Following a rant by Moon Studios director Thomas Mahler on NeoGAF about Nintendo being overtly secretive about the hardware specifications of its upcoming NX platform, former Sony Strategic Content division head Shahid Ahmad voiced his opinion on the same.

Ahmad stated on Twitter that the comments by Mahler were, “Quite an uninformed and immature rant, lacking any real understanding or professionalism.”

When told that such blow-outs are the reason why secrecy exists in the first place, Ahmad responded that there’s still a lot up in the air with such products. “The secrecy is because it’s a commercial product in development and will undergo rapid changes in concert with devs.”

He also stated that there have been cases where dev kits were handed out before launch with the PlayStation 4. “At PS, we loaned out a lot of kits pre-launch to a lot of devs. Obviously coming out with such nonsense won’t help with trust.”

As for the NDAs that usually crop up, thus promoting secrecy, Ahmad said, “As they should. It’s an unlaunched product. Commercial realities etc.”

When told that this kind of behaviour would be understandable if the developer had no route to shipping for the NX when it released, Ahmad said, “It’s a big world with a lot of devices. They can launch on those and Nintendo would then have to deal with market forces.

He further reiterated that dev kits were handed out before launch without much requirement from the developers. “PlayStation loaned out *tons* of prototype PS4 kits to devs without requiring much at all, not even playable in some cases.”

Business development manager at Microsoft Studios Phil Waymouth said he was envious that Ahmad was in a position to comment on this issue, to which the latter responded, “Former PlayStation guy supporting Nintendo against unprofessional rant gets tacit support from Microsoft guy.”

It may sound like Ahmad is being harsh but he denies as much. “No I’m not harsh at all and you don’t have the full picture,” he said to another user. Which is pretty much a good point when no one really has any information on what the NX is, Nintendo’s dealings with developers for the platform, launch plans, etc.

What are your thoughts on the whole rigmarole? Let us know in the comments below.

Remember former SCEE executive Shahid Ahmad who helped the company’s indie program along quite heavily before departing? It’s recently been revealed that Ahmad has joined Double Eleven, video game studio and publisher, as part of its advisory board.

Chief Operating Officer Mark South stated that, “Shahid’s incredible insight and background in the arena of independent development and publishing is overwhelmingly beneficial to Double Eleven; we’re so pleased to welcome him to our advisory board.

Shahid’s role in elevating independent games as a whole to the mainstream audience is remarkable, so it’s a great honor to have his guidance as Double Eleven continues to grow in the games space. Equally, and more personally, he is one of the hardest working people I know and his character has shown integrity and honesty throughout. I’m both proud and honoured that we’re able to work together.”

For his part, Ahmad said that, “I’m honoured to be invited to Double 11’s Advisory Board. Having worked with the Double 11 team on numerous projects while at PlayStation, I was struck by their technical excellence, their commitment to quality and their devotion to delivering great experiences to video games players. Double 11 are relentlessly driven and their many excellent qualities will I’m sure propel them to greater success as they expand their publishing ambitions.”

What are your thoughts on this development? Let us know in the comments below.

When asked by Games Industry International if, with the number of indie studios now working on PS4 titles, if there would be a disappearance in the divide between indie and blockbuster titles, Ahmad stated, “I don’t see a divide. I see a continuum of one person creating a game and an enormous corporation creating a game. They’re just games.

“The tag is useful because I think it kind of bundles up a revolution that’s happened over the last few years, and the revolution has, I guess, three main legs. You’ve got digital distribution, you’ve got games everywhere and you’ve got better tools, and all of that has facilitated this explosion in the number of developers. I think it’s allowed more people to make games than ever before, and some of them are going to move on and do bigger things. They’re going to work with larger teams to do bigger things, and of course some of those teams will get bigger and bigger.

“So right now I think what we’re seeing is the birth of a new wave of next generation developers. Some of them will stay small, and I’m really pleased that we’re helping evolve PlayStation to a point where we’re as accommodating to the smallest developers as we are the largest. And the thing is we’ve done this in the past, so for example Minis was really, really good for smaller developers.

“PlayStation Mobile has also helped in some respects as well. And going back into the distant mists of time you’ve got Parappa The Rapper, Ico, Super Stardust HD. We’ve always dealt with this level of developer, it just wasn’t always as easy as we’ve made it [now], and we’re going to make it easier and easier. So yes, hopefully in a few years time no one will be talking about indie in relation to games. They’ll just be talking about games, and it will be just as valid to have made something coming from a small developer as from a large.”

The PlayStation 4 will be launching on November 15th in North America and November 29th in Europe.