PlayStation Vita development costs 'closer' to PSP than PS3

Games on the PlayStation Vita are more often compared to PS3 titles than PSP, which could make developers wary of high development costs. But in a Gamasutra interview, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida has reiterated that the smaller screen and assets make it more in line with the company's last portable system.

"Michael Denny [Worldwide Studios Europe VP] has said that development costs of a Vita game is closer to a PSP game," said Yoshida. "I wouldn't say it's the same costs as a PS3 game but when you compare to what our teams spent on Blu-ray based PS3 games it's much, much less. Part of that is that because the screen is smaller and the media is much smaller in terms of a card, so developers have to be smarter to create the asset. ... So that helps to reduce the development costs of Vita games."

He also claims that making the development transition easy was a major goal, and some developers had a game concept up and running after only "a couple of months." Yoshida confesses that the company "didn't do a good enough job creating the proper interface to really play games with graphics in 3D" on the PSP. "The lack of a right analog stick, for example." He says this was the motivation to include various interfaces on the Vita, like the touch pad.

Finally, Yoshida said that the PlayStation Network hack was a "difficult experience" due to the company's online strategy. "If the same kind of issues happen further down the road the impact would be even larger because more and more of the value that we provide through Sony devices will depend on the health of our Network services."