Sony comments on the future of indie games on PlayStation

Florian_HunzikerSome time around July of last year, Adam Boyes, then head of Vice President of Third-Party Relations at Sony Interactive Entertainment, announced he’d be departing from PlayStation in order to get back into game development which is how he originally started out his career. Since that time, his role has remained vacant for a good reason: Boyes brought so much to PlayStation and specifically PS4. With him at the helm, Sony saw a palpable growth of indie developers wanting to bring their titles to PlayStation.

After nearly 6 months without a head, Sony is officially filling in the position with former Harmonix COO, Florian Hunziker, who shared his thoughts on how he wishes to utilize his role at the company:

 I will also focus on making sure our fans know they made the right choice when they chose PlayStation. Its incumbent on us to make sure we’re doing everything we can to maintain a diverse gaming library. I think it is important to provide vibrant and diverse content to PlayStation fans. We want to focus on both huge IPs and smaller developers who are willing to take risks to bring something new and innovative to PlayStation. The industry will thrive from a varied and vibrant development community delivering games that engage and amaze gamers. 

While I don’t know Hunziker personally, it’s clear that Sony has brought on a smart replacement and not just a ‘suit’ to lead the position. After all, who better to deal with indie developers than someone who has worked directly in bringing games to market? Another pivotal space for indie games has been in VR; PlayStation VR launched with over 30 games in October and a big part of those were smaller, more quirky games, many which were exclusive to PSVR.

On the topic of exclusivity, Hunziker had this to say:

 There’s a great deal of creative innovation that would never happen without a first party taking on significant financial responsibility. I’m fired up to be joining a company that’s not afraid to take these risks and bring compelling IPs to market. 

In short, PlayStation exclusives are not going to stop. What do you want to see Hunziker do as the head of Third-Party Relations at PlayStation?

[Via VentureBeat]