If Sony hadn't screwed up SOCOM could that have been their Call of Duty?

F

FMX

Member
I remember that SOCOM was pretty hot back in the day until that last one dropped on PS3. It was horrible. Now they are around here praying that MS doesn't buy Activision/Blizzard and steal COD. From my understanding the last SOCOM was not made the the developer who made the previous 2 right? I think if done right it could have been bigger for them or were they too focused on the single player experience to understand what they had?
 
Sometimes i wish they would just make HD remakes of older games with slightly updated mechanics (if needed). I had thr PS3 SOCOM i believe...all i remember was the new over the shoulder camera angle ruining it for me. Felt like i couldn't see in front of me.
 
Socom was alright but they had struck real gold with Warhawk. It's a shame they never continued it, a direct sequel with a decent budget behind it and some good marketing would have sent sales through the roof.
 
SOCOM was good but it wasn't going to be Call of Duty big. But you don't need it to be Call of Duty big, SOCOM was a sound tactical shooter that was unforgiving compared to casual Call of Duty, which has become even more casual where I can barely stand to play it anymore.

SOCOM, SOCOM II, SOCOM III, and SOCOM IV were developed by Zipper which no longer exists. SOCOM: Confrontation was developed by Slant Six which no longer exists.

If they were to do a SOCOM game they need to adjust the formula just a bit, but I would welcome it with open arms. It's been 20 years now since the first SOCOM launched in August of 2002, since there was nothing mentioned on the 20th Anniversary it makes me feel like nothing is in development or thought about SOCOM at Sony HQ. Which is unfortunate.
 
They killed Socom by trying to make it more like CoD. It would never have become as big because you couldn't run and gun.
 
Sony has the talent to make elite games in any genre they choose. The only reason they don't have their own Halo or Gears or CoD is because they aren't going that route.

If they decided this was a type of game they cared about, they'd probably end up making one with an 85 or better metacritic score.
 
Captain Toad said:
If Sony is going to make a Call of Duty competitor now, it's likely to come from Bungie.
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I suspect that was likely the greater point behind the move. Bungie has to date created 2 of the most beloved first person shooter franchises on the market, Halo and Destiny. They clearly understand how to make a good FPS.
 
eh, So-Socom.

You could say any game could have been hugely successful if it was better. Was Socom in particular somehow destined for greatness and denied it by Sony mishandling? I'm gonna say no.
 
bentanchorbolt said:
Sony has the talent to make elite games in any genre they choose. The only reason they don't have their own Halo or Gears or CoD is because they aren't going that route.

If they decided this was a type of game they cared about, they'd probably end up making one with an 85 or better metacritic score.
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You think this post is going to convince the cma?
 
Oh no way, not socom. I'mm surprised it was as popular as it was. It was good, sure, but so deliberate and teamplay focused.
 
consoul said:
eh, So-Socom.

You could say any game could have been hugely successful if it was better. Was Socom in particular somehow destined for greatness and denied it by Sony mishandling? I'm gonna say no.
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Crayon said:
Oh no way, not socom. I'mm surprised it was as popular as it was. It was good, sure, but so deliberate and teamplay focused.
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Agreed. SOCOM was never a great game IMO (though it did have some unique sim qualities which I admire.) It's a fairly joyless series in single-player (though I did like the FTB3/Tactical Strike PSP games) and the shooting mechanics are rudimentary. Not a bad game, but never excellent in any specific category. I feel there's fair reason why it failed to rebuild an audience with Confrontation even after the online mess (and people were already iffy when 3 added vehicles, so fans were already agitated about it going off script even before Confon/SOCOM 4,) and why the several clones which tried to capture that experience all failed.

It was the community that it fostered which made SOCOM great (in its day). The people you could meet and chat with, the strategies you could devise over mics, the fun of rooting on that last soldier fighting for his life against the surviving opponents... that was SOCOM to me.
 
