might be a terrible take, but i want Sony to stop making third party exclusives and start investing more in first party studios

[Box]

It's 1p game. Fully funded and owned by Sony.

It's second party, they don't own the studio that made it

First party is when they own the studio and IP

Second is when they own the IP but not studio

Third party is when they don't own the studio or ip

Simple

 

[Etifilio]

Regarding potential acquisitions, please remember they don't plan them for the short term, pretty likely because they want to wait for the cash from selling their banks parts and to complete the related payments of the previous acquisitions, which they are still paying.

Such payments of previous acquisitions, combined with the unexpected rise of the costs of components (+related stuff like shipments, inflation) caused them a profits decrease, which I assume they'll want to address while waiting for the banks cash before continuing making (not tiny) acquisitions.

I think Arrowhead and Ballistic Moon -if the Until Dawn remake and the sequel I'd bet they are codeveloping with Firesprite (who has many several Supermassive devs) ends being a successful project- are maybe the most likely candidates because of their very long relationship (Balllistic Moon devs are mostly former Supermassive devs, who made a lot Supermassive devs).

Regarding bigger acquisitions of cases like Koei Tecmo, Arc System Works, Capcom, FromSoft/Kadokawa, Square Enix, Sega, Bandai Namco, etc. could be more complex because of higher prices, having some of them on some markets where Sony may not be interesting (like pachinko/pachislo, manga/books/magazines, etc), some of them being public companies (so maybe having shareholders who may not want to sell, etc). But hey, if they do it I'd like it.

Regarding acquisitions vs 3P exclusivity deals, I think it isn't something they have to choose between one thing of the other. They can continue doing both, which is what I think they'll continue doing going forward.



In games first party doesn't mean owned or developed by the platform owner. It means published by the platform owner. Meaning, 2nd party games like Wild Arms are also 1st party games.

2nd party game = 1st party game with a lead dev studio not owned by the platform holder.




Sony teams apparently working on multiple IPs:

• Insomniac: Venom, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Ratchet, and soon X-Men and new IP
• Bungie: Destiny, Marathon, Matter and pretty likely something else
• Naugthy Dog: 2/3 new single player games, it's fair to assume each from a different IP
• Firesprite: working in minimum a MP game with on-foot and vehicle combat and a horror adventure
• SSM: GoW + new IP
• Team Asobi: next game + multiple prototypes being incubated
• XDEV (2nd party): just released Helldivers 2 and Rise of the Ronin plus have Stellar Blade, Death Stranding 2, Physint, Convallaria, Lost Soul Aside and probably more
• Nixxes: support team who makes PC ports for different IPs
• PS Studios Creative Arts (San Diego, San Mateo, Malaysia, etc): internal global teams (include Production, Visual, Audio etc teams) who works in most of their 1st and 2nd party games.

Lead PS Studios working on -as far as we know- multiple games of the same IP:

• Polyphony: GT7 + GT8
• Guerrilla: Horizon 3 + Horizon Online

PS Studios teams apparently working only in a single game at the same time:

• Media Molecule
• Housemarque
• Firewalk
• Haven
• Bend
• San Diego
• Bluepoint (support team)
• Fabrik (support team, merged into Firesprite)
• Valkyrie (support team)

here he comes with the bible for me to read

 

[Etifilio]

Third party exclusives are what helped Sony become dominant. FF7, MGS, GtA3… lol FORTNITE. Lunacy.

Deals for games with third party developers gave you Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne: better games than 95% of Sony’s internal stuff. Next up Stellar Blade.

By no means whatsoever should they not still push forward with third party partnerships full steam. It’s already carried the first half of the year for ps5.

yeah, 30 years ago when they were entering the industry and had no known franchises of their own, not the case anymore

 

[Etifilio]

Regarding potential acquisitions, please remember they don't plan them for the short term, pretty likely because they want to wait for the cash from selling their banks parts and to complete the related payments of the previous acquisitions, which they are still paying.

Such payments of previous acquisitions, combined with the unexpected rise of the costs of components (+related stuff like shipments, inflation) caused them a profits decrease, which I assume they'll want to address while waiting for the banks cash before continuing making (not tiny) acquisitions.

I think Arrowhead and Ballistic Moon -if the Until Dawn remake and the sequel I'd bet they are codeveloping with Firesprite (who has many several Supermassive devs) ends being a successful project- are maybe the most likely candidates because of their very long relationship (Balllistic Moon devs are mostly former Supermassive devs, who made a lot Supermassive devs).

