Author: by Staff, Katherine Schoback

In his "Developing for PlayStation Network" lecture at Nordic Game Conference, SCEE European account manager George Bain presented an overview of the opportunities available and necessary approval processes for developers to independently create content for its Home service. Bain prefaced his lecture by nothing that the Home SDK version 0.5 would be available worldwide in June. Developers don't need a PS3 devkit to create Home lobbies or content, and all assets could be created in Maya, although studios will want to preview it on a PS3 debug kit. Bain said Sony is encouraging not just publishers but developers to get the Home devkit so they can self-publish on the networked 3D service without a publisher. While reticent to fully disclose pricing policies for content sold on Home by developers, the general notion was that the standard Sony royalty does apply, with Bain confirmed that "the developer gets the lion's share." Bain also said Sony expects that non-game companies, consumer product companies, for instance, will want to create branded lobbies in a similar way that they do in Second Life, and added that if a developer is registered with the Home SDK, Sony will refer consumer outfits to developers for content creation. Content on Home does need to go through the same concept approval processes by territory, said Bain, meaning separate approvals were needed from SCEA, SCEE and SCEI if the content is meant to go worldwide. But, he added, Sony will be rolling out a worldwide approval process later this year, which will apply to Home content as well.