Support NeoGAF

[RCU005]

This is my optimistic take on PS Studios:

It's clear that PlayStation started to go the direction of Games as a Service. A move that hasn't been successful to them, at least not to their expectations. They have cancelled many games internally and the few that have come out, have been a disappointment to say the least.

The studios that are not making GaaS games are making sequels. I believe this will be a generation with the least amount of new IPs from SIE.

We know about sequels that have to be in production, like Ghost of Tsushima (which was already announced at last), Horizon 3, Spider-Man 3, etc.

I believe that Sony knows they are in a bad situation. They have released the least amount of games in any gen so far, they have the least amount of new IPs, and their GaaS strategy is probably hanging by a thread with them expecting a miracle with FairGame$.

Their future seems bright though, and they will wait for the PS6.
There are many studios that are making new IP's and there's hope that they are shuffling things around to begin production of new games for next gen. I predict that the last three years will be all about the aforementioned sequels, while they prepare for next gen.

However, whether they will go back to what they do best or double down on GaaS games, we will have to wait.

There's no way they can do two generations with this kind go drought when it comes to games. I'm a firm believer that the success of the PS5 was due to many things aligned for it, like PS4 success giving people the good will to get a PS5 (thinking it will have as many games), the "failure" of Xbox, and the great games that third party have released.

PS Studios need to restructure and reorganize to bring back the innovation, variety and many games they are used to make since PS1.

A lot of people is very skeptical about Herman Hulst (I am one of them), but I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, and think that he was only following orders about GaaS games (after all, is the CEO who dictates the company's direction). Hopefully as CEO, he changes the company strategy and bring back their strengths. After all, he made two of the best games PlayStation has: Killzone and Horizon.

 

[Guilty_AI]

 

[GHG]

Sorry, I can't hear you over my excitement for the $10 upgrade for Horizon Zero Dawn.

 

[fart town usa]

I think an obvious solution is smaller games.

I really don't see the issue with smaller games. Do your GAAS-strategy that way. Release $40 games and pump out DLC every few months. You can do that with single player titles.

People would scoff at first but of course they'd buy if the games are good. Smaller budgets, quicker dev time, can experiment more, create new IPs or reboot old ones.

Astrobot is a kind of an example.

 

[Hrk69]

Oh this again

 

[nial]

Only Sony can get threads like this in a month in which they release Astro Bot and reveal Ghost of Yotei, launching next year.
Ok, you do make some good points, mostly regarding variety and innovation, but at some point you need to have a better look at the whole picture; Returnal seems mostly forgotten over here, Stellar Blade and Helldivers 2 were initially dismissed for weird several reasons (generic Asian action game, shitty GAAS), absolutely no one cared about Astro Bot until the reviews started to drop, and look at how everyone acts towards a perfectly fine looking game like Lego Horizon.

 

[Kerotan]

Over reaction? Concord a massive bomb but Helldivers 2 a gigantic success beyond their wildest dreams.

 

[MatrixReloaded101]

Sony is facing the same issue that rockstar has with GTA 6. Our expectations are high and in order for them to met our expectations, it will require games to take years to be created. That is why they have way less first party games this gen.

They don't want to make AAA first party games "smaller" because gamers will not spend $70 for a 8-15 hour game and Sony wants $70 for their games now. We are just going to have to settle for less AAA first party games going forward.

Also RCU005 in response to your comment about "them going back to the ps1 era". You got to understand that the market is very different now. Games like Fortnite and Roblox are the kings and it doesn't make business sense to try to replicate that era because the causal market has completely different taste.... we are the old folks now, longing for a time that doesn't exist anymore ... sad but its the truth.

 

[digital_ghost]

 

[PendekarRajawali]

Our future

 

[RoboFu]

Idk but they better up their console design game for sure. That's the biggest disappointment for me. Ps1 and 2 were so awesome looking then 3 and 4 were alright but not great... ps5 is a vase. It's horrible.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Ehhh. They’re not waiting for ps6, there’s like 4 years to go and most of their new IPs come the second half of the generations like TLOU and days gone did. Chill out. They put out a few bangers a year. They’ve been the consistent ones. Xbox and Nintendo have been slacking lately.

