At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, SCEA's development relations manager Chris Eden announced a new initiative which it is calling the Pub Fund. In return for PlayStation Network exclusivity, developers will have their development budgets matched by Sony via guaranteed royalties.
"It's all very well for us as platform holders to say 'put all your money into PlayStation Network, it's a fantastic idea', but are we prepared to put or money where our mouth is? The answer is yes," Chris Eden, Sony's development relations manager, told an audience at the Game Developers Conference today.

Eden added that Sony is not buying titles directly from developers, and IP rights and control of any games will remain in the hands of the teams that create them.

"A really important thing to point out is that this is not first-party publishing, this is not Sony buying your product," he said.
The first developer to make use of the Pub Fund offer is DoubleSix. Its first game -- Burn, Zombie, Burn! -- is set to go live on the PSN anytime now.

DoubleSix's Burn, Zombie, Burn! only on PSN.



Bryn says: This is a great incentive for small developers to sign over their game to the PlayStation Network. It greatly cuts down the risk and associated costs, providing that the game performs.

I can't imagine that the Pub Fund is any real immediate threat to Microsoft's XBLA inner workings, but it's great to see Sony step up and offer some financial help for the PSN platform.