Sony to match dev budgets in return for exclusivity

Sony has kicked off a scheme today which will see it match the development budget of self-published games in return for PlayStation exclusivity.

The first game to take advantage of this deal is Doublesix's Burn Zombie Burn, which goes live via the PlayStation Network today, with Sony indicating it's "looking for a great many more titles" to take advantage of the fund.

"It's all very well for us as platform holders to say 'put all your money into PlayStation Network, it's a fantastic idea', but are we prepared to put or money where our mouth is? The answer is yes," Chris Eden, Sony's development relations manager, told an audience at the Game Developers Conference today.

"We're looking for a number of great games, and in return for exclusivity we'll match your development budget with guaranteed royalties," he said.

The scheme, called the Pub Fund, is a realisation of comments made to GamesIndustry.biz last year by Sony's David Reeves, who said that while exclusive deals with publishers is probably a thing of the past, there's scope for such a relationship with the development community.

Eden added that Sony is not buying titles directly from developers, and IP rights and control of any games will remain in the hands of the teams that create them.

"A really important thing to point out is that this is not first-party publishing, this is not Sony buying your product," he said.

"You'll be the publisher, you'll own the IP and you'll control your product. This is assisting you to make your next step from developer to publisher."