Regarding bigger acquisitions of cases like Koei Tecmo, Arc System Works, Capcom, FromSoft/Kadokawa, Square Enix, Sega, Bandai Namco, etc. could be more complex because of higher prices, having some of them on some markets where Sony may not be interesting (like pachinko/pachislo, manga/books/magazines, etc), some of them being public companies (so maybe having shareholders who may not want to sell, etc). But hey, if they do it I'd like it.

Regarding acquisitions vs 3P exclusivity deals, I think it isn't something they have to choose between one thing of the other. They can continue doing both, which is what I think they'll continue doing going forward.



In games first party doesn't mean owned or developed by the platform owner. It means published by the platform owner. Meaning, 2nd party games like Wild Arms are also 1st party games.

2nd party game = 1st party game with a lead dev studio not owned by the platform holder.




Sony teams apparently working on multiple IPs:

• Insomniac: Venom, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Ratchet, and soon X-Men and new IP
• Bungie: Destiny, Marathon, Matter and pretty likely something else
• Naugthy Dog: 2/3 new single player games, it's fair to assume each from a different IP
• Firesprite: working in minimum a MP game with on-foot and vehicle combat and a horror adventure
• SSM: GoW + new IP
• Team Asobi: next game + multiple prototypes being incubated
• XDEV (2nd party): just released Helldivers 2 and Rise of the Ronin plus have Stellar Blade, Death Stranding 2, Physint, Convallaria, Lost Soul Aside and probably more
• Nixxes: support team who makes PC ports for different IPs
• PS Studios Creative Arts (San Diego, San Mateo, Malaysia, etc): internal global teams (include Production, Visual, Audio etc teams) who works in most of their 1st and 2nd party games.

Lead PS Studios working on -as far as we know- multiple games of the same IP:

• Polyphony: GT7 + GT8
• Guerrilla: Horizon 3 + Horizon Online

PS Studios teams apparently working only in a single game at the same time:

• Media Molecule
• Housemarque
• Firewalk
• Haven
• Bend
• San Diego
• Bluepoint (support team)
• Fabrik (support team, merged into Firesprite)
• Valkyrie (support team)

ok read everything, yeah, i know now they will focus on return over investment, Bungie acquisition f*cked them a lot, Ballistic Moon would definitely be a great fit, they can be the survival horror studio, the remake of Until Dawn is now third person, it can have the PlayStation Studios DNA in it, and there it goes, Sony creates their own Resident Evil without the need to acquire a big publisher, i want them to have their own JRPG franchises too, that's the thing, we already have Final Fantasy and will have Final Fantasy forever cause the franchise depends on PlayStation to exist, but we could have final fantasy + sony's own first party JRPGs, franchises that they own, they're incredible at creating narratives, i see a lot of people wanting Sony to purchase SE or Capcom, it would be amazing, but they have the potential to create better franchises than Resident Evil and Final Fantasy

 

[Yurinka]

ok read everything, yeah, i know now they will focus on return over investment, Bungie acquisition f*cked them a lot, Ballistic Moon would definitely be a great fit, they can be the survival horror studio, the remake of Until Dawn is now third person, it can have the PlayStation Studios DNA in it, and there it goes, Sony creates their own Resident Evil without the need to acquire a big publisher, i want them to have their own JRPG franchises too, that's the thing, we already have Final Fantasy and will have Final Fantasy forever cause the franchise depends on PlayStation to exist, but we could have final fantasy + sony's own first party JRPGs, franchises that they own, they're incredible at creating narratives, i see a lot of people wanting Sony to purchase SE or Capcom, it would be amazing, but they have the potential to create better franchises than Resident Evil and Final Fantasy

Well, like any acquisition Bungie was a big cost which will be recouped in the long term.

Their next couple of years pretty likely will generaate over a billion as usual, adding it to what Destiny 2 continues generating (over 100-200M/year) and what they'll help to generate to the other Sony GaaS games (let's say another billions aprox combined), pretty likely they'll have receouped the acquisition pretty likely in less than 10 years, pretty fast. Before discontinuing the PS5, which assuming a 12 years lifetime would be discontinued in 2032).

With the current MP/GaaS push Sony 1st party is expanding in different shooter subgenres. I think with the Until Dawn remake, plus the movie/tv show adaptation and maybe a Firesprite + Ballistic Moon sequel they could better position their 1st party in the horror genre, which would be better addressed with the (pretty unlikely, I think they won't want to sell since they are being super successful improving their numbers since over 11 years ago) Capcom/Resident Evil acquisition.

