Sony waives fee on PlayStation Mobile development

It seems like barely a week goes by these days when there isn't some new indie-based announcement from the Sony camp -- and today is no different, as the PlayStation Mobile development license has been waived. Originally, those developers who wanted to release games via PS Mobile for PS Vita and PlayStation-certified mobile devices were required to pay an annual fee of $99. From today, the Publisher License Fee for PS Mobile has been removed, meaning that any developer can now potentially release a game for the PS Vita for free. Note that PlayStation Mobile is a C# platform that runs code on a virtual machine, providing direct binary compatibility across a range of devices. No doubt the number of titles being released for the platform will see a significant boost once Unity supports it. This latest move from Sony isn't a huge surprise, given that PlayStation Mobile has had a rocky start, and most recently has all but fizzled out. And it's even less surprising when you factor in the huge indie support that the publisher has been pushing for, first killing off concept approval, and then opening a specific indie games section on the PlayStation Store.