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Iced Arcade said:
Socom, was so huge at 1 point. still blows my mind the franchise was abandoned.
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I vaguely remember it showing population count...i remember seeing upward of 50k. Thats huge i would think for online console gaming in its infancy especially considering you had to purchase a modem add-on.
 
bentanchorbolt said:
Sony has the talent to make elite games in any genre they choose. The only reason they don't have their own Halo or Gears or CoD is because they aren't going that route.

If they decided this was a type of game they cared about, they'd probably end up making one with an 85 or better metacritic score.
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They went after Halo with Haze and Killzone and failed. They had several attempts at a FPS including MAG and Resistance. They didn't make it big. Uncharted was their cover shooter answer to Gears and that succeeded. Socom was mainly third person with a first person type of option akin to Fortnite. Unfortunately that wasn't that popular at the time and it released near the PSN outage and died out.
 
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Three said:
They went after Halo with Haze and Killzone and failed. They had several attempts at a FPS including MAG and Resistance. They didn't make it big. Uncharted was their cover shooter answer to Gears and that succeeded. Socom was mainly third person with a first person type of option akin to Fortnite. Unfortunately that wasn't that popular at the time and it released near the PSN outage and died out.
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I don't think that's really fair in 2022 considering the quality of Sony's in-house talent has never been stronger, and their ability to collaborate between different developers is second to none in the industry.
 
I'd love for the game to return but in today's market, it wouldn't draw an insane amount of player numbers like CoD due to it not being a game you just jump into

What Last Of Us had done with Factions was really cool and fun but repetitive. The ball is in their court to make it a fully fleshed-out experience & not such a niche product that could draw more eyes also launching on PC would be nice. I know there were rumors of BR happening from them which could be fun and different due to the brutal gameplay a more realistic BR is always welcomed.

1) Warhawk with today's tech destructible buildings, vehicles/aircraft, massive team battles, and unique gameplay mechanics like what BF2042 was going for but its own universe.

2) MAG was really early and missed its mark. If it had been released today on PS5/PC the userbase would be huge due to many people loving SQUAD, ARMA & Tactical & Mil-Sim simulators.

3) Killzone...man don't get me started on how they massacred my boy...We don't want Killzone VR. We want Killzone 1/2 MP with the classic gritty MP & competitive features like Gears of War.
 
I think sony should bring it back. The issue was ps3 era sony didnt know how to manage that franchise. Now i think they would fare much better
 
It didn't need to be their "call of duty, Socom and Socom 2 were far and away the best shooters of all time. 3 to me, made the maps too big and lost its feel, 4 was a debacle BECAUSE they chased CoD. And confrontation was solid in its own right.

Bring back a ps5 only SOCOM in the mold of 1@2, with current gen tech and it will sell gangbusters.
 
FMX said:
I remember that SOCOM was pretty hot back in the day until that last one dropped on PS3. It was horrible. Now they are around here praying that MS doesn't buy Activision/Blizzard and steal COD. From my understanding the last SOCOM was not made the the developer who made the previous 2 right? I think if done right it could have been bigger for them or were they too focused on the single player experience to understand what they had?
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Well Socom I/II/III/Combined Assault/Socom 4 were developed by Zipper
The good ones developed under David Sears (Socom I/II) who fucked us over with H -Hour and abandoned the project before release (I'm still waiting for my PS4 copy which I highly doubt will ever be released)

Socom III/Combined Assault and Socom 4 were developed under Travis Steiner.(If I'm correct😉)

Socom III was the try to change the franchise and going for bigger maps/vehicles looking for Battlefield players.

Socom 4 was complete trash and a cheap third Person COD Clone.

Yeah and let's not forget Socom Confrontation developed by slant six games.

Complete bugfest.

You see all studios that worked on the Socom franchise don't exist anymore.

This happens when clueless Clowns try to change a franchise and instead of improving the strenghts of the franchise(small maps no vehicles) they try gather players from other games like Battlefield and COD and completely fuck up the franchise.

I don't think that Sony is capable to develop a decent mp game anymore.

Does anyone rember Warhawk/Starhawk/MAG?? These days are long gone.

