Remember Sony’s claim about wanting to make the PlayStation 4 more developer-friendly? Well, they recently announced that Sony Computer Entertainment has partnered with Unity Technologies to offer Unity for PlayStation, a version of the multi-platform game engine optimized for PlayStation devices, including the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation Vita, and the PlayStation 4.
If you’re a developer and are licensed to make games for PlayStation consoles, this means your Unity-based games will be made available on the PlayStation Store and will be available on Sony’s future cloud services. In addition, you’ll have access to the Unity Community, which will give you access to lots of information and other resources, and the Unity Asset Store, which offers tools, assets, and other things either free or at a “nominal cost.”
If all of this sounds familiar to you, that’s because Nintendo announced a similar partnership with Unity about a year ago for the Wii U. This, along with a couple of other reasons, is why the Wii U has become super-popular with the indie scene. If Sony can match or exceed what Nintendo has to offer in terms of attracting independent developers, Nintendo might be in a bit of trouble. Unity for PlayStation is set to arrive this fall, so we’ll see how this all plays out.
