PlayStation Studios Aiming to ‘Continuously Release Hit Titles,’ Says Sony

Orangee

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3 Mar 2024
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I have a gut feeling some of you might bought a PS4 (maybe swapped from Xbox) at the end of the gen and accumulated the backlog over the years maybe played in a 3 year span abundance of goodness while titles came out and expected the same going into the PS5? Or wearing heavy nostalgia glasses.

Cause for PS4 if we strictly go 1st party only:
2013: Knack & Killzone
2014: Driveclub & Infamous
2015:
2016: Last Guardian & Uncharted 4

You might say where's Bloodborne and Order 1886 in 2015, not 1st party studios
Where's Ratchet and Until Dawn in 2016, not 1st party studios (Insomniac was acquired after Spider-Man).

The big studios already dropped their games front loaded in the gen with PS5. I mean a really strong launch and 3 staple franchises dropped in one year in 2022. The next one on the schedule is Bend & Naughty Dogg and we know the former had internal struggles and ND has fumbled with Factions that was meant to drop this year. So any criticism on them is valid especially Druckman and co even though you could say they dropped a title 4 years ago.

Obviously Totoki came out and said he would go more aggro with PC ports to supplement revenue with Ghost, GoW, Until Dawn outside of live-service to fill in the ''blockbuster'' sales, they never imagined Helldivers 2 would do so well and I don't want to get too ahead of myself don't expect Astrobot to do crazy either. They came out honestly about not having a big title this fiscal. Sony has supplemented with deals/partnerships whenever they had a gap in their release schedule and I can't complain with the titles they'v given me.
You skipped multiple "first party" games, but listed The Last Guardian, which was made by a third party dev GENDesign lmao
You guys are just argueing over semantics at this point. Why does it now magicaly matter, If Sony owns a studio? 90% of PlayStation's library from it's beggining on the market, has been made by third party devs, which is absolutely fine, and discrediting games, becouse the devs decided not to sell their souls permanently to a corpo is retarded lol

Which doesnt change the fact, that your argument doesnt even make sense. Sony has 3x more studios now, than they had back then, and they can barerly beat the pathetic PS4 lineup.
 
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CrackmanNL

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You skipped multiple "first party" games, but listed The Last Guardian, which was made by a third party dev GENDesign lmao
You guys are just argueing over semantics at this point. Why does it now magicaly matter, If Sony owns a studio? 90% of PlayStation's library from it's beggining on the market, has been made by third party devs, which is absolutely fine, and discrediting games, becouse the devs decided not to sell their souls permanently to a corpo is retarded lol

Which doesnt change the fact, that your argument doesnt even make sense. Sony has 3x more studios now, than they had back then, and they can barerly beat the pathetic PS4 lineup.
Good point, you can scratch that one as well from the list. Ueda moved his team out of Sony in 2014 during development indeed.
Just adhering to the logic of folks in this topic. My bad I forgot Entwined as well, how could I do that massive title.

The argument? People complain about PS5 none of this was an issue, but when I reverse their logic on PS4. It exposes how dumb it is.

Studios were acquired in the last 3 years, few of them dropped a title already (prior acquisition) or supported projects. The live-service ones are next up to release but oh I forgot they don't count in this topic. Barely beat? Outclasses it in the same time-frame.
 
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arvfab

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Good point, you can scratch that one as well from the list. Ueda moved his team out of Sony in 2014 during development indeed.
Just adhering to the logic of folks in this topic. My bad I forgot Entwined as well, how could I do that massive title.

The argument? People complain about PS5 none of this was an issue, but when I reverse their logic on PS4. It exposes how dumb it is.

Studios were acquired in the last 3 years, few of them dropped a title already (prior acquisition) or supported projects. The live-service ones are next up to release but oh I forgot they don't count in this topic. Barely beat? Outclasses it in the same time-frame.

Only that your argument is completely faulty. There are definitions for 1st party and 3rd party.

I already made a list in the past, so I will just quote it:

2014:
Driveclub
Infamous Second Son
Infamous First Light
Little Big Planet 3
SingStar
Entwined

2015:
Bloodborne
Tearaway Unfolded
Until Dawn
The Order
EVERYBODY'S GONE TO THE RAPTURE
Fat Princess Adventures

2016:
Ratchet and Clank
The Last Guardian
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
Alienation
Bound
(Shadow of the beast) [unsure if it's a first-party game, but I think it is]

2017:
Everybody's Golf
Gravity Rush 2
Horizon Zero Dawn
GT Sport
Knack 2
Matterfall
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

And in addition to all of that they had MP only games, remasters, remakes, VR and PlayLink stuff. They also had the PSVita in the meantime, although only briefly supported.

