PS4’s Self-Publishing Won’t Lead to a Store Filled with Junk, and Here’s Why

The PlayStation 4 will be a very free and open console for indie developers. Where it was once a hassle to just get noticed by major console manufacturers like Microsoft and Sony, this new generation has proven that dozens of smaller names can not only make their way to home consoles, but the big stage at E3. The PlayStation maker is handing out dev kits “like candy” for creators to work on and self-publish their games, but that doesn’t mean that just anything will appear on the Network. There’s still a gate-keeping process that will prevent the store from becoming a cluttered, quality deficient mess.

Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida hammered this point home in a recent interview with GameIndustry International. Unlike Apple’s iOS store, Sony will have a direct hand in what becomes available for purchase.

“It's a much more hand-made, manual, labor-intensive process,” he explained. “We're trying to make the actual publishing pipeline more automated and easier for everyone to use, but in terms of getting games made on PlayStation… Indie guys typically start on mobile or PC, so we have to reach out to them and say, no, we do want your games on PlayStation as well!

“Once these games are released on PS3 and PS Vita, once they experience getting their games noticed by PlayStation users, many of them say that it's great – that people who have PS Vita, for example, play lots of games, play their games very deeply and purchase their games. Those stories will very quickly be shared because of the network that these people have, which will definitely encourage more indies to look at PlayStation because it could be good for their games as well.”

The PS4 has the strongest lineup of indie games on a console yet, so it looks like the current process is working as intended.