great people to work with, very relaxed and comfortable and no hidden surprises. If you have a product you deem worthy of getting on PS4 I'd definitely go for it.

 

So far my experience working with Sony has been great. I'm happy with things and, although I'm just digging in to working with the PS4 and Vita dev kits I'm looking forward to the future.

Now go and make a game, pronto!

 

Does any of you know how to test games made with Unity on own PS3?

 

You can't. You need a dev kit.

 

Btw, that's what I found on Sony's Developers page (requirements to start developing games):

• Proof of Corporate Entity
• Obtain an Employer Tax ID Number (see www.irs.gov) (Recommended)
• Static IP to access Developer Support Systems
• You must be physically located in US, Mexico, Central America, South America, or Canada

Well, bye bye Europe and indie developers who does not have own company (or are <18).

 

1. I'm in the UK.
2. Sony only deal with companies and people over 18 for a reason, if you can't understand why that would be you should perhaps not bother applying. There's plenty of places you could launch your game on.

 

1. Ok, it's good news.
2. I understand why Sony has it's requirements. But sharing dev kit without any requirements (for practice and testing on own console) and then registration for selling capability would be in my opinion a lot better.

 

You have to be 18 to deal with Sony ....


wat

 

Legally speaking, dealing with minors is difficult/complicated. This is likely their reasoning.

 

What would you say constitutes as a product? I'm looking at an MVP, or short demo. We've almost got our core gameplayer, placeholder art and fist several levels ready as a demo. Do you submit your game in the registration process or do they just take your word for it that you're working on something? We've been waiting to sign up because I was under the impression we'd have to submit some material to demonstrate out "worthiness". Is this the case? I'll apply right freaking now if not, as we have everything else ready to go.

 

You will have to submit a demonstration reel, obviously the game doesn't need to be finished but you need to show the best of what you have.

 

By reel do you mean just some video and screenshots?

 

No an actual demonstration of your game along with cinematics and promo material.

 

Do you have a game published on the PS4?

 

How did you go about putting together your demonstration? I guess I'm curious if this is similar to like a live stream type thing, or if you submitted an executable.

 

Would they work with you if were under 18 but had a company

 

Some days ago I wrote an article on this topic: http://gamasutra.com/blogs/SlawaDeisling/20150223/237040/How_to_get_on_consoles_as_an_Indie.php

 

We made a video, cut down and polished a 2 part demo and put together the sauciest screenshots we could find. It's only about 1% of our actual game but the whole point was to make it as impressive as possible.

There's no more too it really, think of it like you would marketing. In essence you're trying to sell your product to Sony and they will back you if it's done right.

We are a PS partner but not with Unity, we sorted it for Unreal.

 

In what country you can have company while not being 18+?

 

The UK. But the company directors have to be older than 18 though.

 

Oh, interesting. Didn't know about that.

 

Where you from Bro?

 

Poland

 

As many of you probably did, I watch the life event announcing Unity3d 5 the other day. Did I understand wrong or the guy said that now you can start developing on Unity3D 5 for Playstation, instead of the "Unity3d 4.3" that before you had to get in order to develop for PlayStation? That would be great but again I was so excited to hear that, that now I am not sure that it was what he meant... Please.