Given Nintendo's success, do you think Sony might take note and focus on exclusives again?

Do you think Sony will learn from Nintendo and begin focusing on exclusives again?

  • Yes, I think they'll learn from Nintendo and focus on exclusives

    Votes: 43 21.5%
  • No, Sony is too arrogant/stupid and instead only cares about short term profits

    Votes: 157 78.5%

  • Total voters
    200
Astrobot is brilliant. Loved it.

Not a fan of helldivers due to the controls, but yes, a great game.

Those are exactly the sort of games Sony should focus on.
I feel like if we want good gameplay mechanics, that is something Sony has been able to deliver for a few years now. TLOU2's third person stealth sandbox is incredible, Spider-Man 2's movement tech is fantastic, Ragnarok's combat is great... it's the stories people have issues with, not the actual gameplay lol.

I guess Astro and Helldivers both sidestep that problem though, true.
 
I feel like if we want good gameplay mechanics, that is something Sony has been able to deliver for a few years now. TLOU2's third person stealth sandbox is incredible, Spider-Man 2's movement tech is fantastic, Ragnarok's combat is great... it's the stories people have issues with, not the actual gameplay lol.

I guess Astro and Helldivers both sidestep that problem though, true.
For me, it's the bloat.

I want less story. Culture is so inane these days, the 'stories' are almost always written by cretinous imbeciles.

It's just tedious schleping through hours of cut scene to get to anything resembling good gameplay.
 
For me, it's the bloat.

I want less story. Culture is so inane these days, the 'stories' are almost always written by cretinous imbeciles.

It's just tedious schleping through hours of cut scene to get to anything resembling good gameplay.
It went the way of movies, big budget = better in their mind as those seemed to drive the biggest sales initially. Which was true up to a point but it came with an unrealized cost. But the narrative focus lost sight of the value of gaming. If I want to watch a movie I will watch a movie. If I want to play a game then I will play a game. Strip away the imbedded menus in menus for action games and 8 hours of cutscenes. Go back to simpler games like astrobot etc. That's why everyone appreciates the PS2 they had focus driven action and adventure games when there was multiple Ratchets and Draks etc. Sony doesn't to stop exclusives but they need to go back to gameplay being the primary focus.
 
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Firstly, I'm mystified why as consumers we should want Sony to keep it's games on its own platform. I basically only game on PS5 these days, and I don't care if PC people get to play the games, good luck to them.

Sony uses it's first party games for 4 reasons:
  1. To drive people to their ecosystem
  2. To act as a showcase for their hardware
  3. To round out the game offering
  4. To make money
So take the PS4 launch lineup. KZSF was the showcase. Knack rounded out the offering (giving the missing mascot game).

Now Sony have evidently come to the conclusion that objective 1 (driving people to the ecosystem) won't be harmed too much by a delayed release on PC, and will help with objective 4 (making money). They'll have the metrics, and if that isn't true they'll move the PC ports back or eliminate them all together. If they find there's no downsides, the ports will come forward.

I think people here overestimate the extent to which consoles and PCs compete. Whatever people think, and whatever it's undoubted advantages, PC gaming isn't a great turnkey living room solution for gaming. The two have the place, and until the infrastructure for cloud gaming is a good substitute, always will. I was a PC gamer from the late '80s for 20 odd years fwiw. Having kids drive me to consoles eventually.
 
What a loaded and frankly retarded poll 🙄

Do you not see what's happened? Sony won the console war, they're the last one's standing. They're now cashing in and enjoying their spoils of war. It's all about profits now and building the war chest so that they're in a strong position to react to future challenges.
 
The choices are too loaded to make sense, Sony should take a hard look at what Nintendo is doing and learn from succesful competitors instead of the losers at Xbox... Just my 2 cents.
 
The poll doesn't reflect the current reality.

About 18 months ago it would have made sense to talk about exclusivity. At that time Xbox was still limping along and we didn't know they'd go full third party this quickly. Sony making exclusivity a clear cut priority back then would have (and perhaps did) killed Xbox hardware.

But now, Xbox hardware is already dead both in terms of sales and strategy going forward for MS.

Xbox collapsed so quickly that as thing stand right now, exclusives don't make sense.

There is a market of console players spread across PS and Xbox which doesn't seem to be growing, and Sony need to keep as many of those people in the console ecosystem as they can.

They may as well drop their stuff to the Xbox consoles for the same reason they're putting stuff on PC - it generates fans, and those fans may jump to PS in future.

