For me, I am leaning negative on Herman due to misuse of developers (ND making a GAAS etc), PC ports and buying Nixxes and the obsession with GAAS studios regarding acquisitions.
If he made some good single player focused acquisitions, adding major IP's. Revealed some new IP's from 1st party and recovered from this ND fiasco / showed he was not going to task single player studios with GAAS nonsense, then I would be 100% behind him.
I liked the Bungie acquisition though, because I play a lot of Destiny and it should have taken the pressure of GAAS off the other studios.
Same.
I complain about Jim and Hermen alot. But Im reserving my judgement for now. I dont play any Gaas atm, but I did enjoy and put alot of time into games like Destiny.
So it kinda depends on the results.
A.) If Naughty has been working on a single player game ontop of Factions 2. Both realease, happy days.
Im actually excited about Factions 2 being Gaas. Id gladly play a TLOUFactions 2 in a Destiny/online/gaas type of game. Naughty Dogs story driven style in an online coop/pvp world… count me in.
So strangely, Gaas title by ND could mean loads of story driven gameplay but its just online, Im down.
Ill wait another year if I get a deep online game where I can build factions, bases, have a team, play PVE/PVP in a active TLOU world... Im repeating myself Lol.
B.) They have been putting all the main teams on Gaas titles and little work has been done on the single player games.
Then this would = bad.
Im just waiting till the end of the year for final judgement. Or release dates. If ND comes out next year and says 2025/2026 release date for there single player game then that would suck. Same with GOT2, Cory’s game and others. But something tells me they are all working on stuff.
People keeping saying Gaas. But lets look at the last 3 years.
PS4:
TLOU2
Dreams
GOT
PS5:
Demons Souls
Spiderman MM
All Stars
Returnal
Ratchet
Horizon 2
God of War R
GT7
TLOU1 Remake
Yes most those were all done before Jim and Hermen and I hate the lack of news by PS these past years. And tbh, there should of been a bit more which is what worries me.
But at least we have:
Announced or coming soon:
-Spiderman 2 ( Single player )
-Wolverine -Newish IP/ Single Player
-Marathon - Gaas
-Death Stranding 2 - Most Likely Single player
-Ronin - New Ip - Single Player
-Concord -Gaas
-Fairgame - Gaas
4/7 games are Single Player games. Insomniac main teams working on Single player games thought
Plus 3rd party indie deals like:
-FF16
-Forspoken
-Stellar Blade
-FF7 Remakes
-Kena
-Stray
-Sifu
-Phantom Blade
Not including KOTOR.
TBH only ND’s Factions 2 team has been working on Gaas officially. And we don’t know how many team members from the main team was on there.
Guerilla main team worked on single player
Santa Monica - Worked on Gow and rumoured Cory Balrog game - Both single players
Sucker Punch - Most probably working on GOT 2 and a multiplayer mode like the first game
Bend - ?? - Sounds like it also has MP
BluePoint - ?? New game, so either a sequel to established series or brand new ip
House Marque - ?? New ip supposedly
Outside of ND and we dont even know the studio information, most the main teams are or have been working on single player games. Only the newly acquired teams Haven, Firewalk, Bungie are releasing Gaas games.
Most the 3rd party exclusives are single player games.
4/7 titles announced since 2021 1st party titles are Single player games. Not including KOTOR lol…
Like I said, Im not saying its all good news. Ive been vocal about Jim and Hermen alot, what they done with Japan Studios and the shows/reveals in the last 4 years etc. Plus lack of 3rd party deals ( Sega/Fromsoft etc )
But Im holding back full judgement till I hear what the main studios teams are working on ( ND, Santa Monica, SuckerPunch, Guerilla, BB etc ) and how far away they are from being released.
Fingers crossed they have alot cooking, used the expanded teams well and release dates will come soon after reveal like TLOU1 Remake.
We’ll soon find out if Jim and Hermen has messed up PS or just having a slower reveal strategy ( which Im not a fan of)
One thing I will agree with is the marketing strategy/news/annoucements have been very poorly done last few years. There should be more information on all 1st party stuff and 3rd party deals.
Im holding back on judging 1st party management, but Im gonna complain about 3rd party right now lol.
There should be more 3rd party exclusives too. PS4, three years in had at news or 3rd party exclusives released like Persona 5, Bloodblorne, Yakuza Zero/6, Dragon Quest, Until Dawn, Hell Blade, Detroit ontop of Japan Studio games like Gravity Rush 2, Last Guardian and the great Knack 2.
3rd party is something I have more complaints about compared to the 1st party. But again, are Sony holding back showing these kinda 3rd party deals or have they lost a great strategy..? We’ll find out soon.
On the good news… Jim said we’re not porting PS5 games until 2-3 years which was a positive surprise. The focus on Japanese Market I will wait on.