Playstation Development: An Academic Opportunity.

2. PlayStation Development:
An Academic Opportunity
Bruno Matzdorf
Resource Development Program Manager
Sony Computer Entertainment America

3. Agenda
 The Video Game Industry (some definitions)
 Landscape for Development on PlayStation
 PlayStation-edu Program
 Developer Incubation Program

4. Not talking about…
 Commercial aspect
 Sales
 Rolling out PlayStation
 Movies, Music, Electronics
 Other divisions

5. SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment)
 Sony Corporation ~ 160,000 employees
 Sony Computer Entertainment ~ 6,000 employees
 SCEA ~ 2,000 employees
 A percentage of Sony Latin America Affiliates’ time

6. Some quick definitions
 Platform Holder
 Developer
 Publisher
 e-Publisher

7. Platform Holder – PlayStation

8. What is a Developer
 A business that profits from making games
 A team that can go from pre-production through
production
 Creative, engineering, art, test, production

9. What is a Publisher
 A business that profits from bringing games to
market
 Risk Management
 Distribution, Marketing

10. What is an e-Publisher
 A Developer that Publishes its own game via Digital
Distribution

11. PS3 Business in North America
 1 Console (PS3)
 ~ 100 Publishers Retail
 ~ 150 e-Publishers
 ~ 250 PS3 Developers
 ~ 120 Tools and Middleware Providers
 ~ 25 Incubators

12. The PlayStation Developer Community in
the Americas
 ~ 250 PS3 developers
 ~ 200 PSP developers
 New Opportunity – Digital Distribution
 Current developers are very busy with other
platforms
 Working on building a developer community in Latin
America of about 80 developers

13. History
1995 2000 2003 2006
PS1 PS2 PSP PS3
CD DVD UMD Blu-Ray
GTE EE / VU OSD CELL (PPU/SPU)
IOP Online RSX
GS Wireless
C / Asm C++ / Asm C++ / Asm C++ / Asm
Scripting OpenGL Scripting
Middleware Middleware

14. PlayStation-edu
SCEA (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
March 2011

15. Program Goals
 Aid the steep learning curve for a PlayStation
console
 Building relationship with SCE
 Building a curriculum that will seed the development
community

16. Developer Incubation Program
SCEA (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
March 2011

17. Incubator
 A game developer
 An established business
 Interested in exploring PlayStation development
 Ideally graduates to a PlayStation Licensee (A
PlayStation Developer)
 ** Can NOT submit games to PlayStation team
 ** Can NOT Publish

18. Game Development Cycle
Pre-Production Production Alpha / Beta RTM
Licensed Developer

19. Game Development Cycle
Incubation Pre-Production Production Alpha / Beta RTM
Opportunity!! Licensed Developer

20. Sign-up Process for PlayStation-edu and
Incubation Programs
 Discussions between SCEA and Academic / Incubation Entity
 PSP/PS2/PS3 Application
 NDA
 Academic License / Incubator TLA (Tool Loan Agreement)
 Aligning goals for program and curriculum integration
 Educator access to the PlayStation-edu / Incubator access to
Developer Network (aka. DevNet)

21. Key Message
There is a clear need for embedded engineering
talent with experience on the PlayStation platforms.
This program is not targeting game creation, but for
engineers that want to understand how the hardware
works in the PlayStation consoles.

22. Other SCEA programs of interest
 Developer Program  Licensee for PlayStation
 Tools and Middleware Program
 Developer Service Provider Program
 Comics Aggregator Program
 PSHome Developer Program
www.tpr.scea.com