I imagine whatever MS told Sony in order to get Helldivers onto Xbox was a tip off - Xbox isn't competition or a threat to Sony in their space anymore.

So, simple answer is no - as of today and probably the rest of this gen, Sony may as well put stuff on Xbox consoles.

PS6 is when they can revisit the situation and decide whether to revert to a pure exclusive strategy again to try and drag players onto PS. Bear in mind there won't be an Xbox console - there may be PCs with an Xbox button but that's a different matter.

I think it'll probably be a good idea for Sony to offer a kind of play anywhere approach to their titles on Xbox consoles too - just let people buy on Xbox today and come PS6 let them transfer those titles across so they have a library there already.

Finally, I think Sony would be wise to avoid putting their stuff on GP for now anyway.

But sure, port the old stuff to current consoles, let people buy those titles, and for PS6, let them bring those purchases across. Sony can potentially gain a decent chunk of the Xbox users, the ones they don't get will disappear to PC land.
Good analysis but I think the writing was on the wall with Xbox when Sony did that cloud server deal with MS and switched from Amazon.

From Google:
"In 2019, Sony and Microsoft announced a strategic partnership focused on cloud solutions, particularly for game and content streaming services."

From that point forward the success of playstation would mean more success for Microsoft cloud. Losing to Sony no longer became such a bad thing especially when losing will ultimately mean less hardware risks for MS and they can still profit in terms of software on playstation.
 
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Sadly not.
I wish Sony would invest in Japanese developed games, it's fine being "international" but they've went too far with endless bland Western Live Service disasters.
However, I have zero confidence that they would think "Astrobot - loved by critics and fans, let's do more shit like that" under Hermen Hulst.
 
Nope they have ZERO competition

Basically you have

(1) $2000 gaming PCs

(2) PS6

(3) Nintendo Switch 2

There is no way switch can compete graphically with ps5 much less ps6 so if you want a console for the latest games you have really only one choice
 
The answers on this poll are the most neutral and clearly non biased and not made by a salty fanboy at all.
 
With the current leadership they will still pursue crashing out the PlayStation brand for a extra 100k copies sold on Xbox and 20k(Lego Horizon) from the game they released on the switch lol.

I miss Andrew House, he lead the PS4 generation like he had some sense and not a 2 dollar whore on the blade ready to get used by everyone in town.
 
Nope they have ZERO competition

Basically you have

(1) $2000 gaming PCs

(2) PS6

(3) Nintendo Switch 2

There is no way switch can compete graphically with ps5 much less ps6 so if you want a console for the latest games you have really only one choice

PC isn't that pricey but I agree with the gist of your post. PS is the only regular ass game box, that isn't asking people not to buy it. The reason PC isn't a threat isn't money it's because it's not a regular ass game box.
 
Maybe im the only one who wants this low budget games, but where are Ape Escape and Fat Princess?? you can't do much wrong sony
That's the thing with Sony they have a lot of start up and continued ips they could easily have games and be a strong first party developer. But they kill franchises if they don't sell to their liking. Look at all the titles below of games that Sony could of potentially made sequels and continue instead of fucking remasters all the time.

Jak and Daxter
Twisted Metal
Gravity Rush
Sky Cooper
Kill Zone
Resistance
Infamous
Knack
Uncharted (looks like it might be)
Ape Escape
Heavenly Sword
Wipe out
Syphon Filter
Jet Moto
Arc the Lad
Heavy Rain
The last Guardian
The Order 1886
Drive Club
etc

And that's just a few. Sony isn't that much different than Xbox when it comes to preserving IP Unless it's God of War, Last of us and Ratchet and Clank and will see about Uncharted and Gran Turismo. Especially with the PS5 generation which is basically a third party machine.

Nintendo seems like the one that has done in preserving franchises when it comes to first party. The only ones I can think of in question from them is it's been a minute since we saw Star Fox and F-Zero.

But this is what happens when you get dominated by corporate and suits and it will just get worse for first party for Sony in my eyes because they don't need to compete in the department anymore really because they have the console tv space and not missing a single third party game. A lot of devs and pubs will need Sony and PC to survive in Gaming. This is why I completely get why first party is going to PC and other platforms. It's too expensive to keep first party games off other platforms and it makes money.
 
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Now that most gamers know that they just have to wait for pc or xbox or switch version, Sony has lost there footing, leverage, and edge when it comes to exclusives. Sony trained the market that there exclusive will also come out of other platform unlike Nintendo which is always solid in there principle when it comes to exclusives. There really is no point of getting Ps5 and even Ps6 in the future. Switch 2, or xbox pc hybrid or pc upgrade will be the best option.
 
