Zombie Studios boss: ‘Sony in it to win it’ with PS4
"Microsoft definitely has a different outlook," says Gerritzen.
Sony has been “very, very proactive” in its relationship with Zombie Studios, company boss Jared Gerritzen told Destructoid at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
Zombie yesterday revealed its free-to-play first-person shooter Blacklight: Retribution would come to PlayStation 4 during a Sony-hosted PlayStation Indie Arcade event at GDC.
“I think Sony is really in to win this one,” Gerritzen said. “I’m good friends with a lot of guys at Microsoft, I’m under their NDA flag, and Microsoft definitely has a different outlook than Sony does. Sony, like they say ‘Yeah, PlayStation 3 wasn’t what we wanted it to be in comparison in the ‘arms’ race.’
“So now they’re going hard, man,” Gerritzen added. “I think that it will be really interesting to see what Xbox fires back with. It’ll be an awesome E3. Sony is just like, ‘GO! GO! GO! Let’s make this hardcore! Let’s get all these devs in and let’s make it as good as we can.'”
According to Gerritzen, Sony is doing more than simply approving projects. They’re offering direct developer support and game promotion.
“They could have just been like, ‘Yeah, put it on the PlayStation 4. Cool,'” he said. “But they’re sending us kits, they’re sending us everything, they’re pulling us into PR groups, they’re setting up these events for us, and it’s just awesome.”
The PlayStation 4 version of Blacklight: Retribution will be the same as the PC version, but with a different experience, said Gerritzen. “Everything” is being redeveloped, including “all of the controls for the controller,” and the touch panel will be utilized in some way. The monetization system will be ‘completely restructured,’ too.
Blacklight: Rretribution is due out for PlayStation 4 ‘a few months’ after the system launches this holiday. Read Destructoid’s full interview with Jared Gerritzen here.