Now let's see the situation with PS5:

2020:
Sackboy: A Big Adventure (cross-gen)
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (cross-gen)
Astro's Playroom

2021:
Returnal
R&C: Rift Apart

2022:
Forbidden West (cross-gen)
GT7 (cross-gen)
Ragnarök (cross-gen)

2023:
Spider-man 2

2024:
*crickets until now*
Astro Bot
Lego Horizon (multiplatform)
 
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CrackmanNL

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Only that your argument is completely faulty. There are definitions for 1st party and 3rd party.
Faulty? Speaking of let's look at your list, let's stay consistent.

2014
Infamous First Light = DLC. Stay consistent you didn't count Burning Shores.
LBP3 (cross-gen) it was on PS3, again stay consistent if you call out Sackboy for cross-gen, both are not from 1st party studio.
Singstar 2014 (cross-gen) went also free2play. We counting songpacks of f2p titles now.
Entwined - I already mentioned I forgot it, absolute massive title for Indiestation 4. Came out on PS3 & Vita as well.

2015
Bloodborne. Stay consistent, made by FromSoft, not a 1st party studio.
TearAway Folded. Stay consistent, Vita-game, Counting ports now??
Until Dawn. Stay consistent, SuperMassive not a 1st party studio.
The Order 1886. Stay consistent, Ready at Dawn not a 1st party studio.
Everybody Gone to Rapture. Stay consistent, Made by The Chinese Room, not a 1st party studio.
Fat Princess. Stay consistent, made by Fun bits, not a 1st party studio.

2016
Ratchet & Clank remake - Remake, Insomniac not 1st party at the time (people forget they made a bunch of 3rd party games 2012-16)
The Last Guardian - we established Ueda left Sony last 2 years of development. I counted it but we need to stay consistent, not first party.
Alienation. Stay consistent, Housemarque was not owned at the time, not a 1st party studio at the time
Bound. indie dev at incubation program Santa Monica, ok.
Shadow of the Beast. remake of a 1989 game,Heavy Spectrum Entertainment Labs, stay consistent, not a 1st party studio

2017 is for PS4 it's best year of the gen regarding 1st party output (also great 2nd and 3rd party) Knack 2 GOTY, no doubt but to keep consistent
Everybody's Golf, Stay consistent, made by Clap Hanz, not a 1st party studio.
Matterfall, Stay consistent, made by Housemarque, not a 1st party studio at the time.

Faulty? Sure showed me. A indie title and a incubation title (technically PixelOpus came from incubation at SM so we gonna count both)
Like I've pointed out multiple times. If you go by a standard, 1st party only, stick to it. Don't get mad at me, it's what you guys are saying.
And how dumb it actually is and exposes double standards. If the discussion is about the strategy or direction not appealing sure..
Every time I do the uno reverse on PS4 in this manner suddenly it gets defensive, actually funny.
 

arvfab

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Faulty? Speaking of let's look at your list, let's stay consistent.

2014
Infamous First Light = DLC. Stay consistent you didn't count Burning Shores.
LBP3 (cross-gen) it was on PS3, again stay consistent if you call out Sackboy for cross-gen, both are not from 1st party studio.
Singstar 2014 (cross-gen) went also free2play. We counting songpacks of f2p titles now.
Entwined - I already mentioned I forgot it, absolute massive title for Indiestation 4. Came out on PS3 & Vita as well.

2015
Bloodborne. Stay consistent, made by FromSoft, not a 1st party studio.
TearAway Folded. Stay consistent, Vita-game, Counting ports now??
Until Dawn. Stay consistent, SuperMassive not a 1st party studio.
The Order 1886. Stay consistent, Ready at Dawn not a 1st party studio.
Everybody Gone to Rapture. Stay consistent, Made by The Chinese Room, not a 1st party studio.
Fat Princess. Stay consistent, made by Fun bits, not a 1st party studio.

2016
Ratchet & Clank remake - Remake, Insomniac not 1st party at the time (people forget they made a bunch of 3rd party games 2012-16)
The Last Guardian - we established Ueda left Sony last 2 years of development. I counted it but we need to stay consistent, not first party.
Alienation. Stay consistent, Housemarque was not owned at the time, not a 1st party studio at the time
Bound. indie dev at incubation program Santa Monica, ok.
Shadow of the Beast. remake of a 1989 game,Heavy Spectrum Entertainment Labs, stay consistent, not a 1st party studio

2017 is for PS4 it's best year of the gen regarding 1st party output (also great 2nd and 3rd party) Knack 2 GOTY, no doubt but to keep consistent
Everybody's Golf, Stay consistent, made by Clap Hanz, not a 1st party studio.
Matterfall, Stay consistent, made by Housemarque, not a 1st party studio at the time.