 

[angelgs90]

The current strategy is throw a new coat of paint to absurdly recent games and sell them again.

 

[tusharngf]

i think Sony is doing exactly what Microsoft did back then. NO first party games and reliance on 3rd party titles.

 

[Cakeboxer]

I believe that Sony knows they are in a bad situation.

You really want to see Ass of Can Whooping's final form, don't you?

 

[FreeY$L]

Gravity rush, shadow of the colossus, ico, little big planet, concrete genie, the last guardian, most of japan’s studio games, tearaway, and a plethora of unique and original games on PS2 and PS3. The thing in common with these games is that they just dont sell, you could blame sony’s high expectations, but when looking at the financial sheet at the end of every quarter, most of their original IPs dont sell well at all.
I dont blame sony at all for divesting away from original titles, people just dont buy them, and its getting tiring seeing people accuse sony for the lack of originality when the numbers dont lie.

 

[RPCGamer]

Gravity rush, shadow of the colossus, ico, little big planet, concrete genie, the last guardian, most of japan’s studio games, tearaway, and a plethora of unique and original games on PS2 and PS3. The thing in common with these games is that they just dont sell, you could blame sony’s high expectations, but when looking at the financial sheet at the end of every quarter, most of their original IPs dont sell well at all.
I dont blame sony at all for divesting away from original titles, people just dont buy them, and its getting tiring seeing people accuse sony for the lack of originality when the numbers dont lie.

Sadly true, but I wonder if a work around could be found. Instead setting up a big team to do that, what if they could work with some indie teams like Sega have. Stuff like Streets of Rage worked out well.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

***The good:

- Asobi: the cutest and nicest.

- Santa Monica: its fate will depend on the new IP. Question mark. 50/50 of success.

- Sucker Punch: safe and sound for the coming years

- Insomniac: safe and sound... unless they screw up with Wolverine. Anyway, they have Spiderman.

- Naughty Dog: a question mark. Everything depends on the new IP. TLOU 3 is a big gamble.

- Housemarquee: awaiting news. Looking good.

- Bluepoint: awaiting news.

***The bad: they will probably shut down.

- Bend: they are fucked and still don't know it.

- MM: will these guys ever come back from their spiritual leave? Regardless, they are finished.

- Haven: only Jade will survive the bloodbath. She shouldn't but she will.

- Neon Koei: who?

*** The so-bad-that-is-good (for the lolz): they will shut down or bomb in apocalyptic fashion.

- Firewalker: Intrigued about The Professor's next tenure.

- BUNGIE: this, in capitals, is the tzar bomb at PS Studios. When it explodes, the shit will hit Spacelink satellites.

Half of PS Studios are in serious trouble and will bleed hundreds of millions. That inevitably should lead to Hermen Hulst's public ousting from Sony, the entertainment industry, or any other industry.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

People out here really talking as if Sony studios are doing terrible lmao

 

[angrod14]

I miss Naughty Dog. I miss the fire, the controversy, the memes, the unparalleled quality. I hope we don't have to wait til the end of the gen to see their next work.

 

[Kvally]

Over reaction? Concord a massive bomb but Helldivers 2 a gigantic success beyond their wildest dreams.

His title is PS Studios.

 

[AmuroChan]

The studios that focus on single player games should all be fine with the exception of maybe Media Molecule. The live service focused studios are the ones that may not survive in the long term, and I think most PS fans probably wouldn't mind that. No one will care if Firewalk or Haven get shut down. From a pedigree and legacy standpoint they're essentially the last guy on the bench for PS Studios. I also think Sony will make more acquisitions once economic conditions improve and interest rates go back down to more reasonable levels.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

- Haven: only Jade will survive the bloodbath. She shouldn't but she will.

- Neon Koei: who?

*** The so-bad-that-is-good (for the lolz): they will shut down or bomb in apocalyptic fashion.

- Firewalker: Intrigued about The Professor's next tenure.

- BUNGIE: this, in capitals, is the tzar bomb at PS Studios. When it explodes, the shit will hit Spacelink satellites.

Wouldn’t mind seeing g the back of these to be honest.

They’re not PlayStation.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I think an obvious solution is smaller games.

