Knack, The Order, Killzone Shadow Fall, Infamous Second Son, Ratchet and Clank, Rift apart, Last Guardian, Sackboy Adventure, Returnal... These all sold well?
Uh, yes some of them did. Rift Apart sold 3+ million and that's before the barely-charting Steam version came out. For a 3D cartoony character action-platformer that isn't Mario or Sonic, and was exclusive to a supply-constrained new console, to still push 3.2-3.4 million in a few years prior to a Steam release? Yes that is good sales and solid revenue with great margins considering it's not some $200+ million AAA.
I'm also sure Infamous Second Son did pretty decently, but if you've a choice between another Infamous or Spiderman, especially after MS fails your first original IP in years for publishing...well you're going to choose Spiderman.
Sony completely fucked up the release. Also bend used to make syphon filter until Sony told them to become a support studio and work on smaller vita games. I 100% believe that Sony has directed teams to work on gaas games against their wishes.
Sony should have realized with the bomba that Dreams was that gaas isn't the answer. It was at the same time as days gone. Sony completely whimped out when the ride you like a bike line started making the rounds.
Definitely. No one, and I mean no one, is going to convince me that Bluepoint chose to work on a God of War
GAAS? Would they have been down for a GOW 1-3 remake? Absolutely. But a GOW game in a genre they've never touched and don't have the pipeline to sustain? Absolutely not.
That said, I don't agree with you on DREAMS. That game didn't bomb because it was a GAAS; it bombed because it kept getting delayed to the point where hype died down, then it launched as a games creator program with no KB&M support and no storefront to let creators monetize their creations. Oh and it also launched in the same year as FF VII Remake, Ghosts of Tsushima and TLOU Part II, getting completely overshadowed even software-wise, and that's before considering PS5's imminent release.
The window for the game passed by 2020 and it lacked too much at launch & too long after release to build up long-term momentum. SIE didn't even give it a last-ditch effort with a Steam port, one of the few 1P games they
could have ported and would've made some sense multiplat-wise to have done so.
Cmon Mibu. That list of games are not the same tier and budget as the big name games Sony makes. Sony's bread and butter first party games are GT and their big first party SP games. When Sony gamers ask for more SP games, they arent asking for more Sackboys. They want more big titles. Bend made one too with DG. And the next game they make is GAAS (cancelled). Sony has shit loads of money they floated the past bunch of years across GAAS games and buying up studios. And it seems it's all GAAS stuff which has all failed so far except H2.
If they got so much money burning a hole in their pockets, they could had focused on more big SP games.
Nah, that does not speak for all PS fans. I would love a return of variety from them in the AA space. I'd love a new Parappa or Echochrome, or a new Mr. Mosquito. Those would be great to have and would be cheap to make.
Are the big titles expected? Yes, of course. But I don't think SIE have to sacrifice AA & smaller games for them. They really need to just tighten up on the bloated budgets of some of the Western AAA titles. As popular as the IP is, Spiderman 2 shouldn't be costing $300 million to make; that's more than most Hollywood big-budget blockbusters and most AAA games outside of GTA6.
How did they go from the $90 million of 1 to > 3x that price for 2, for a game that's functionally the same as the first outside of really small gameplay tweaks? And I mean for things outside of inflation.
Some people here are blaming Sony for this situation. I would like to remind you that it's not Sony that didn't want to make Days Gone 2. It was management of the studio. Also, it's not that Sony made an order for them to make a GaaS game. It's studio management that wanted to hop into Sony's live service bandwagon.
You can blame Sony for their GaaS idea, but usually it's studios decision to go for it. And they are responsible for it's execution.
I don't want to play a role of devil's advocate but this is what people like Yoshida and directors of Days Gone said. Maybe Bend needs new management.
Then Sony should've been more insistent on a Day's Gone 2. Yes, they may let (or may've let) their studios pick their projects, but clearly they had no issue with guiding them down a more preferred path in the past. That's how we got GOW 2018; if Shu didn't tell Cory that their original game sucked and they needed to start over, then GOW would've never reinvented itself and became a cultural cornerstone of relevance again.
We know SIE wanted as many GAAS as possible during 2021-2024, so even if they knew Bend wasn't suited for a GAAS, they didn't have it in them to tell Bend
NO to doing a GAAS. Because that's what SIE wanted at the time, more GAAS. That's what the shareholders wanted, and they stupidly listened way too much to shareholders on a strategy that never needed their input. In a way, SIE set this studio (and Bluepoint) up for failure.
I see what you're saying. That's why I own a Pro, but looks like Sony quit too going by the layer of dust.
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