Diversity of PlayStation Exclusives

[Bryank75]

We all know Diversity was an old, old wooden ship used during the civil war era.... but today I'd like to discuss how the PlayStation exclusive lineup could be more diverse.

We often hear disingenuous arguments about how Sony is too focused on 3rd person action / adventure games. This is a massively broad brush-stroke and really encompasses experiences from Spider-man (a superhero game) to Ghost of Tsushima (a historical action adventure melee game) to TLOU (survival / horror / shooter)

Then this also ignores all the other games PlayStation make..... MLB annually, Gran Turismo, Astrobot, Ratchet & Clank and many others.

--------------------------------------------------

What I want to do here, is ignore the bad faith arguments and instead focus on what you'd like to see PlayStation do to broaden their offering.

Would you like to see new IP's or would you like them to use old IP's they own? Maybe you'd like to see them acquire IP's and use them?

What genres and what specific gameplay would you like to see?

Fighters? JRPG's? Music games? Racers? Platformers? Character action games? Remakes? FPS's? Japanese fan-service games?

Go wild!

 

[Box]

Tom Holland should of played the Gran Turismo car in the movie, i hope he can at least star as Astro Bot and Kratos

 

[Vertigo]

They went in heavy with the open world-ish sandbox games for the last few years for their biggest budget games from Horizon, Days Gone, Tsushima and to a lesser extent GoW ( a bit more linear). I expect a better balance between these kind of games and the intended live service money makers. I want more narrative driven games to enjoy but the open world ubishit format can fuck off for a bit. With that said… day one for death stranding 2 and pre ordered for deluxe edition.

I found that there was always a good variety especially when key partnerships would produce stellar once in a generation games like Bloodborne. One of their biggest partners is square but in my opinion square is a terrible bet and mostly produces stinkers.

I don’t expect this strategy to change much. Invest in trends in both single player aaa and multiplayer. Work with partners to find something new…

I will never ignore the efforts of the major third parties to carry my gaming experiences either. Sony doesn’t have to offer something for everyone. Their ticket to success has always been third party support.

 

[Playstation Sucka]

PS3 had fps games as their tentpoles which Sony absolutely lacks you would only see a fps game from sony in the future which would be probably only gaas and thats just not what I want but I understand
The thing is these blockbuster games are the only one getting any sort of attention from sony but that too is being carried upon by time tested IPs we are very much in the middle of this gen and we have had no new AAA IP from sony yet which I consider is being developed but we already had a lot of diversification last gen with bloodborne ,horizon ,Order 1886
I just see sony has being afraid to stumble Days gone would have had been great and would deserve a sequel but they abandoned it because it wasn't up to the mark
Shawn layden wasn't afraid of stumbling like the new generation of playstation leaders are

 

[Zzero]

Its kind of weird that they don't have a classical WRPG. With JRPGs they've always relied on third parties and that has worked out fine but WRPGs have become a lot less common over the years, even though the ones that do come out do really well.

The other area I'd point out is kids games/platformers. Now, Sony has always published those types of games, and indeed they still do, but they've become less common, less ambitious and less important. Id like to see a return to form there.

Finally, I want to single Sony out for criticism in the way they choose which western indie games to support. Of the three, Xbox has clearly done the best at picking them (Cuphead, Ori), followed by Nintendo (Snipperclips, Overcooked, Goose Game?) and then Sony bringing up the rear with stuff that almost reads as a parody of the online left. They need to go out and find a new game picker because their current guy sucks.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

and then Sony bringing up the rear with stuff that almost reads as a parody of the online left

Sifu, Stray, Kena, Rollerdrome, just recently Humanity…?

I’d say they got better indie exclusives than Switch does. I think Xbox is always going to have the advantage with gamepass.

 

[Zzero]

Sifu, Stray, Kena, Rollerdrome, just recently Humanity…?

I’d say they got better indie exclusives than Switch does. I think Xbox is always going to have the advantage with gamepass.

Setting aside that Humanity isn't a western title, I'd ask how well those games did to move the needle. Kena and Stray are solid titles but I never see people bring up Sifu and have never even heard of Rollerdrome until now. The other two actually relied on indie titles to move units at periods, the Switch with the two I mentioned filling out the launch lineup and Xbox in that time when Cuphead and Ori were literally the only appealing future exclusives they had for a solid two years.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Setting aside that Humanity isn't a western title, I'd ask how well those games did to move the needle. Kena and Stray are solid titles but I never see people bring up Sifu and have never even heard of Rollerdrome until now. The other two actually relied on indie titles to move units at periods, the Switch with the two I mentioned filling out the launch lineup and Xbox in that time when Cuphead and Ori were literally the only appealing future exclusives they had for a solid two years.

Indie titles will never move units for playstation, its the default Madden, 2k, COD, Fortnite, Genshin, etc. machine.

But Sifu literally sold over a million copies in 3 weeks, in a very crowded month last February that also had Dying Light 2, Horizon 2, Elden Ring.

Sifu has sold over 1m copies

Kung-fu action game Sifu has sold over 1m copies in its first three weeks.

www.eurogamer.net

And Ori isn’t really indie, it’s funded and published by Microsoft. It’s a first party game

 

[Zzero]

Sifu has sold over 1m copies

Kung-fu action game Sifu has sold over 1m copies in its first three weeks.

www.eurogamer.net

And Ori isn’t really indie, it’s funded and published by Microsoft. It’s a first party game

It was created and developed by Moon Studios, which Microsoft did not and does not own. MS stepped in after a year to acquire publishing rights. The fact that they acquired it fully (if, indeed, they did) is a good thing and something that more studios should care about. IP ownership is important, especially if you are short on internal studios and want to farm stuff out.