I really don't see the issue with smaller games. Do your GAAS-strategy that way. Release $40 games and pump out DLC every few months. You can do that with single player titles.

People would scoff at first but of course they'd buy if the games are good. Smaller budgets, quicker dev time, can experiment more, create new IPs or reboot old ones.

Astrobot is a kind of an example.

It really grinds my gears when people say this.

The entire industry was set up with the dev sizes, budgets, and quick development cycles you describe above.

They almost all went the way of the Dodo because large studios, working with bigger budgets, and long development cycles crushed the little studios.

It's almost as silly as a military mind saying "We used to win with swords. Now we're getting our butt kicked with guns. Let's go back to using swords."

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Ehhh. They’re not waiting for ps6, there’s like 4 years to go and most of their new IPs come the second half of the generations like TLOU and days gone did. Chill out. They put out a few bangers a year. They’ve been the consistent ones. Xbox and Nintendo have been slacking lately.

I wasn’t much for Sony’s output during the first half of the PS4 days to be fair.

That console only got going for me once Uncharted 4 came out.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

The studios that focus on single player games should all be fine with the exception of maybe Media Molecule. The live service focused studios are the ones that may not survive in the long term, and I think most PS fans probably wouldn't mind that. No one will care if Firewalk or Haven get shut down. From a pedigree and legacy standpoint they're essentially the last guy on the bench for PS Studios. I also think Sony will make more acquisitions once economic conditions improve and interest rates go back down to more reasonable levels.

Pretty much this.

If a live service game fails, or a studio gets shut down, not much will be lost for the average PS fan.
And the ones that succeed will be a nice addition to PS portfolio.

Amazing how people still somehow manage to make it look like Sony is going to focus on live services 100%.

 

[KimDongHwan]

Also I have something to add. I truly feel Sony should stop labeling internally their strength as a "High Quality Narrative-driven Single Player Games". AFAIK their strength was always to bring something new to the table so enclosing themselves as just that puts them on the rough spot of having to always mimic whatever Uncharted 2 did for the PS3. They should be free to start experimenting on other areas, RPGs, Puzzle, Fighting, etc. I may be projecting only, but I have the feeling that people are getting kind of tired of the "blockbuster" slow paced, walking with some sprinkles of shooting type of games. (No matter how nice they make them look moving forward)

 

[The artful mincer]

***The good:

- Asobi: the cutest and nicest.

- Santa Monica: its fate will depend on the new IP. Question mark. 50/50 of success.

- Sucker Punch: safe and sound for the coming years

- Insomniac: safe and sound... unless they screw up with Wolverine. Anyway, they have Spiderman.

- Naughty Dog: a question mark. Everything depends on the new IP. TLOU 3 is a big gamble.

- Housemarquee: awaiting news. Looking good.

- Bluepoint: awaiting news.

***The bad: they will probably shut down.

- Bend: they are fucked and still don't know it.

- MM: will these guys ever come back from their spiritual leave? Regardless, they are finished.

- Haven: only Jade will survive the bloodbath. She shouldn't but she will.

- Neon Koei: who?

*** The so-bad-that-is-good (for the lolz): they will shut down or bomb in apocalyptic fashion.

- Firewalker: Intrigued about The Professor's next tenure.

- BUNGIE: this, in capitals, is the tzar bomb at PS Studios. When it explodes, the shit will hit Spacelink satellites.

Half of PS Studios are in serious trouble and will bleed hundreds of millions. That inevitably should lead to Hermen Hulst's public ousting from Sony, the entertainment industry, or any other industry.

The TLOU3 is a big gamble!?? SERIOUSLY!?

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Pretty much this.

If a live service game fails, or a studio gets shut down, not much will be lost for the average PS fan.
And the ones that succeed will be a nice addition to PS portfolio.

Amazing how people still somehow manage to make it look like Sony is going to focus on live services 100%.

To me they’re just these weird little studios they bought in, nobody will miss them.

It’s a shame about Japan Studios, but as people have said those games didn’t sell and I’m as guilty as anyone for not supporting them on PS4.

 

[ReBurn]

i think Sony is doing exactly what Microsoft did back then. NO first party games and reliance on 3rd party titles.

