Personally, I don't believe that second party is something that actually exists. It's a made up term for some odd unknown reason. If a game is funded, published, manufactured and distributed by the hardware manufacturer, it's a first party game. Always has been and always will be. So while the development studio is third party, the game itself is first party. And even more so if the hardware manufacturer owns the IP which 9 times out of 10, they do.
Anyway, while people including PlayStation fans see 2024 as being empty, I actually disagree. Looking at the new game release lineup as of now -
- Helldivers 2
- Rise of the Ronin
- MLB The Show 24
- Concord
- Stellar Blade
Three out of the five games are being developed by external development studios but they're still first party games. No different than Contraband or Flight Simulator for Microsoft or Astral Chain and Bayonetta for Nintendo. Same shit.
I get that people may be disappointed but at the same time, as we all know, games take at least 5+ years to develop and when Sony debuts the game, they want them to be shown in it's best form so when you combine those two things, you'll be waiting a while for announcements.
In general, that lineup isn't the greatest but it's far from being bad. At worse, it's just not what people want but at the same time, the first four years of the generation have heavily front loaded so at some point, there was going to be a slow year if you're just looking for Sony's internal first party games.
Personally, im hyped for Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade. With Ronin, I already have a Sony published first party game for the first quarter of 2024 and will be a good game to tide me over until Tsushima 2 so im definitely not worried or concerned. As always, Sony will be just fine.