Sony Announces PlayStation Studios Initiative

[Raevenlord]

Sony in the buildup for the launch of the PlayStation 5 has announced a new umbrella initiative focusing on its first-party studios. The new PlayStation studios umbrella will serve as a marketing branding for their first-party games, similar to Microsoft's Game Studios, which will make it loud and clear that a game has been developed in partnership with Sony. This might not mean much by itself, but it could, speculatively, serve as a way for Sony to extend its brand image to platforms other than the PS5 - case in point, PC.

Sony has already been bringing its first-party, exclusive games to the PC for a while now - Quantic Dream has already brought its full cadre of games to the PC, and Guerrilla will be launching their much-acclaimed Horizon: Zero Dawn this summer (still waiting for God of War, Sony, make it happen). This new branding initiative will appear in game trailers and in game boot sequences, but will only be imparted in games come the PS5 launch in Holiday 2020.

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[ZeppMan217]

Can't help but wonder what prompted Sony to finally open up to PC.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Can't help but wander what prompted Sony to finally open up to PC.

Its hard to say. Could be because what Microsoft are doing with their new Xbox setup... Allowing you to play your xbox games on your PC.

Or maybe they figured out that they lost a significant amount of money making platform exclusives from die hard pc players that it makes sense to just make the games available on the pc platform.

It could also be because how they are handling TLOU2 situation. They stand to lose a significant chunk of money from that & also word on the street is Microsoft are going to undercut the price of the PS5 quite substantially with their new xbox. If there was ever a time that Sony need to go 'all in' that time is now.

Any way they can make their library more accessible to everyone is a win win situation. Sony get more money for selling you older sony PS exclusive titles that werent available on the PC platform.

This is like a get out of jail free card they can use when times get tough.

 

[Vayra86]

If Sony is confident they can bring their major USP to the PC platform and be guaranteed enough business, I can only applaud that.

But I doubt that. They will most likely hold on to their timed exclusivity at the very least. Consoles are desperate for selling points, always. In that sense the selling point could be that Sony's content is also multiplatform like Microsoft's, but MS is in a MUCH better position to fight that battle. First party content is not really a unique selling point for Xbox; its part of the reason it flopped in comparison.

But overall, there is also a definite shift towards the content leading sales before the hardware. This is great, but its also dangerous, because now all the money must be made on content, and not fake barriers like a console's ecosystem. Does not spell out lengthy, feature complete gaming to me. Destroying your walled garden means you are suddenly competing on a new market with lots and lots of players. That requires a crapload of confidence on the part of Sony's first party content.

 

[InVasMani]

Tempting as these new consoles are I think I'll just wait for Nintendo's next console to feature real time ray traced slide shows.

 

[Ashtr1x]

"still waiting for God of War, Sony, make it happen" I know God of War is critically acclaimed title on PS4 and won so many awards. Let me tell you one line answer for that, get a PPSSPP and PCSX2 emulator (1.6.0 Stable PS2 emulator just launched a few days back) and enjoy the TRUE Kratos from Chains of Olympus on PPSSPP, then God of War PCSX2, Ghost of Sparta PPSSPP then God of War II on PCSX2, get a PS3 and hack it and play God of War III or wait for RPSC3 stable to play on PC -> Chronological Order. You can stick to release order as you wish.

I finished that God of War 2018 on my friend's PS4Pro and Initially I liked it because I did not play any God of War, the Hack and Slash interest stemming from my prev experiences from DMC4 and Ninja Theory DmC reboot (which flopped) made me to try out this game on higher difficulty for a challenge and was done with it had issues with piss poor boss fights (Trolls are rehashed for the whole game) and side quests are useless trash I did finish the game with much less level than expected and didn't even hunt for armors or such which are a part of side quests. And also up until the final 3rd parts of the game you do not get the signature weapon Blades of Chaos, it was a chore with that new axe and lame shield.

When I got my hands on DMC V I realized how garbage the combat was, they added RPG system to the Hack and Slash and made the game a clone of DS style with insane parry, very slow combat and no flexibility of the combat because of over the shoulder camera system, the idiotic Director who became converged says all the time how they are now able to compete with Japansese in the genre, which was always the DMC (ever since first God of War I and II came on PS2, God of War III on PS3 along side Chains of Olympus, Ghost of Sparta on PSP) it was always a competition to DMC series in combat speed and everything like gore etc they all had consistent Art Style due to Greek Mythos base and solid details with visceral experience, they even say that during Interviews, just see David Jaffe mentioning the same, this new director Cory was a part of the God of War II but along side David Jaffe, and with God of War III Stig Asmussen was the game director since Cory left to ruin Lost Planet series by Lost Planet 3. Mentioned all of this because the game lost a huge chunk of it's roots with the new game, they also made the design very bad, changed the Voice actor, his son was useless in the combat system, the story was very weak and awfully placed vs the old God of War titles. I have to mention this also, they debrided Kratos character from a strong anti hero who doesn't give a fk about anything and just enjoys women and war against gods because he was broken by his family tragedy somehow now is given a son and some magical bs backstory which we do not know because it never existed at all there's a huge gap from God of War III the last true game of the series to this garbage AAA title, they ofc removed women who are beautiful and what Kratos does because you know current standards, esp the game is from Sony who is very strong in that dept.

So yea again if anyone wants to play that all shiny god of war on PS4, just stick to Original masterpieces on older Sony Console generations. And forget Ascension as it's bad.

With that said, Horizon Zero Dawn is also not a masterpiece at all, I refuse to see it from Art Style point to Roll and combat boredom with all powerful Mary Sue Aloy story. They should rather release a remastered Killzone 2 and 3 on PC for us which is a real product from same Guerilla games studio. Or the Bloodborne, Uncharted series without that political baggage DLC, tbh UC until 3 is best.