They've called out the heavy reliance on third party revenue in many of their recent quarterly reports. It's good that they're aware of it. Hopefully it means there's focus on addressing it.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Also I have something to add. I truly feel Sony should stop labeling internally their strength as a "High Quality Narrative-driven Single Player Games". AFAIK their strength was always to bring something new to the table so enclosing themselves as just that puts them on the rough spot of having to always mimic whatever Uncharted 2 did for the PS3. They should be free to start experimenting on other areas, RPGs, Puzzle, Fighting, etc. I may be projecting only, but I have the feeling that people are getting kind of tired of the "blockbuster" slow paced, walking with some sprinkles of shooting type of games. (No matter how nice they make them look moving forward)

No one’s breaking Tekken, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat’s stranglehold on that market.

The mid 90s was the time to launch new fighting games

 

[RPCGamer]

No one’s breaking Tekken, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat’s stranglehold on that market.

The mid 90s was the time to launch new fighting games

I thought DragonBall Fighterz was doing well?

 

[KimDongHwan]

No one’s breaking Tekken, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat’s stranglehold on that market.

The mid 90s was the time to launch new fighting games

Agree, maybe this is just hopeful thinking, but back then I had that feeling that if Sony were to enter some new genre they would be able to make it best in class and make an impact, but maybe you are right, thats not a chance anymore.

 

[Woopah]

i think Sony is doing exactly what Microsoft did back then. NO first party games and reliance on 3rd party titles.

There's 8 Sony first party games in 2024 alone.

I thought DragonBall Fighterz was doing well?

It's doing very well, over 10 million sold.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

I wasn’t much for Sony’s output during the first half of the PS4 days to be fair.

That console only got going for me once Uncharted 4 came out.

Exactly, they're doing better this gen. They've also done a great job filling gaps with 2nd/3rd party exclusives and day 1 PS+ games.
People acting like this gen is terrible, and all doom and gloom must not play a lot of games. I got helldivers 2, rise of the ronin, ff7r, stellar blade, granblue, synapse, astro bot, etc. just in 2024 alone.

 

[fart town usa]

It really grinds my gears when people say this.

The entire industry was set up with the dev sizes, budgets, and quick development cycles you describe above.

They almost all went the way of the Dodo because large studios, working with bigger budgets, and long development cycles crushed the little studios.

It's almost as silly as a military mind saying "We used to win with swords. Now we're getting our butt kicked with guns. Let's go back to using swords."

It grinds my gears when people act like major publishers aren't burning through money on bloated budgets and dev cycles.

There's no reason why studios couldn't make smaller games and treat them as a GAAS while also allowing a single player or coop experience. It's the same freaking thing but would cater to a different audience and be less risky when it comes to finances. Sony diehards want single player/story driven games, or coop PvE. PvP is an instant no buy for millions of gamers.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

It grinds my gears when people act like major publishers aren't burning through money on bloated budgets and dev cycles.

You're looking at the wrong detail.

You're looking at the human mammal who dominates earth. You should be looking at the literal extinction event of the small to mid size game (dinosaur).

The environment is significantly less kind to the small studio. Cherry picking a few data points convinces no one.

 

[PeteBull]

A lot of people is very skeptical about Herman Hulst (I am one of them), but I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, and think that he was only following orders about GaaS games (after all, is the CEO who dictates the company's direction). Hopefully as CEO, he changes the company strategy and bring back their strengths. After all, he made two of the best games PlayStation has: Killzone and Horizon.

Bro, we already know what exactly sits in hermans and his japanese co-partner heads, they will keep leading sony's titanic straight onto iceberg, they think they are big dogs now and wont take any constructve critique in, they will leave/get forced out sooner
Its big shame ofc but what can we do, not much, we just gotta be patient here

 

[fart town usa]

You're looking at the wrong detail.

You're looking at the human mammal who dominates earth. You should be looking at the literal extinction event of the small to mid size game (dinosaur).

The environment is significantly less kind to the small studio. Cherry picking a few data points convinces no one.

I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I personally don't care what Sony does, lol. Outside of their hardware, their software may as well not exist to me.