Faulty? Sure showed me. A indie title and a incubation title (technically PixelOpus came from incubation at SM so we gonna count both)
Like I've pointed out multiple times. If you go by a standard, 1st party only, stick to it. Don't get mad at me, it's what you guys are saying.
And how dumb it actually is and exposes double standards. If the discussion is about the strategy or direction not appealing sure..
Every time I do the uno reverse on PS4 in this manner suddenly it gets defensive, actually funny.

Again, there are definitions for 1st party and 3rd party. It's not my fault you seem to not know them. Maybe you could stop being defensive and actually use the occasion to learn something new.

In fact, I've been consistent by counting Returnal and Sackboy for PS5, didn't I?

The "DLCs" had standalone releases which do not require the "main" game to be played. If Burning Shore (or Frozen Wild or GoT Expansion) were released in a similar fashion, I would count them.

Tearaway was pretty much a different game, but go ahead, remove it from the list, doesn't change the substance:

SIE 1st party output has been lackluster this gen.
 

CrackmanNL

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Again, there are definitions for 1st party and 3rd party. It's not my fault you seem to not know them. Maybe you could stop being defensive and actually use the occasion to learn something new.
You are correct. Sackboy is first party, but Helldivers 2 ain't. I was a bit confused, Housemarque making 2nd party game are considered 1st party but if Shift-Up has a 2nd party contract it's not. If Team Ninja make 3 exclusive games in a row it's not valid, but if Insomniac does it when not being owned it counts same with the remake of R&C, unlike the ND one with LoU part one.
I see the errors of my way, studios not owned by Sony are 1st party in PS4 era.

I was the one who lacked consistency after all.
35829519496_b0a998c0c9_b.jpg
 

arvfab

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You are correct. Sackboy is first party, but Helldivers 2 ain't. I was a bit confused, Housemarque making 2nd party game are considered 1st party but if Shift-Up has a 2nd party contract it's not. If Team Ninja make 3 exclusive games in a row it's not valid, but if Insomniac does it when not being owned it counts same with the remake of R&C, unlike the ND one with LoU part one.
I see the errors of my way, studios not owned by Sony are 1st party in PS4 era.

Sorry, forgot to mention that the original list was meant for single-player games/non-mp-only games, that's why Helldivers 2 is missing. Thought from the following sentence it was clear:

And in addition to all of that they had MP only games, remasters, remakes, VR and PlayLink stuff. They also had the PSVita in the meantime, although only briefly supported.

I will spell it out for you the next time.

But you are still confused: Stellar Blade is not a "2nd" party game, same as Ni-Oh or RotR. Being console/platform exclusive doesn't mean being first-party. Or do you count FFXVI and FF7Rebirth as 1st party? What about Black Myth Wu-Kong?

Regarding R&C 2016: if you want to count it as a Remake, go ahead. I've always seen it as a reboot to tie in with the movie.

I was the one who lacked consistency after all.

Well you're still lacking knowledge, as you continue to not understand the difference between a 1st party game or not.

I will try to explain it to you in a simple way:

Sony owns IP:
a) Developed internally => 1st party
b) Developed externally => still 1st party, commonly known as 2nd party

Sony doesn't own the IP:
3rd party

Btw, I would also check your counting skills after sentences like this one:

Team Ninja make 3 exclusive games in a row

Speaking of Team Ninja: do you consider Ninja Gaiden to be Xbox first party titles?
 
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Vertigo

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Helldivers has been the biggest release of the year outside of Palworld but let’s ignore it cuz mp games don’t count cuz reasons… lols.

It’s ridiculous to ignore it considering it saved them from an all around lackluster year thus far. Ironically this would telegraph for them to keep going all in on GAAS. But they are right to show concern. Risk is high

Sony did what they could with exclusives like Ronin, FF7, Foamstars, and stellar blade considering their internal studios have pretty much delayed everything at least a year.

The only thing that’s going to make money for them this year on software end is Helldivers and Destiny.

I enjoy Ronin. Reviewed fairly imo but still a good game. Glad to see it having legs. But didn’t team ninja by the ip? I considered it a Sony owned property as it’s a ps studios game upon boot but I think something changed shortly from release.
 
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Yurinka

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Haven't really been keeping pace lately.

