Console Game Development John Meister Console Game Development Owner and Technical Director How many people use Unity? How many programmers? Intermediate to Advanced talk, but there will be lessons for beginners

Making Games in Lexington, KY Started company is 2011

Agenda Console Development Process Overview Porting Your Game To Consoles Game Certification Becoming An Approved Developer

Process Overview Much easier as indies to get approved for consoles and publish Can self publish on major consoles PlayStation 4 Xbox One Nintendo Switch Used to require publisher

Process Overview Consoles are closed platforms Get game approval and developer approval Sign legal agreements Get access to development hardware and software Game gets tested and certified Platform sells license of game and gives you a royalty

Applying You apply to publish a particular game First time you also get approved as a developer/partner Check content

Sign Agreements Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) Sign Licensing Agreement You agree to let them sell licenses of the game They send you royalty payments You should really sign these agreements as a business Not sure if I can say how much royalty payments but very similar to Steam/App stores

Sign Agreements Easy to setup a LLC in Kentucky $40 to register https://www.sos.ky.gov Annually file with SOS Local taxes and annual tax forms Register with IRS to get Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN)

Software and Hardware Get access to developer websites Software and Tools (SDK) Unity addons Order dev kits Documentation Webinars

Dev Kits Specialized version of the console Lets you run uncertified software Extra hardware to help development and debugging Connect your PC to the dev kit to copy over game, debug, capture video, etc.

Unity & Consoles Need to get a Unity license through each platform Free for indie developers

Unity & Consoles Get access to addons Addon to base Unity

Porting Game Game engines do most of the work to get games to run the same on consoles Saving and loading data is different Performance is likely an issue Platform integration to think about Achievements / Trophies required Leaderboards, Friends, Stats, Status Similar to steam integration

Porting Game Unity Allows you to run PC version in editor Have to deploy to device to actually test Takes a long time (10 to 30 minutes) Can connect with profiler and debugger

Certification Platforms make sure that the games meet technical and content requirements Game should interact with platform in specific ways How to handle errors? How to interact with SDK? Content Images specific to platform Terms / Trademarks Very specific How logo should show What image format What bitraite for the video Volume levels

Certification Store Content Age Rating Required Create specific media content Translate into multiple languages Age Rating Required International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) Free to get rating for digital games

Platform Specifics https://supersoul.co/gamedev-resources/

Microsoft https://www.xbox.com/developers/id Can publish as an individual ID@Xbox special indie program Get 2 free dev kits Simplified process - Creators Program

Nintendo https://developer.nintendo.com/register Can publish as an individual Not guaranteed free dev kit ($450) Same as publishing program No longer need an office

Sony https://partners.playstation.net/ Business based in US with FEIN Static IP address Non-public domain email address Can potentially get free dev kits Personalized account manager

John Meister john@supersoul.co SuperSoul.co SuperSoul.games @SuperSoulStudio