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  1. To drive people to their ecosystem
  2. To act as a showcase for their hardware

You can't drive people to your ecosystem when you release these games on another platform within a 1 year frame.

also. showcase of their hardware ? Have you seen Sony output this generation ??????
 
Haven't Sony reported sales/profits records as well? In any case, they shouldn't try to imitate Nintendo, because Sony are not Nintendo.
 
Nope lmao. There's a huge difference between Sony making games at up to $300M budgets and Nintendo making $50M games.

If Sony were to try and cut back on the production values of their games, their community wouldn't like it one bit.
 
What I liked about PS1, PS2, PS3 and even PS4 they had good amount of both western and Japanese exclusive games but with PS5 Sony almost completely shift their focus on making games for western market.

I'm personally not fan of their western games and unlike how Nintendo has Monolith Soft, Sony dont have any studio making JRPGs for them..... With PS5 I lost interest in 99% of their first party games.
You say this, yet you still own a PS5. LMAO
 
You idiots don't understand that PS dominates because of 3rd party, not their 1st party. Nintendo needs their 1st party to survive. For PS, their 1st party turned into a luxury after the PS3 Gen. But, it was never a necessity.
 
Sadly not.
I wish Sony would invest in Japanese developed games, it's fine being "international" but they've went too far with endless bland Western Live Service disasters.
However, I have zero confidence that they would think "Astrobot - loved by critics and fans, let's do more shit like that" under Hermen Hulst.
Love Astro Bot. But I don't even know if it has even crossed 3M sales.
 
It went the way of movies, big budget = better in their mind as those seemed to drive the biggest sales initially. Which was true up to a point but it came with an unrealized cost. But the narrative focus lost sight of the value of gaming. If I want to watch a movie I will watch a movie. If I want to play a game then I will play a game. Strip away the imbedded menus in menus for action games and 8 hours of cutscenes. Go back to simpler games like astrobot etc. That's why everyone appreciates the PS2 they had focus driven action and adventure games when there was multiple Ratchets and Draks etc. Sony doesn't to stop exclusives but they need to go back to gameplay being the primary focus.
Astro Bot hasn't even crossed 3M sales yet. You anime deeebs keep saying "sOnY oNlY mAkEs iNtErAcTiVe mOViEs". But those are the type of games that their fans want.
 
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The only real danger Sony is in is that they don't control any of the super popular GaaS. If Epic decided to pull Fortnite off PS for whatever reason it would cost them big. Same with any of these other games. There is nothing to stop any of them from deciding they would rather collect 100% of that revenue instead of paying a middle man. It's why they're so desperate to make a GaaS hit.

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Why the fuck would Epic pull Fortnite off the most popular home console? LMAO
 
I don't think so.
Trying to take a similar approach as Nintendo seems foolish because they'll never have any franchise as relevant as the main Nintendo ones. Nintendo positioned their brands early and has done a good job keeping them relevant for 30+ years.
Saying the Switch is popular simply because it has exclusives games seems reductive, yes it having exclusives is important, but the more important fact is that those exclusives are Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Animal Crossing, Smash, etc.

I don't think Ps5s will start flying off the shelves if they announce Intergalatic and Ghost of Yotei will not come to PC.
Remember the Wii U had all of those franchises and it was one of the biggest home console flops ever. The Switch became a massive success because it was a new concept, a handheld (which Nintendo has always succeeded in) that you can hook up to a tv.
 
Sony is focusing on exclusives.
The problem is not the lack of focus, it's the combination of types of games they are focusing on (MP GAAS crap) and the comparative effort needed to make a PS5 game which could cost / take as much time as making 3-5 games for the Switch2.
 
Love Astro Bot. But I don't even know if it has even crossed 3M sales.
I bet it's profitable.
In the sane old days it was possible to have a platform full of varied games that appealed to many rather than insisting on everything costing a gajillion and making 20 gajillion in profit for the next 78 years.
 
I imagine whatever MS told Sony in order to get Helldivers onto Xbox was a tip off - Xbox isn't competition or a threat to Sony in their space anymore.
My personal conspiracy theory is MS and Sony have had some sort of "peace deal" with Microsoft when Sony signed that 10 year COD deal.

The progression of events since that happened and the new-found coziness between the two megacorps cannot be a coincidence tbh.

My guess is Microsoft wants to focus on Valve and their threat to Windows adoption now and have decided that the fight with Sony is getting more difficult with less reward.
 
