Sony has made it a priority since the PlayStation 4 was announced to appear as consumer and developer oriented as possible. Its console’s price point, hardware, and focus on games have been one large step. Now it’s taking another.
Under the Academic Development Programme Sony has begun sending PS4 development kits to a variety of qualifying universities. The purpose is to provide “teaching purposes in computer engineering, programming and software development.”
There are many students who begin working on their first game while at university, and often times these games end up being published as indie titles. Sony has shown a strong interest to support indie developers with low-barrier entry and support. At E3, it even reserved a significant portion of its booth specifically for indie titles, with one area in the PS4 section being titled “PS loves Devs”.
At present, development kits are only being shipped to British universities.
