Develop Day 2: Sony's History, Self Publishing & ID@Xbox - Article

Tweet

With day 1 finishing strong, day 2 was set to be even bigger, with big names like Andrew House (SCEI Manager) and Mark Cerny (Crash Bandicoot, PS4 lead architect) opening the second day of talks with a keynote on 20 years of PlayStation. 

As with my previous article, I’ll go through some of the bigger talks that took place on the second day of this year's develop conference. 

Sony's PlayStation Brand & PS4 Titbits

The day started off with a talk between industry veterans Andrew House and Mark Cerny on the last 20 years of PlayStation and its future. The talk was fairly frivolous, but some interesting titbits were revealed in regards to the initial conception of the PlayStation itself and the PS4’s design. Apparently, when the PlayStation was in development and had the codename “PSX”, many in the business thought that it was just going to be a toy, and a fad, and shouldn’t be considered a proper product. Numerous business figures also told Andrew House (who became an instrumental part in making the PlayStation the success we know today), that the system was a toy, and that the whole industry was just toys. Andrew thankfully wasn't convinced by these arguments, and as a result, helped create one of the pillar stones of Sony as a corporation that we know today.

Another thing we found out during the talk was that the PS4’s hardware plan started off with just one design. Andrew told the designer he wasn’t a fan of it, citing that it didn’t incorporate the “DNA” of PlayStation, and gave some advice to go back to the drawing board with. The designer came back with 5 separate designs, all of which Andrew said could have easily been perfect. He finally picked two designs, commissioned them, and kept them in his office for a week, inviting close colleagues into his office to help him decide. He said one of the biggest factors in his final decision was considering which design he would most like to show off at E3.

Mark also weighed in on some questions relating to the PlayStation Camera being taken out of the final retail package for the PS4, saying that it was a “no-brainer” on whether to include it in the package considering the cost of the HDD and RAM. Andrew and Mark both kept reiterating that it was all about consumer choice rather than forcing consumers to have everything (a mistake they probably didn’t want to repeat after the extreme cost of the PS3).

When asked about certain decisions the two made with respects to the amount of RAM in the PS4, they stated that it was huge decision that would cost the company billions, so it wasn't something they decided on lightly. For example, originally the platform had 2GB of RAM. This was then raised to 4GB after speaking to video game developers, who asked for more, and eventually they implied that with the competition offering 8GB they also decided to opt for the same amount so that developers could throw what they liked at the platform without worrying about overheads. 

Xbox One Development Made Easy with ID@Xbox

This talk was presented by Martin Fuller, an engineer at the Xbox Advanced Technology Group, and was centred around the hardware and software of the Xbox One that allows indies to make games on the platform. Interesting pieces of information coming out of this talk include the fact that developers have access to 6 of the 8 cores the Xbox One has, and only 5GB of the 8GB it ships with.

Martin reiterated the points made yesterday that the whole process of ID@Xbox is free for developers, from start to finish. Indies are currently provided with two Xbox One Development kits, as the Developer Switch in retail units still isn’t finished. 

How to get Published - The Do's and Don'ts

Nicoll Hunt of I Fight Bears gave a fantastic talk on how to get kickstarted and what to do if you find yourself with a successful studio. Nicolls' talk involved his game being played during the presentation. Nicoll comically told the assembled media what to do when your game is criticised (the F word may have been used many times), and gave very specific information on the sales his game had so far accumulated, something quite rare from developers of any game.

Straight after this talk, Caspar Gray of Unfriendly Ghost gave a comical presentation on how NOT to get funded by publishers, including many examples of what he himself has witnessed during his time in the industry. Some of the advice included: be the jack of all trades, be over-confident in your game idea, trash talk other studios, and be terrible at negotiation. 

Another note-worthy presentation was made by Peter Field on how he conceived the levels in The Last of Us to make players use the core mechanics of the game to further explore the narrative.

All in all, Wednesday's presentations reinforced the ideas that were briefly touched on the previous day.

More Articles