 

[Bryank75]

I would love to see Sony buy a fighting game developer and bring some cool new fighter to the market.

Would also love if they looked into getting IOI, as PlayStation could use a sandbox style game and they have a James Bond game in development too. That would really help PlayStation a lot IMO.

Of course a JRPG studio would be fantastic... or two...

I think on the FPS front, Sony should let Bungie do what they want for the most part but at least contract them or make a deal to do one exclusive shooter with a strong campaign and multiplayer element. This would take a while though, since they have many projects lined up.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

It was created and developed by Moon Studios, which Microsoft did not and does not own. MS stepped in after a year to acquire publishing rights. The fact that they acquired it fully (if, indeed, they did) is a good thing and something that more studios should care about. IP ownership is important, especially if you are short on internal studios and want to farm stuff out.

Even if that applied for the first game, it doesn’t apply to the second.

It’d be like calling Returnal an Indie game

 

[anonpuffs]

I would like them to take more narrative risk and gameplay risk. Make some games that aren't designed to be for everyone. They already have a lock on crowd-pleasing blockbusters, I would like them to form a group of first party studios on the AA level that are tasked with making challenging stories and challenging games. For example Returnal was very enjoyable because of the narrative style and content being open to interpretation and discovered through overcoming significant challenges.

Also I wish they would trust the player more and do less handholding in some of their games. Accessibility options are great for those who need it, but not everyone needs it. If you put the difficulty on hard/very hard they should cut out all the handholding.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

I would like them to take more narrative risk and gameplay risk. Make some games that aren't designed to be for everyone. They already have a lock on crowd-pleasing blockbusters, I would like them to form a group of first party studios on the AA level that are tasked with making challenging stories and challenging games. For example Returnal was very enjoyable because of the narrative style and content being open to interpretation and discovered through overcoming significant challenges.

Also I wish they would trust the player more and do less handholding in some of their games. Accessibility options are great for those who need it, but not everyone needs it. If you put the difficulty on hard/very hard they should cut out all the handholding.

Its funny because when PS5 came out i remember there being a criticism that the biggest games in the first 6 months weren’t casual friendly enough.

At the time of launch i think Demon’s Souls stole a lot of the thunder in enthusiast circles and then it was followed up with Returnal which was also difficult. Both games didn’t really perform that well from the data we have, even on PC Returnal did badly.

So, like yeah…sony definitely needs to expand the type of games they make but i really hope the people asking for these games actually go out and buy them and don’t just wait until they are deeply discounted, complain about the price, or wait until its on PS Plus to give it a chance.

I’ve already seen people complain about the price of Helldivers 2 and once it comes out i also expect people to ignore it for some reason or another and act like it never happened so we can get these type of threads again a year from now. That is the next Playstation first party game announced and its exactly what people ask for, its not a huge budget game, its gameplay focused and challenging, and its only 40 dollars.

 

[Zzero]

Even if that applied for the first game, it doesn’t apply to the second.

It’d be like calling Returnal an Indie game

if Bethesda Softworks was ten people working remotely instead of (at the time) a multi-billion dollar game publisher I would have been more than okay with calling it an indie game.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I would love to see Sony buy a fighting game developer and bring some cool new fighter to the market.

Would also love if they looked into getting IOI, as PlayStation could use a sandbox style game and they have a James Bond game in development too. That would really help PlayStation a lot IMO.

Of course a JRPG studio would be fantastic... or two...

I think on the FPS front, Sony should let Bungie do what they want for the most part but at least contract them or make a deal to do one exclusive shooter with a strong campaign and multiplayer element. This would take a while though, since they have many projects lined up.

Arc System Works would make a great fit, but I'd imagine Sony wanting to work something out with Bandai-Namco on that front, maybe where Sony acquires ASW but Bandai-Namco can still hit them up for games like DBZ. Which, if said game were to still be multiplat, just like Bandai-Namco handle publishing on Xbox & Nintendo while Sony publish it on PlayStation and the two split publishing on PC somehow.

Vanillaware & Level 5 would be great studios to partner with and/or acquire, too.

 

[anonpuffs]

Its funny because when PS5 came out i remember there being a criticism that the biggest games in the first 6 months weren’t casual friendly enough.

At the time of launch i think Demon’s Souls stole a lot of the thunder in enthusiast circles and then it was followed up with Returnal which was also difficult. Both games didn’t really perform that well from the data we have, even on PC Returnal did badly.

So, like yeah…sony definitely needs to expand the type of games they make but i really hope the people asking for these games actually go out and buy them and don’t just wait until they are deeply discounted, complain about the price, or wait until its on PS Plus to give it a chance.

I’ve already seen people complain about the price of Helldivers 2 and once it comes out i also expect people to ignore it for some reason or another and act like it never happened so we can get these type of threads again a year from now. That is the next Playstation first party game announced and its exactly what people ask for, its not a huge budget game, its gameplay focused and challenging, and its only 40 dollars.

I bought both full price

 

[8BiTw0LF]

I'd actually love to see Insomniac do a revamp of Resistance in this day and age. 3 player co-op/single player with bots and an extraction-based multiplayer mode.

A new Twisted Metal with battle royale would also be awesome.

 

[Swift_Star]

Meh, don’t care, that’s what third parties are for. If Sony wants to diversify its catalog, more power to it. I’ll play them if the games are good.

 

[Nomen_Nescio]

Also I wish they would trust the player more and do less handholding in some of their games.

Ragnarok was the biggest offender in this. Spiderrman 2 seems to be a lot better when it comes to that.

 

[Nimrota]

More first person games in any variety, but particularly FPS, and WRPGs.