IMO I don’t think Sony helping the development or funding the game makes it 1st-party… Sony do that with a lot of 3rd-party games.
I just want to say that Sony publishing the game doesn’t make it 1st-party.
There are a lot of examples that prove that… it just time consuming to check all them but… I can give some examples from my mind:
Marvel’s Iron Man VR: 3rd-party game published by Sony.
Ghostbusters: 3rd-party game published by Sony (Europe).
These are Sony published games that are not 1st-party.
Same for Stellar Blade.
Unless Sony buys the IP or developer it will continue being a 3rd-party exclusive.
That doesn’t even make sense.
Maybe you guys are well new to PlayStation but if you say games published by Sony is first-party then a lot of games for PS1 / PS2 were first-party… but they weren’t.
Destruction Derby was published by Sony and it was 3rd-party.
3D Lemmings was published by Sony and it was 3rd1party.
Even WipEout only become 1st party after Sony brought them… on PS1 it was a 3rd-party game published by Sony.
Singstar, Blood & Truth, etc all 3rd-party published by Sony.
Edit - These games where already part of Sony.
First party means published by the platform holder. 3rd party means not published by the platform holder. Independently of who owns the IPs.
So when published for PS devices, games like Marvel's Iron Man VR, Marvel's Spider-Man, Ghostbusters, Stellar Blade or Wipeout were first party because were published by Sony subsidiaries.
Sony acquired Psygnosis in 1993 and the first Wipout Game and Destruction Derby games were released in 1995. So even the first Wipeout and Destruction Derby games were internally developed first party games. Not even second party titles, which are the first party games with a lead dev studio not owned by the platform holder.
And yes, Sony also published both games outside PS. Sony has been publishing computer games during 4 decades, here you have a few Sony computer games from 1983:
And well, here you have games that Sony released as 3rd party for other consoles not much later:
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