In an interview with Gamasutra, SCEA VP for Publisher & Developer Relations Adam Boyes talked about the future of the PS4, including the possibility of bringing something akin to Steam’s Early Access games to the console.

For the uninitiated, Steam Early Access is essentially community-driven development. As described on Valve’s own site, Early Access games “are games that evolve as you play them, as you give feedback, and as the developers update and add content.” Games that have been in or are currently in Early Access include DayZ, Rust, Starbound, and Plague Inc. Evolved, and titles can range anywhere from a near-full retail price of $39.99 to free or free-to-play.

Boyes, in speaking with Gamasutra, indicated that such a program might be a possibility for the PS4, and PlayStation consoles in general, going forward:

 We have a global strike team, plus an SCEA strike team, who are in charge of trying to figure out how to look at what’s happening with early alpha access, or paid betas[.] 

Such a program is not uncommon, and Boyes mentioned that similar things had been done with CCP’s Dust-514 on PlayStation 3. Boyes was asked about whether PlayStation could ever see games that are very early in development find a place on the PlayStation Store:

 That’s one of the massive conversations we have internally — that, at what point does [a game meet standards of release]? We still at some point ensure that we’re being mindful of the consumer. We don’t want somebody to stumble across that title and expect a full product, and have a negative experience. 

In addition, Boyes alluded to the fact that his team is continuing to find ways to make access to the PlayStation ecosystem easier for developers, and has even looked at the possibility of using retail PS4s as dev-kits similar to what Microsoft has planned with the Xbox One. Boyes’ developer relations team has been responsible for bringing some amazing properties to the platform, including major indie darlings like No Man’s Sky and Transistor, so any talk of finding new ways to bring the best and brightest developers, indie and otherwise, to PlayStation devices is music to our ears. For more on the pursuit of great new games for Sony devices, be sure to read the rest of Gamasutra’s interview with Boyes.

Discuss:

Would you consider buying a game that isn’t complete on the PlayStation Network, and providing input to the developers? What kind of pricing model would you expect for such games?