Some of these questions will be abit noobish so i thought i better post it in the beginner section =D PSN in my eyes is the top place for indie developers to get there name heard and be truley innotive..Some examples of this are flower and Linger in shadows.. My idea is to make a small game for the playstation community,by the playstation community..I have no money so it seems unlikely that this could work..But i thought if we could come up with some good concepts for sony maybe they could support us =D My understanding is that Playstation is a hard platform to program on,therefore do you think a small team of about 5-10 work to make a small community game using just the internet to communicate? Could a team be payed using a share of the profits if any? Am i chasing a dream or is this possible? This is just a dream at the moment but i am really interested in it...

Given you apparent definition of "indie," I'm surprised you have this opinion of PSN. Microsoft, via XNA and the Xbox Community Games program, provides a much better option for the kind of indie developer you are talking about.

Pretty much anybody can get a game on the 360 via the community games program, provided they have the capability to develop the game and the money to pay for creator's club membership (which is about $100/year). It's vastly easier than getting something on PSN, which as far as I know still requires you to a registered Sony developer -- a major hurdle for the type of 'indie' you're talking about.

What you'd need to do is build the game on the PC, and then prepare a pitch and such to Sony or another publisher, deal with all that marketing and licensing stuff, and then port the game to the PS3. Assuming you got permission.

Giving the amount of failure points and issues that are basically beyond your control and/or extremely unlikely to go your way, a PSN game is much less likely to ever become a reality for you than a 360 game.

Quote:Original post by jpetrie
Given you apparent definition of "indie," I'm surprised you have this opinion of PSN. Microsoft, via XNA and the Xbox Community Games program, provides a much better option for the kind of indie developer you are talking about.

Pretty much anybody can get a game on the 360 via the community games program, provided they have the capability to develop the game and the money to pay for creator's club membership (which is about $100/year). It's vastly easier than getting something on PSN, which as far as I know still requires you to a registered Sony developer -- a major hurdle for the type of 'indie' you're talking about.

What you'd need to do is build the game on the PC, and then prepare a pitch and such to Sony or another publisher, deal with all that marketing and licensing stuff, and then port the game to the PS3. Assuming you got permission.

Giving the amount of failure points and issues that are basically beyond your control and/or extremely unlikely to go your way, a PSN game is much less likely to ever become a reality for you than a 360 game.

ah ok so say i manage i get together a team of people who are prepared to work for nothing..We then make the game for pc then ask sony or microsoft to endorse it..Do you think i could do this with an extremely low budget ?

Quote:
ah ok so say i manage i get together a team of people who are prepared to work for nothing..We then make the game for pc then ask sony or microsoft to endorse it..Do you think i could do this with an extremely low budget ?

It is quite unlikely. Besides, what do you mean by "endorse it," exactly? They won't port it for you, even if they were to consider the game so amazing that they would be willing to arrange a developer licensing deal.

XNA is what you want here.

Quote:Original post by Wilex
Do you think i could do this with an extremely low budget ?

For the PS3, no way. Just getting a dev kit is a multi-thousand dollar investment. Becoming a licensed developer means giving money to sony and, frankly, isn't possible for an indie developer. You need multiple shipped titles (or at least your game must already be very successful on the PC) for them even to consider allowing you to give them tens of thousands of dollars. For the PS3: time + many shipped titles + very slim chance for a license + thousands of dollars = game on PSN

For the 360, absolutely. You can get XNA free and start developing on your PC also free. You can have a game up and running before you need to spend $100 to get it on the 360. For 360: time + $100 = game on the creators club marketplace.

Though a radically different platform, the iPhone offers a similarly low bar for indie developers: time + $100 => app on the iTunes app store.

-me