If You Were in Charge Of Playstation, What would you do Differently?

[Box]

I would start by releasing Classic Ps1,2 and Psp games on PC. Let Steam and GOG have the old games. It would be very cheap and easy to port and they would make a decent amount of profit.

I would Expand Insomniac since they have proven to be the only studio capable of actually releasing games consistently. A small sub studio to make classic 3d platformers on a smaller budget like the Ratchet ps2 games or a spiritual successor to Spyro.

Have most of the studios move on to using Decima, instead of unreal to save on fees. Like EA making everyone use the Frostbite engine.

Invest more in mobile gaming, Fate/Grand order to this day is still Sony's most profitable game (you would think they would invest more in this)

Force Sony Music,Movies and Playstation to actually collaborate and communicate with each other instead of working in silos. Technology needs to be shared among the divisions.

Invest more into East Europe,China and South America. These developers would be cheaper.

Hire the modern, let them work on 60fps patches. Also hire the fans behind blooborne demake and Kart. Create a small little studio for them. Do what Sega does with hiring the fans, it worked for Sonic Mania.

 

[Dr Bass]

Cancel PC ports.

Release as many BC titles from earlier eras on the PSN store.

Make PS feel like the premium place to play high production value games. Make it feel exclusive (there's that word again) and something worth buying into.

Make developing and releasing titles on the platform feel like a no brainer choice, similar to how PS1 felt to devs. They went from zero to the leading position because of their developer friendliness.

Offer a wider variety of game types. Not everything needs to be massive AAA third person, skill tree, open world game. Get creative with gameplay. These games could be a bit shorter and maybe fall into the 40-50 dollar range.

 

[Etifilio]

Cancel PC ports.

Release as many BC titles from earlier eras on the PSN store.

Make PS feel like the premium place to play high production value games. Make it feel exclusive (there's that word again) and something worth buying into.

Make developing and releasing titles on the platform feel like a no brainer choice, similar to how PS1 felt to devs. They went from zero to the leading position because of their developer friendliness.

Offer a wider variety of game types. Not everything needs to be massive AAA third person, skill tree, open world game. Get creative with gameplay. These games could be a bit shorter and maybe fall into the 40-50 dollar range.

it is over... PlayStation will become as useless as an Xbox by the next generation, Sony has no clue what they're doing with their brand and how they're killing it long term with these ports

 

[Box]

it is over... PlayStation will become as useless as an Xbox by the next generation, Sony has no clue what they're doing with their brand and how they're killing it long term with these ports

Its weird how there is zero synergy between the Sony divisions. Sony owns a movie division that could very easily share technology used for cutscenes and motion capture and vice versa with game engines for animations.

They also own Sony Music, you would think they work together? (Sony Music releases games for the Nintendo Switch)

https://www.pcmag.com/news/sony-music-to-publish-games-on-switch

 

[saltyashell]

It's wild to me that Playstation hasn't worked out a Bloodborne sequel deal with FromSoftware yet. Fuck a remaster - where's the sequel?

 

[Box]

It's wild to me that Playstation hasn't worked out a Bloodborne sequel deal with FromSoftware yet. Fuck a remaster - where's the sequel?

Im convinced some of the higher ups at Sony have a personal vendetta against Bloodborne, maybe it was "too hard" for them?

 

[Gediminas]

We know it and everyone knows it, stop garbage PC ports. Double down on versatile single player games and contract few other teams to do GaaS. Remake, remaster old games again.

oh, and fuck Herman Hulst

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

It's all right here, buddy

 

[anonpuffs]

Become privately owned

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

If PlayStation drops the ball in the next 5 to 10 years, they will deserve to become another Xbox. They've secured dominance in the console market for real gamers and have an incredible opportunity to fix gaming, surpassing what Nintendo couldn't fully realize.

 

[Bryank75]

First, massive cost-cutting TBH... which many wouldn't like to see but I feel is necessary.

