PlayStation Vita dev kit priced

Speaking at GDC Europe, SCEE’s George Bain has confirmed the price studios will have to pay for a PlayStation Vita development kit.

"The PS Vita development kit is going to be very affordable," said Bain. "And when I say affordable I mean €1,900 plus VAT."

The price, which Shuhei Yoshida told Develop would be within the financial reach of smaller studios back in June at E3, will come as good news to numerous small and medium sized studios. Web speculation to this point had suggested the price would be around $3,000.

The €1,900 price tag is significantly lower than the €20,000 charged for PS2 and PS3 dev kits at launch, and the initial €15,000 fee for a PSP dev kit. Those dev kits saw their prices significantly reduced in 2009.

"There is no cost to join the PS Vita Develop Program," Bain added. "There’s just that cost of the dev kit. If you’re a small developer, we happy to talk to you about this. It will help if you have a games portfolio. There’s no reason we won’t speak with smaller studios about joining up."

Bain also confirmed that prototype dev kits can be free, and revealed that the SCEA PubFund, which offers studios budget for the creation of exclusive titles, is currently seeing up to 15 pitches a week.

The PS Vita Dev kit will, unlike the consumer version, feature HDMI out.

Bain concluded by confirming that while the Vita will eventually see non-gaming apps created with Sony partners, for now the company is only accepting game proposals. the system will also, like the PS3, boast support for freemium gaming models.