Followg the Spider-Man 2 release late last year, this year they did a great job so far releasing TLOU2, Helldivers 2, Stellar Blade, MLB, Rise of the Ronin, HFW PC, GoT PC, The Final Shape, plus 3rd party exclusives like FFVII Rebirth, Pacific Drive or Granblue Fantasy Relink.

For the rest of the year they have Concord, Astro, Lego Horizon, Until Dawn, GoWR PC and in the 3rd party side Phantom Blade Zero (no announced date but it's playable at events so may be for this or next year), Silent Hill 2 or Little Devil Inside.

They also had a good output the previous years, IMO specially 2022.

When are they going to start announcing the games coming in 2025 and 2026?
They already announced a few of them as I remember: Death Stranding 2, Fairgame$ and Wolverine (they also announced that after releasing DS2 will start developing Physint, so who knows when it's going to be released). Plus Convallaria and Lost Soul Aside if they don't release in 2024 as announced and get delayed.

They normally focus on games to be released in the next few months. Now they're focusing on Concord and Astro, later will focus on Lego Horizon, Until Dawn and PC GoWR. They also support 3rd party exclusives that will continue marketing when needed like like Phantom Blade Zero, Silent Hill 2 or Little Devil Inside plus some China Hero Project titles.

I assume starting around late September or so, having released most of their 2024 console exclusives, they'll start annoncing and showing more 2025 games and in some rare case some 2026 title.

You are correct. Sackboy is first party, but Helldivers 2 ain't. I was a bit confused, Housemarque making 2nd party game are considered 1st party but if Shift-Up has a 2nd party contract it's not. If Team Ninja make 3 exclusive games in a row it's not valid, but if Insomniac does it when not being owned it counts same with the remake of R&C, unlike the ND one with LoU part one.
I see the errors of my way, studios not owned by Sony are 1st party in PS4 era.
Sackboy, Helldivers 2, Returnal, Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade are all published by Sony, which means they are all 1st party.

In this case, their lead dev teams aren't owned by sony, which means all of these games in addition to being 1st party are also 2nd party.

None of these games is 3rd party games, because 3rd party games are those not published by the platform holder (in this case Sony).

They already had the formula perfected in PS3 era and even in PS4 era..... Like what happened?
Happened that every generation AAA games take longer to be made, and that there were delays due to covid lockdowns.

So the dev teams at Sony, like in the rest of the AAA developers, now need more time to make each AAA game than one, two or three generations ago.

The vast majority of their studios haven't done any new major projects. Remasters aren't it. Other than Insomniac and Santa Monica, we've seen nothing. Naughty Dog made a remaster and released an update for TLOU2. That's in 4 years. Bend, BluePoint, Housemarque, Media Molecule and Sucker Punch have nothing to show after 4/5 years. Not even an announcement trailer.

Out of the dev teams of all these studios, only Sucker Punch could have been working during 4 years assuming the case that while some people worked on Legends and Ikki Island/DC/PS5 version a different team worked on GoT2 at the same time. If not, they'd be working on GoT2 less time.

Nowadays AAA normally take around 5-9 years to be made and in recent times, with a few exceptions, Sony announces their games maximum around a year and a half before its planned release.

Bend did release DG 5 years ago, after it some post launch content and the PC port 3 years ago while were also supporting the cancelled TLOU Online and in an Uncharted spinoff where they stopped to work around 3 years ago when they moved to work in their new IP (too early to be shown).

ND released TLOU2 4 years ago, since then released the TLOUP1 remake, the TLOU2 remaster, the Uncharted collection (plus the outsourced PC ports), Uncharted movie and TLOU tv show. Since the TLOU2 release regarding new games worked in the cancelled TLOU Online and in -minimum- two unannounced new SP games which are too early to show (one of them started barely around a year ago, the other one apparently around 3 years or 3 years and a half ago -maybe the Uncharte game dropped by Bend, maybe a new IP-, months after TLOU 2 release).

Bluepoint released Demon's Souls 4 years ago and after it worked as support team on GowR, released two years ago. They've been working these last two years as support team in another unknown game, which may have been announced or not.

Housemarque released Returnal around 3 years ago. Since then they released some DLC/updates, the outsourced PC port and are working on a new game.

Media Molecule did work on post launch Dreams content and maintenance until a year an a half ago, when they moved to work in a new game. That was less than two years ago, so it's too early to show their next game.

Sucker Punch released GoT in mid 2020, GoT Legends late 2020 and GoT DC with the DLC and PS5 SKU mid 2021, 3 years ago (plus the outsourced PC port a few months ago). They're working on a new game, supposedly GoT2. Again, too early to be shown.

