Was it really Jim Ryan, though? Maybe he has been the fall guy all along. After all, he admitted that PC is a competing platform, before his retirement.
Either he came to that conclusion much later, or has held that belief for a while and was trying to stop an even more aggressive push for PC ports of 1P games. It could honestly have been either/or.
We'll see in due time. But right now, yes it does look like the push for internal 1P to focus on GaaS has come at the detriment of a solid pipeline for new 1P internal studio software releases. This was a particular concern of mine.
If Sony are taking the approach for 1P/2P/3P/platform expansion I've been talking about the past few months, then there actually isn't much to worry about in the long-term. It might be a bit rough 1P-wise for this year and 2025 (in terms of internal 1P studios releasing new non-GaaS titles), but they'll recover on that front by sometime in 2025.
IF Sony are taking a significantly different approach that also includes rapid focus of more 1P non-GaaS titles to PC (and maybe even other consoles) with shorter windows or Day 1,
AND they still don't have anything like their own storefront on those other platforms...well...it's been a good run, lads. But every amazing show comes to an end eventually.
...some prematurely, as would be the case here. But still...
Sony didn't say they won't release big first parties, they said that this year won't release sequels of top selling existing IPs of the level of GoWR or Spider-Man 2.
Which means they won't release an Uncharted, TLOU, Horizon, Gran Turismo, Spider-Man, GoT game that year. Means that they can release titles of all their other series and new IPs.
Very likely they could release this fiscal year following that description (I think some of them will release instead he next one):
- Stellar Blade
- Concord (by Halo+Destiny+CoD devs)
- Marathon
- Death Sranding 2
- Fairgame$
- Convallaria
- Lost Soul Aside
- Until Dawn remake/remaster
- Cory's new IP
- Team Asobi new IP
- Some Firesprite game
- Some 2nd party game we didn't see coming, maybe for PSVR2
By that description they could even release Bloodborne 2 (I think they wont).
This reads a lot like a hopium list and many of these titles are not from an internal 1P studio.
More importantly, since a lot of these games haven't been officially revealed or confirmed for a release in the next fiscal year, there's little point in mentioning them for reassurance. Just feels a bit like list wars to me, like when Xbox people kept mentioning "Project this and Project that" a year or two ago as 'insiders' were leaking games supposedly in development.
A lot of
those games aren't coming for many years or even at all. What's to say a similar fate isn't in store for Cory Balrog's game, or Team Asobi's new game? Proof is in the pudding IMO.