No wonder people don't subsribe to Playstation Plus and the Numbers go down.

You don't need It for free to play games and there Is no good no game from Sonys studios.
 
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bentanchorbolt said:
I don't think that's really fair in 2022 considering the quality of Sony's in-house talent has never been stronger, and their ability to collaborate between different developers is second to none in the industry.
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The inhouse talent that is Guerilla Games was the one who made Killzone. The now inhouse talent that is Insomniac was the one who created Resistance. The talent was there when they had no success with those.
Zipper interactive created SOCOM games then they had their go at a FPS in MAG.

The only difference today is Bungie and they are not making exclusive games, maybe that collaboration might help but that's just a maybe and unproven to work. There is nothing to suggest they can do a better COD competitor with the SOCOM IP better than Zipper interactive already tried.
 
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Personally, they don't need SOCOM

They have Bungie for that aspect in FPS.

COD is a multiplatform game, it's not that Sony can't replace the game (and they shouldn't have to), it's the brand that's so recognizable.
 
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Call of Duty has been basically the best selling game of the year since 20 years ago or so and they release at least a game per year. No Sony IP can compete against this by itself because they don't have an IP of that level of success and frequency.

I don't remember any SOCOM to have great sales. So no, it never worked and don't see why it should work now.

If Sony wants to create something to compete against CoD even if without yearly releases of the same IP, I think they should do it with a combination with Destiny and new IPs coming from Bungie, Firewalk, Deviation and Arrowhead (teams that they should buy if the ABK acquisition gets completed and if their current projects are promising enough) plus maybe some isolated shooter from Guerrilla, London Studio or Firesprite. Or who knows, maybe even TLOU Online could end being a very successful MP shooter.

Instead of competing against CoD with a copy of the same formula, I think they should compete against the MS shooters group with different appoaches to the shooter genre providing somewhat equivalents but without directly copying their formulas but instead evolving them. To have their own evolved and highly twisted versions of Halo, Gears, CoD, Doom, Overwatch, Fortnite and Rainbow 6 Siege. Something somewhat different but that can appeal to the players of these different shooter approaches while adding Sony specific flavor (maybe mixing their narrative approach and single player experience in the MP).

CoD, Doom, Quake, Overwatch and Wolfenstein may end being exclusive, but considering Destiny and all the other current multiplatform shooters Sony has the genre more than covered but they should ensure they don't depend on 3rd parties for it and in addition to Destiny they need more 1st party big guns in the genre to cover the different subgenres.
 
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Three said:
The inhouse talent that is Guerilla Games was the one who made Killzone. The now inhouse talent that is Insomniac was the one who created Resistance. The talent was there when they had no success with those.
Zipper interactive created SOCOM games then they had their go at a FPS in MAG.

The only difference today is Bungie and they are not making exclusive games, maybe that collaboration might help but that's just a maybe and unproven to work. There is nothing to suggest they can do a better COD competitor with the SOCOM IP better than Zipper interactive already tried.
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I am aware of who made which games, and my counter is those aren't the same devs today. The talent level at these studios, and others, is much higher than it was during the PS3 era.
 
Lupin25 said:
Personally, they don't need SOCOM

They have Bungie for that aspect in FPS.

COD is a multiplatform game, it's not that Sony can't replace the game (and they shouldn't have to), it's the brand that's so recognizable.
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SOCOM isnt an FPS. And Bungie isn't good anymore, most of the key guys left.
 
bentanchorbolt said:
I am aware of who made which games, and my counter is those aren't the same devs today. The talent level at these studios, and others, is much higher than it was during the PS3 era.
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You may be right but in what way? They were pretty talented even on the PS3. I'd say even more so with the hardware they were working on.
 
bentanchorbolt said:
It's so funny to me how this forum is filled to the brim with people that just trip over their dick trying to make trite comments. This forum could use more discourse and less people trying to win at conversation.
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Facts. Tthe reaction system doesn't help, and yet I was compelled to give your post a like 🙃
 
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