We criticized Phil for all the talk and no show. We have to do the same for PS.
But it isn't the case of Sony, who every year has a good amount of console exclusive releases, each one take the normal amount of dev time for a AAA game and -with a handful exceptions- in recent times aren't announced a lot of years before release.
 
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arvfab

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This year they did a great job so far releasing TLOU2, Helldivers 2, Stellar Blade, MLB, Rise of the Ronin, GoT PC, The Final Shape, plus 3rd party exclusives like FFVII Rebirth, Pacific Drive and Granblue Fantasy Relink.

For the rest of the year they have Concord, Astro, Lego Horizon, Until Dawn, GoWR PC and in the 3rd party side Phantom Blade Zero (no announced date but it's playable at events so may be for this or next year), Silent Hill 2 or Little Devil Inside.


They already announced a few of them as I remember: Death Stranding 2, Fairgame$ and Wolverine (they also announced that after releasing DS2 will start developing Physint, so who knows when it's going to be released). Plus Convallaria and Lost Soul Aside if they don't release in 2024 as announced and get delayed.

They normally focus on games to be released in the next few months. Now they're focusing on Concord and Astro, later will focus on Lego Horizon, Until Dawn and PC GoWR. They also support 3rd party exclusives that will continue marketing when needed like like Phantom Blade Zero, Silent Hill 2 or Little Devil Inside.

I assume starting around late September or so, having released most of their 2024 console exclusives, they'll start annoncing and showing more 2025 games and in some rare case some 2026 title.


Sackboy, Helldivers 2, Returnal, Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade are all published by Sony, which means they are all 1st party.

In this case, their lead dev teams aren't owned by sony, which means all of these games in addition to being 1st party are also 2nd party.

None of these games is 3rd party games, because 3rd party games are those not published by the platform holder (in this case Sony).
Another one not knowing what a 1st party game is....
 

Petekilla

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Only that your argument is completely faulty. There are definitions for 1st party and 3rd party.

I already made a list in the past, so I will just quote it:



And in addition to all of that they had MP only games, remasters, remakes, VR and PlayLink stuff. They also had the PSVita in the meantime, although only briefly supported.

Now let's see the situation with PS5:

2020:
Sackboy: A Big Adventure (cross-gen)
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (cross-gen)
Astro's Playroom

2021:
Returnal
R&C: Rift Apart

2022:
Forbidden West (cross-gen)
GT7 (cross-gen)
Ragnarök (cross-gen)

2023:
Spider-man 2

2024:
*crickets until now*
Astro Bot
Lego Horizon (multiplatform)
Just because you may not care about MP games doesn’t mean they don’t count. Helldivers 2 absolutely counts. Sony owns the IP. Concord counts too. Even if the game is 💩, it’s still a PS Studios game.
 

Petekilla

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Toy Story is not considered part of the Disney animated canon by Disney fans, try again.
Who gives a shit what Disney fans think. LMAO it’s still a Disney IP. It’s at Disney world now, so Disney must think so.
 

Petekilla

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You skipped multiple "first party" games, but listed The Last Guardian, which was made by a third party dev GENDesign lmao
You guys are just argueing over semantics at this point. Why does it now magicaly matter, If Sony owns a studio? 90% of PlayStation's library from it's beggining on the market, has been made by third party devs, which is absolutely fine, and discrediting games, becouse the devs decided not to sell their souls permanently to a corpo is retarded lol

Which doesnt change the fact, that your argument doesnt even make sense. Sony has 3x more studios now, than they had back then, and they can barerly beat the pathetic PS4 lineup.
Because games are taking longer to make. Not to mention Covid slowed things down. Even Xbox is having issues with dev times. Idk how many times people have to explain this to you impatient nerds. Lol Also. Did you just call the PS4 lineup “pathetic”? LMAO
 

arvfab

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Just because you may not care about MP games doesn’t mean they don’t count. Helldivers 2 absolutely counts. Sony owns the IP. Concord counts too. Even if the game is 💩, it’s still a PS Studios game.

Yes they are, but I didn't count the MP-only ones for PS4 either in the original list I posted. I also didn't count Destruction All-Stars, why did you forget it?

Even Xbox is having issues with dev times.

"Even Xbox"? Has there ever been a time when they didn't have issues with dev times?
 

quest4441

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Please Someone send Herman and co a memo that Concord, Fairgames, Lego Borizon are not what you call continuously releasing hit titles
 

Vertigo

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It should be noted that doomers 100% thought Helldivers would flop.

I’m not saying Concord will also be a breakout success (as I would bet against it) but there’s always that angle being framed.

They want these games to fail and will always spin the narrative to fit.
 
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