Regarding RPG, they have all the key players except Pokemon on their console, and many of them even console exclusive including big players like Final Fantasy and Granblue Fantasy Relink. They already have that genre dominated, PS is by far the main JPRG platfom so no need to make extra efforts here. To make their own JRPGs wouldn't be needed, but acquiring / investing on Square Enix (who I assume don't want to sell the company, but may be open to sell a portion of the company shares or a portion or some studios shares) would secure that genre from otther potential acquirers investors like Nintendo, Microsoft o Tencent who may pressure them to reduce the amount of PS exclusives or to make more exclusives elsewhere.

I think Bandai Namco (top 1 Japanese 3rd party publisher), a bigger player than Capcom or Square Enix, woud also be a wise acquisition or investment, probably more than Square Enix. Not only for JRPGS (Tales, Souls, Elden Ring...) but also due to other genres and game types like Tekken, anime games, mobile games and their division that makes toys and figurines.

And well, even if they'd want to sell and Sony to buy them, we should see if they are too expensive or not. Market cap as reference:

• Bandai Namco: 1.92 trillion JPY ($12.5B)
• Capcom: 1.40 trillion JPY ($9.1B)
• Square Enix: 666.20 billion JPY ($4.33B)
• Koei Tecmo: 515.91 billion JPY ($3.36B)
• Sega Sammy: 478.84 billion JPY ($3.11B)
• Kadokawa: 393.03 billion JPY ($2.56B)

Their acquisition price woud vary on a per case scenario but on average recent big gaming acquisitions were paid with an average of aprox 40% premium on top of their market cap/valuation, so you may need to add a maybe extra 40% to these numbers.

 

[Box]

think Bandai Namco (top 1 Japanese 3rd party publisher), a bigger player than Capcom or Square Enix, woud also be a wise acquisition or investment, probably more than Square Enix. Not only for JRPGS (Tales, Souls, Elden Ring...) but also due to other genres and game types like Tekken, anime games, mobile games and their division that makes toys and figurines.

Plus we could make Pacman the official mascot of Playstation, Ridge Racer in 1994 was the first ever game released on Playstation.

Tekken used to be console exclusive to Playstation until Tekken Advance for the GBA. Bamco also owns thr Xenosaga IP

Bamco also makes the Smash Bros games, so they could use their experience to create a real Sony Smash Bros

 

[Remember_Spinal]

my point is: ok, we have final fantasy timed exclusivity, but PlayStation has no JRPG studio... no JRPG franchise... at the end of the day, i don't know if this is W or an L

JRPG’s aren’t highly profitable and they are becoming less and less popular as the years go on.

I think some of you are too attached to the kind of games you grew up with but a lot of those games aren’t really what people want anymore, especially the younger generation

 

[Yurinka]

Plus we could make Pacman the official mascot of Playstation, Ridge Racer in 1994 was the first ever game released on Playstation.

Tekken used to be console exclusive to Playstation until Tekken Advance for the GBA. Bamco also owns thr Xenosaga IP

Bamco also makes the Smash Bros games, so they could use their experience to create a real Sony Smash Bros

Yes, it would be a great addition because Bandai Namco has many iconic franchises in PS history: Ridge Racer, Tekken, Time Crisis, Katamari, Klonoa, Ace Combat, Digimon, Soul Edge/Calibur, Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Armored Core, Taiko no Tatsujin, Idolmaster...

Plus the exclusive rights for game adaptations of IPs such as Gundam, Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, Wangan Midnight, Sailor Moon, Sword Art Online, My Hero Academia, Kamen Raider, Ultraman, Doraemon, Sand Land, Captain Tsubasa, Jojo, Macross, Saint Seiya, Spy x Family...

And JRPG stuff like Tales of, Ni no Kuni, Xenosaga, Super Robot Wars, Baten Kaitos, Ar Tornelico, God Eater...

Plus several old gaming arcade classics history classics like Pac Man, Dig Dug, Galaga, Galaxian, Xevious, Rolling Thunder, Splatterhouse...

Acquiring them they:

• Would secure all these important IPs (and more I didn't list such as Project Cars, Little Nightmares, Dark Pictures etc)
• Would get the revenue and profits from the biggest Japanese 3rd party
• Would get the rights of these game IPs for potential movie/tv show/anime adaptations
• Would secure a key/leading position in genres like fighting, Souls, anime adaaptations and would become an important player in JRPG
• Would get the most successful and experienced publisher and developer of game adaptations of animes they could use that to make anime adaptations of Sony anime IPs
• Would get the 2nd biggest toy maker company in the world, specialized on anime adaptations to toys, figurines or model kits that Sony could use to make merchandising of their own Sony IPs
• Would get one of the biggest Japanese mobile gaming publishers

 

[GachaMadeMeBroke]

They don't have to be the biggest, nor is that a possibility. But they could be doing a lot more than at current.

