Indie developers prefer Vita development to iOS, Android

Destructoid: "The overwhelming opinion was that it’s a great idea for smaller scale developers to work with the system, for a variety of reasons, one of which is that the market isn’t as saturated as iOS and Android app stores. Additionally, it’s easy to work with. Provinciano had his port of Retro City Rampage playable in a single day, while Frobisher Says took eight months to make, from receiving development kits to submitting a final build. Hogg noted that “as a programmer, it [developing for the Nintendo DS] was one of the most miserable periods of my life,” while working on the Vita has been the opposite. One helpful inclusion is access to Sony’s developer support team, members of which the team included in Frobisher’s credits because of their tireless, prompt assistance with getting the game made."

[sherimae2413]

wow, now the vita is finally getting love, like it! ^_^

[Fistedcupps]

Yea i just bought a vita yesterday and nice to see it getting a some love from developers. :D

[sherimae2413]

you wont regret it oni-chan i assure you that so many games for vita these year alone ^_^

though it will sure destroy your wallet! lol

[thechosenone]

bought mine this morning so far l'm loving it. just picked up PS+ and I'm downloading Uncharted right now for free! thanks PS+! :D

sent from my PS Vita :3

[BraidedWALLACE]

The only games i want from mobile is. Dead Trigger, Modern Combat 4, Shadowgun Deadzone, and N.O.V.A 3. That list alone will keep me Busy on my Vita for some time.

[Yodagamer]

Dead space on my nexus 7 is pretty fun as well with touch emulation XD

[porkChop]

Both Dead Trigger and Modern Combat could do really well on the Vita. There's big demand for a solid FPS but there hasn't really been one yet.

And seeing the kind of graphics they got on Android with a wide range of hardware, just imagine what they could manage with the optimization that's available on the Vita.

[Blank]

They should prefer vita development because those mobile phone app stores im speaking about all of them there really is no real way to stand out they constantly keep getting apps and games added daily atleast with vita or even 3DS your more noticed as for making profits depends on the quality of your game and pricing

[Anon1974]

As an indie developer, I agree. With limited marketing budgets (if any marketing budget) it's a tough slog trying to get noticed on the iphone app store, and with our last game release on android for every one game sold, 20 are being pirated. It's a struggle to make developing on these platforms viable at all.

As for Android versus iOS, it's no contest. Developer for iOS is like casting a voodoo spell. Game doesn't build correctly? Just try it again. Hey, it worked that time! As a programmer, it just kills me that the answer to a program not working right is to cross your fingers and try the exact same thing again and it'll just work. Is it a bug in our code? Is it a problem with Xcode? You just never know and it really doesn't instil a sense of confidence. The toolsets apple provides are just ridiculously buggy. I have no idea how they get away with it.

And performance while developing has proved night and day between Apple and Android. Our last game clicked along easily above 60fps on a 2 year old Galaxy phone and when we ran it on the Iphone 3gs/4 - it struggled to stay above 20 fps. Iphones don't like this audio format over another. They don't like soft clipping. They don't like transparent textures. On and on it'd go. While you could pretty much throw anything at the Android test devices, it was like walking on eggshells to get the game to even run on the iphone. Ugh! And then, god help you if something's wrong with your game and you have to push an update. We found a bug in our first game that we were able to fix and push out on Google Play within minutes of finding it for Android. For apple, the approval process took us a month before we could actually get the patch out to gamers who bought the product. It's ridiculous.

Enough of my rant. You can't really go out as a developer and start bashing development publicly for one platform or another because you're always conscious of biting the hand that feeds you, but it's frustrating. We're looking forward to seeing what Sony and Unity have in store for development as we'd love to take a crack and making a game for the Vita.

[Smashbro29]

Now let's see the memory card prices become fair. I love my Vita but 8 gig is getting me no where.

[masa2009]

Not buying a Vita to play those small-time games, especially since they are already available on other platforms and don't take advantage of the capacities of the platform.

Sony is scrambling to try and rebrand the Vita as an indie game machine and as usual the gaming press is buying what they are selling like sheeps.
They didn't plan the Vita to sell for its indies, and they are only doing that because they have nothing left.

[dedicatedtogamers]

I don't think Sony is "scrambling" since indie, quirky games is part of what made the PSP successful.

What's wrong with rebranding, anyway? Nintendo initially branded the DS as a portable N64 (based on the launch games). It wasn't until it turned into a portable SNES (with the focus on platformers and RPGs) that the DS really took off. Sony initially branded the PSP as a portable PS1/PS2 (based on the launch games). It wasn't until Sony stopped focusing on ports and started making unique PSP games that the PSP really took off.

[SAE]

Agree with you, I want Huge games in it. But Indie won't harm the vita. It will make it better. Wouldn't you prefer playing the walking dead or limbo or worms in vita then ps3 or smart phone ?. It's more practical and reasonable on vita. I go order food and instead of waiting i continue playing limbo or practice in tekken. It's really fun..

[SAE]

Just like what i said. Vita is perfect for indie games.

[Sithlord-Gamble]

Maybe ... but indie games aren't perfect for me.
I didn't buy my Vita to play souped up mobile games ... I bought it for console type games.