I think it's to see if there is a demand for child games for Sony. If Sony can kidify some IP then they can go after the Nintendo market. This is a low risk game to test the waters where the IP is borrowed an put on a Lego game without wasting first parry studio resources.
Yep, I think this is their main idea behind the new Astro Bot game and Lego Horizon. The Nintendo games, many Lego games and in a lower scale Sonic make a lot of money, so I assume that Sony is testing the waters to see if they can heavily expand into this kids friendly area.
They have been and will continue expanding to PC, multiplayer, shooters, GaaS, movies/tv shows, areas where they didn't excel/dominate with 1st party entries. Now that Xbox has been murdered I assume they are considering to expand to mascot platformers as another growth vector, this case to essentially having in mind to steal Nintendo's breakfast in the future, while also growing strengthening their library with a new type of games and IPs that they could more easily adapt to potential future mobile games.
If somewhere in the future Sony releases a handheld -let's say using their potential future PSN PC store-, these type of kid friendly games would also help them compete against Nintendo in the handheld side because from day one they'd have a library of mascot actions platformers, which some of these kids would already be a fan of.
In the Sony portable the kids would also be able to play not only the few ported ones to Switch, but also the other Sony platformers, plus the "big", mainline tentpole versions of these series.
Makes me wonder if Sony studios have Switch 2 dev kits. They would need them for MLB The Show 25 right?
Yes, they must have it like any other big 3rd party Switch dev.
Ultimately, PlayStation's software strategy is really smart in the short-term and really fucking dumb in the long-term. There must be some major internal reasons why their software people are making moves that don't support their own hardware business. Maybe they expect the PS6 to be an $800 machine or something?
Why do you consider it dumb in the long term?
With their current strategy their traditional SP narrative games are making more money than ever, and in addition to them they are successfully expanding to the top grossing genres and game they didn't dominate (FPS/shooters, multiplayer, GaaS, now also kid friendly mascot action platformers), making their IPs more popular via movies and tv shows and also expanding to bigger, not directly competitive markets that have a small overlap (PC, soon mobile and apparently maybe only for kid games Switch).
What would be dumb would be to commit suicide by getting stuck in SP non-GaaS games only released only in their console, when the costs are skyrocketing every generation but game prices and sales not. And when the game revenue from game sales in the whole gaming market, in consoles and in PS keeps decreasing every year because it's getting replaced by (mostly for GaaS) addons revenue. And where there are giant markets out there like PC, mobile or the portables with relatively little overlap and a different demographics/tastes.
And looking at the future MS and Epic are extending their stores to mobile in addition to already being in PC (including the growing market of the consolized ones as portable or home consoles), and both Google Play and Apple App store are expanding to computers.
Sony is growing and improving their performance in all traditional and new fronts to highly increase their userbase, revenue, profit and brand awareness. Which is the best long term strategy.
Your examples are
- a game that is packed into the PS5 for free. We don't know how this converts to people paying for a full game.
- Rift Apart relative to other Sony First Party did not move anything close to the main First Party IP this gen.
- Astro Bot is not out yet so we don't know the future.
Regarding this, we should add that Rift Apart did a good job and seems it outperformed all previous entries, but is still way behind on its game type of top sellers like the Nintendo games. It's behind even of many Lego adaptations of big IPs or Sonic.
Astro also had the VR game that did work for that small niche and got praise but pretty limited sales.
Both Ratchet and Astro are good assets, but I think the support of Lego combined with top blockbuster Sony IPs has potential to sell way better. And not only in kid friendly action platformers / action adventures and toys of single Sony IPs.
But potentially also to do stuff as could be a "Lego PlayStation Racing" arcade racer (not just kart), "Lego PlayStation Brawl" (Smash Bros inspired but modified to differentiate it enough, maybe keeping the Lego Horizon camera and not having the flying platforms structure plus adding many funny items and environment interactions to give it a more party, less serious game feel) etc.
Meaning, to repeat the Astro Bot and Smash Bros gimmick of playing the nostalgia card bringing a lot of classic IPs together, in this case all from Sony (or 3rd party IPs very close to PS). But with the Lego skin in different genres, which also would help them to have Lego toys of PS characters or games not big enough to get their own Lego game adaptation.