Making all teams very lean, eliminate lots of analyst roles, lots of communications / PR roles... I'd actually outsource PR based on their poor performance inhouse.
All non-game development functions stopped... dismantle unnecessary bureaucracy in studios.

Marketing would be cut down to a much smaller team with more creative...PS2 inspired advertising.

Hermen replaced with Shu or Scott Rohde. Adam Boyes brought back.

PC ports of all first party PSStudios games cancelled.

Studios organised into two groups... PS Studios: Sucker Punch, Insomniac, ND, SMS, PD, Guerrilla etc (making games just for PS consoles)
and SIE studios: Bungie, Haven, San Diego, Firewalk etc working on multiplatform games.

Shut down Firesprite and Nixxes or use Nixxes for porting PS3 games to PS5.

PSX event annually, with massive fanservice and outreach. Aiming to be the best and most exciting live event with streamed showcase. (Aiming to be on 2015 / 2016 E3level)

2 acquisitions in the medium to long term... Square and From.

Push PS5 sales in the most aggressive way, with a global approach. Aiming for above 22 million annually.

 

[Systemshock2023]

I would release Bloodborne (remaster) and Demons souls on PC. Bloodborne with a PS5 version at no more than 20 USD for existing owners. Show some love to Japanese games from your back catalog. instead of western Ubisoftian ones. Re release PS3 games on modern systems.

Sixth generation games and older are a hard sell unless being remade.

Try to see how they can re educate their audience to adapt to smaller budget games released at a faster pace, covering more genres. This cinematic AAA Sony has been a thing only since Uncharted 2 became a hit. Previous geberations ad a different approach.

Axe Drunkmann and bring Amy Henning back.

Create a gran Turismo legends game only with cars released until 2005, before car design went to the drain. Basically a modern GT4.

If costs keep ballooning, get out of the power game and fight Nintendo on their own turf with the goal to reduce them to N64/GameCube levels of sales.

 

[Cool hand luke]

Eliminate PC ports and releases completely (neither GaaS nor SP, obviously)
Eliminate DEI teams
Eliminate Media Molecule
Aggressive stat sharing to generate Steam-level fomo
Remove any need for someone to buy a gaming PC besides the power 1%ers
Buy Capcom and Square
Create low-end portable - market is huge and switch has a monopoly
Use newly purchased studios to create low-cost AAA/AAA experiences for said portable
Spin off IPs for mobile releases to milk those losers
Double investment in cross-media

To sum it up:

1. Grow your IPs
2. Shore up your walled garden
3. Conquer enemy territory with exclusive experiences

 

[flaccidsnake]

- Playstation becomes an open PC platform. You buy a 'PS6' and it works exactly how you'd expect, but you can also just install the PS OS on any regular PC you want or launch the PS6 UI as a Windows app and run games from your Playstation library (including PS4/PS5, yes there's some emulation/translation layer)
- One build of a game will run on PS or Steam or any other popular x86 platform
- Games scale up or down to cover a wide range of PC hardware targets, no more generational cutoffs, low spec games could run on a PS6 as long as it's capable, maybe 15 years (think Balatro still running on a PS3, totally possible)
- Make a great x86 handheld
- Build the handheld x86 chipset into Bravia TVs
- Deep account Linking between Steam and Playstation goes a long way to making libraries, DLC and features interoperable
- Keep making the best controller, innovating on haptics and add more pairing flexibility w/ multiple devices
- Stick with VR, leveraging PC developers and creative side projects from top tier first party teams (like Tearaway rather than Call of the Mountain)
- Careful attention to first party publishing cadence. At least 3 significant first party games a year.
- Triple down on remasters/remakes, acquire more teams like Bluepoint who can resurrect PS2/PS3 era games and make them shine
- Get your own modern, realistic shooter with some different take than CoD, maybe Socom reboot
- Eliminate PS+ Essential, online multiplayer is a standard feature
- Grow PS+ Extra. Not through day-and-date AAA games, but a bigger library and maybe early limited access to games in development
- Get first party teams into early access, get early player feedback on games like Last of Us Online before you've invested 50M+.
- Make a ton of first party deals with new teams of Bethesda/Blizzard expats
- Acquire all rights to Metal Gear from Konami.