As time goes on it looks like timed exclusivity deals for games like Rebirth will not only get more expensive, but also come with less benefits in the long run for PlayStation. If at some point it's costing them say $100 - $125 million for 3 month timed exclusivity of say FF XVII...is that really worth the cost? Or would they be better off going cheaper for a global marketing deal where the game otherwise is Day 1 on multiple platforms?

Because taking the second route, they could use the money saved and put it towards a 1P AA game, or expansion for a current AAA game, or towards funding another 1P AAA title. You still have marketing rights to a FF XVII, you still know that the majority of copies are going to be sold on your system, and now you have additional money to put towards more genuine exclusive content for your console platform. I would consider that better than pursuing timed exclusivity again TBH.

We have to remember, SIE have already said they want to be less reliant on 3P for profit cuts. Part of that would likely mean not pursuing 3P timed exclusivity if it doesn't make a lot of financial sense. What rate have current 3P timed exclusives like XVI contributed towards expanding hardware sales, or fostering additional 1P & 3P B2P sales from customers within the console ecosystem? At what price is timed exclusivity worth it knowing that kind of data? At what price is it not worth it?

We also have to consider that the CEOs and head honchos at these 3P are changing on a semi-regular basis. Square-Enix got a new person recently for CEO and this person seems focused on a more multiplatform strategy. What that means in practice, we don't know yet. But we do know that if they're intent on, say, doing PC Day 1 for future FF games, it doesn't matter how much money Sony offers or how much co-funding they provide; unless it's an obscene amount, Square-Enix may not be interested in taking the bag. At that point, rather than offer that type of cash, shouldn't Sony instead focus on doing something with one of their own JRPG IPs?

They don't necessarily need to "buy" a 3P in order to do something with an IP they own, that's what partnerships are for. Heck, even in a case where say future FFs are Day 1 multiplats, that doesn't mean Sony can't work with Square-Enix to co-fund & co-develop a PlayStation-exclusive RPG based on one of Sony's IP. Or even do such with one of Square-Enix's other legacy IP. All of those things could transpire simultaneously. My thing is, Sony have to be focused on ensuring that for whatever once-exclusive 3P game/franchise that then becomes multiplat, they at least try replacing either 1P (internal) or 2P (w/ 3P co-development)-wise with an IP in the equivalent genre that will be an exclusive.

Since we're focused on JRPGs: I can't really picture a reality where PlayStation loses exclusivity status (defacto or otherwise) on Persona, Dragon Quest, Monster Hunter (maybe not considered a JRPG by some but work with me here), Ys, AND Final Fantasy without offering something of their own in that space to act as a content differentiator on their console. They can acquire a 3P studio for that, or they could partner with one to co-develop and fund that type of project. It doesn't even have to be a 3P studio; it could be a 3P publisher (again, like Square-Enix, or SEGA/Atlus, Bandai-Namco etc.). These are all viable options. Just as long as they do something to bring that exclusive offering to their system with one of the many RPG IP they own.

Heck, it could even be with ANY IP they have, technically speaking. What would a Rachet & Clank JRPG look or play like, for example? Or how about one based on Parappa the Rapper? What about one that mashes several IP together? Even budget/scale-wise there can be a lot of room here; it doesn't have to be a AAA-budget game for example.

Appreciate the detailed reply And yeah I totally agree with this. I'm always just bewildered by calls for Sony to just buy more companies like From and Larian, it's just not feasible (nor do I think these companies even wanna be bought in the first place). That's why I'm all for partnerships and IP ownership. Something like Stellar Blade is a prime example of how this can work in their favor. Seems like the game's gonna be a hit and if it's successful it becomes another entry in an already impressive catalogue of games they own. Same with Death Stranding and we can see how they're utilizing that with the sequel. Nothing in this world is cheap, but compared to running a first party studio, it's a much safer option and something I would love to see continue because honestly these partnerships is where all the unique games come from that won't necessarily come from their first party studios.

Also, like you said these partnerships opens the door for future collaborations should the need arise to fill the gaps for genres they might be lacking in, which honestly won't really happen, it's not like Xbox will ever become the home of JRPGs and publishers won't skip out on Playstations massive userbase either. I do agree with the general premise that these moneyhats don't bring the ROI needed to make it worth the effort but like, they're not reeeeeeally doing it much anymore outside of Final Fantasy, which is a special case in and of itself due its history with Playstation.