Helldivers and Astro Bot are not "Interactive movies". LMAO
Sure - one is made by Sony only gameplay team in japan

The other is made by a third party

And yes both are great

now - the rest of Sonys games are safe casual movie wannabe games

You expect wolverine to actually innovate in gameplay or have a story that is not "safe and inclusive" for example?
 
The situation only gets worse for the PS6: you'll be getting the games they started after Ryan's GAAS push was killed, so they'll trickle out cross gen titles across virtually the entire PS6 generation to make up for the lost revenue. I imagine remasters and remakes fill the gaps.
Crossgen is already a reality this gen, so this is not gonna be a very meaningful difference.

The big issue for PS6 for me is whether Sony has established enough "big promises" to fuel early adoption. This gen you had people absolutely gagging for more of GOW or Horizon or Ghost, and a lot of this demand has been serviced with reasonable to excellent sequels (Ghost of Yotei is still not out yet), but what are Sony's promises for the next gen? What new IP got released to massive acclaim and sales, for which a sequel will sell gangbusters and drive PS6 adoption?

They still have some time, but I wouldn't bet on it.
 
Pretty much every Switch 2 buyer gets it for Mario Kart, other Mario games, Donkey Kong and other Ninty games.

A big chunk of Playstation (or Xbox) buyers get it for Fornite, then there's another that get it for Fifa, others for NBA and whatever sports game is popular in USA, others for Roblox, others for GTA, others for CoD, others did for Harry Potter, and then there's others that buy for Sony's studios' games.

Releasing their games on PC changed pretty much nothing HW sales wise, and going back to exclusive would be the same.

Plus if i recall correctly Sony's studios basically released 1 game in 2023, 1 game 2024 and nothing yet this year, but they should release 1 too in a few months, they can't attract as many people as Nintendo does just for their studios' offering.

And when they made Nintendo like games such as Astro Bot, sales were meh until it was given out in bundles, if a person wants platformers for all the public they'll just get a Switch, if they want fun coop games like MK they'll get a Switch or a PC, that's not changing in the short-mid term.
 
The PS brand has been built day 1 from third party games. PS has been a behemoth in the console space since the 90s not because of first party games, but because of being the main platform for third party games. PS1 didn't dominate Japan in the 1990s because of Sony games but because they got Dragon Quest and FF7. So i don't see why Sony wouldn't continue to get success from being a third party platform, just as they have been since the 1990s.
 
You can't drive people to your ecosystem when you release these games on another platform within a 1 year frame.

also. showcase of their hardware ? Have you seen Sony output this generation ??????
Look, release 20 years later, it will have zero effect on driving people to your eco system. Release a day later the reverse is true. Somewhere in-between there will likely be a sweet spot where you get additional revenue without spoiling the "exclusivity". I don't have the data, nor do you. But 1 year strikes me as reasonable.

As for "showcasing their hardware"? Have you played "A rift apart"?
 
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Astro Bot hasn't even crossed 3M sales yet. You anime deeebs keep saying "sOnY oNlY mAkEs iNtErAcTiVe mOViEs". But those are the type of games that their fans want.
It's the first game of a new series. It takes time for franchise to be established. You realize that uncharted 1 has sold under 5 million copies to date and astrobot is pacing faster? Also the team that made Astrobot was far far smaller than any naughty dog game released in the last 15+ years. Also, Astrobot isn't anime.
 
Sure - one is made by Sony only gameplay team in japan

The other is made by a third party

And yes both are great

now - the rest of Sonys games are safe casual movie wannabe games

You expect wolverine to actually innovate in gameplay or have a story that is not "safe and inclusive" for example?
"The other is made by a third party".

You're an idiot. Helldivers is fully funded and published by Sony. The game wouldn't exist without them. They own the IP, and they paid to make it. So it's their property.
 
Even if Sony never released a single first party game, they would be fine because PlayStation is the default brand for console gamers who want to play their favourite games. PS5 has lacked in releases over the last 2 years but still sells near 20m units in those years.
 
It's the first game of a new series. It takes time for franchise to be established. You realize that uncharted 1 has sold under 5 million copies to date and astrobot is pacing faster? Also the team that made Astrobot was far far smaller than any naughty dog game released in the last 15+ years. Also, Astrobot isn't anime.
I know it's not anime. It's just that the people that rip PS's 1st party games and call them "interactive movies", are usually people that like anime hack and slash games or anime jrpg's. Idk if the sequel will fare better in sales. PS fans just don't care for those types of games now. Just look at Ratchet and Clank. It's been around for over 20 years, and idk if Rift Apart has crossed 5M sales yet.
 
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