 

[Danja]

Fire Hermen Hulst

Kill all PC ports that's not GaaS

Rebuild Japan Studios

Refine the PS Portal into an offline machine as well, priced fairly and aggressively target Asian / Japanese market with it.

Stop wasting money on dead weight stuff like VR

 

[Danja]

- Playstation becomes an open PC platform. You buy a 'PS6' and it works exactly how you'd expect, but you can also just install the PS OS on any regular PC you want or launch the PS6 UI as a Windows app and run games from your Playstation library (including PS4/PS5, yes there's some emulation/translation layer)
- One build of a game will run on PS or Steam or any other popular x86 platform
- Games scale up or down to cover a wide range of PC hardware targets, no more generational cutoffs, low spec games could run on a PS6 as long as it's capable, maybe 15 years (think Balatro still running on a PS3, totally possible)
- Make a great x86 handheld
- Build the handheld x86 chipset into Bravia TVs
- Deep account Linking between Steam and Playstation goes a long way to making libraries, DLC and features interoperable
- Keep making the best controller, innovating on haptics and add more pairing flexibility w/ multiple devices
- Stick with VR, leveraging PC developers and creative side projects from top tier first party teams (like Tearaway rather than Call of the Mountain)
- Careful attention to first party publishing cadence. At least 3 significant first party games a year.
- Triple down on remasters/remakes, acquire more teams like Bluepoint who can resurrect PS2/PS3 era games and make them shine
- Get your own modern, realistic shooter with some different take than CoD, maybe Socom reboot
- Eliminate PS+ Essential, online multiplayer is a standard feature
- Grow PS+ Extra. Not through day-and-date AAA games, but a bigger library and maybe early limited access to games in development
- Get first party teams into early access, get early player feedback on games like Last of Us Online before you've invested 50M+.
- Make a ton of first party deals with new teams of Bethesda/Blizzard expats
- Acquire all rights to Metal Gear from Konami.

TearAway really was such a great little experience but released on Vita which was just as bad as not making Puppeteer a PS4 launch title.

 

[flaccidsnake]

TearAway really was such a great little experience but released on Vita which was just as bad as not making Puppeteer a PS4 launch title.

it's a damn shame what they did with puppeteer.

 

[Danja]

Eliminate PC ports and releases completely (neither GaaS nor SP, obviously)
Eliminate DEI teams
Eliminate Media Molecule
Aggressive stat sharing to generate Steam-level fomo
Remove any need for someone to buy a gaming PC besides the power 1%ers
Buy Capcom and Square
Create low-end portable - market is huge and switch has a monopoly
Use newly purchased studios to create low-cost AAA/AAA experiences for said portable
Spin off IPs for mobile releases to milk those losers
Double investment in cross-media

To sum it up:

1. Grow your IPs
2. Shore up your walled garden
3. Conquer enemy territory with exclusive experiences

I don't get the hate for Media Molecule? From so many

 

[Danja]

it's a damn shame what they did with puppeteer.

Yup! I bought it day one and literally 4 months later it was on PS+ ... Talk about throwing Japan Studios under the bus not once but twice lol.

And they didn't even think of doing a quick remaster during the dry periods shortly after PS4 launch.

 

[flaccidsnake]

Yup! I bought it day one and literally 4 months later it was on PS+ ... Talk about throwing Japan Studios under the bus not once but twice lol.

And they didn't even think of doing a quick remaster during the dry periods shortly after PS4 launch.

too many great games are stranded on ps3, and it doesn't seem like sony has a big incentive to ever do back compat.