All the same, my logic is sound. In 2024 you got massive teams burning money. You could split the risk and have studios work on smaller projects and support them like a GAAS title. It either works or it produces the results we're having right now.

There's literally nothing to cherry pick, we're all living through the fruits of the Sony GAAS tree, and the harvest is quite lacking!

 

[Danjin44]

Currently I only care about what Team ASOBI is making next, rest of Sony's studios dont interest me.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I think an obvious solution is smaller games.

I really don't see the issue with smaller games. Do your GAAS-strategy that way. Release $40 games and pump out DLC every few months. You can do that with single player titles.

People would scoff at first but of course they'd buy if the games are good. Smaller budgets, quicker dev time, can experiment more, create new IPs or reboot old ones.

Astrobot is a kind of an example.

You can go even smaller. Have small devs teams crank out $20 indie games.

If a small no name dev can do it, how a big company with the latest tech and budget at their disposal cant seems impossible. Balatro sold 2M copies across platforms at $15 with zero marketing except a beta test and some cheesy YT clips. A big company making something similar with marketing muscle could probably sell 5M+.

Problem is once big game companies go big, they usually dont like going small because it looks bad and is beneath them. They'd rather roll the dice all in on giant projects with big time and budgets needed.

 

[Sooner]

His title is PS Studios.

Those were just the two GAAS games this year.

Astro Bot was a GOTY-caliber single-player game and Ghost looks to another huge hit.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

All the same, my logic is sound. In 2024 you got massive teams burning money.

Your logic has avoided my entire point though.

The industry was set up in exactly the way you describe and it got crushed by big, expensive AAA games.

You're logic swerved that point completely.

 

[Kvally]

Those were just the two GAAS games this year.

Astro Bot was a GOTY-caliber single-player game and Ghost looks to another huge hit.

I was just talking about his title and the mention of Helldivers. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Zacfoldor]

Things will look better next year for Sony.

You are correct that they have decided to spend some of the goodwill they built with the PS4 in order to create a pipeline for successful GAAS. They look at the bottom line and realize their opportunity costs are huge.

The problem with Sony is they are not hip or quick on their feet so they will need to revert back to traditional games, which I believe was already done. Just my speculation based on the output and what must be missing....but they don't appear to have the middle management workflow in place to oversee and report these things to the level of daily checkins nor the expertise to keep the games on track and develop a standardized pipeline. So you will get an occasional hit and mostly misses. Coordination during the pandemic even for PS5 launch was abysmal so I do not think they will be figuring this out very soon. Talented studios will still produce quality games themselves of course, but this idea of Sony guiding inexperienced devs into gaas profitability using their workflow, support, and expertise only sounds like a good idea because of the aforementioned opportunity costs of not developing gaas at all. There was also a little hubris here maybe...

For me, I think Sony saw all this before Jim left and they've been making course corrections since then. However, those are still a ways out due to the long pipeline so we won't see them soon enough to affect this year's news cycle.

All of the DEI talk is actually so they can get a higher ESG ratings imho, so strangely that doesn't worry or annoy me nearly as much as seeing actual games affected in meaningful ways but I'll keep an eye on it.

Remember, Nintendo is actually the best managed of the big 3 and they think releasing new versions of the same game too quickly will turn off the audience. Remember when they told Ubisoft to delay Mario Vs Rabbids 2 until Switch 2 launch in order to maximize sales and Ubisoft didn't listen, released the (good) game anyway and it tanked? That's the SAME reason nobody is working on Horizon 3. We are tired boss, real tired. Horizon 3, we are not not ready yet. “Nintendo [has advised] that it’s better to do one iteration on each machine. We were a bit too early, we should have waited for [the next console].” - You're damn right.

 

[fart town usa]

Your logic has avoided my entire point though.

The industry was set up in exactly the way you describe and it got crushed by big, expensive AAA games.

You're logic swerved that point completely.

You're describing 3rd party studios that got crushed in the early foray into HD game development. I'm talking about Sony first party studios who have near endless funding considering how much money Sony is willing to burn. That last part cannot be debated, it's out in the open and we're all witness to it.

So it seems that YOU are the one who is swerving logic and continue to cherry pick things outside of Sony studios.

But in all eriousness, this is a dumb back and forth. Enjoy your day.