Sony and Microsoft betting heavily on free-to-play for next-gen

- Mark Rein, VP of Epic Games At a recent roundtable discussion at the Game Horizons conference in Newcastle, UK, Mark Rein of Epic Games confirmed for audiences that Sony and Microsoft were both poised to make a big play on mobile monetization models on their new consoles. "Sony and Microsoft are both going heavily in that area," said Rein. "I'm telling you what they're telling developers." Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida had previously confirmed in Game Informer that Sony is working on a free-to-play title for the PlayStation 4. "We are developing a free-to-play type of game, but we haven't announced it yet," Yoshida said. "We don't have any subscription-based games in development, but we are not crossing out any type of game; if it makes sense for a particular project, we'll look at adopting different models." Sony also previously announced Blacklight: Retribution - a recipient of the same Pub Fund resources which previously supported Minority Media' Papo & Yo - as a free-to-play title for the next-gen console. "Overall, we are increasing investment in the digital side of development, either through digital titles like Journey that we've been doing, but also trying to add more service-based models to our games going forward," said Yoshida in the same interview. Via Joystiq.