PlayStation to Continue to Invest or Acquire Studios, Exploring to Release More First-Party Titles on PC - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 September 2020 / 3,539 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment in Sony Corporation's corporate report for 2020 revealed they plan to continue investing and acquiring studios to strengthen the line-up of titles.
"Game titles are the primary content IP for Game & Network Services," reads the report. "First-party titles, developed and sold by the platform owner, are particularly important as content IP for future value-creation and earnings. In addition to improving the personnel and work environment in its own studios, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) continues to invest in, or acquire, firms with abundant creativity and cutting-edge technologies to build up Worldwide Studios (WWS), an association of first-party title production studios.
"Most recently, in August 2019 it acquired Insomniac Games, a longtime Sony partner that has developed many hit titles. As of May 31, 2020, WWS owns 14 studios and has become one of the world’s leading game-developer networks. With hit series like The Last of Us, God of War, and Uncharted, it is a strong engine for content IP production.
"Third-party titles, meaning IP developed by game software developers outside the Sony Group, also play an important role in indirectly enhancing the appeal of the PlayStation Platform and its user community. Sony offers various forms of assistance, such as sharing its libraries and providing technical support to creators, including independent studios, to facilitate the best game-development environment possible."
Sony plans to increase the number of exclusive PlayStation titles going forward and wants to release next-generation titles on the PlayStation 5 that are not possible on current-generation consoles.
"To reinforce content IP, SIE will accelerate the enhancement and rollout of its portfolio of exclusive PlayStation titles. As a result of cooperation with in-house development and partner companies, sellthrough of PS4 software titles continues to grow, and the intention is to further enhance the lineup with compelling content. Along with that, further growth in recurring income will be achieved through various network service enhancements.
"Through introducing new technologies in speed, haptics, and sound, we can further improve on the exclusive experience available on the PS4 and aim to make the PS5 a truly next-generation console by providing game experiences that were not possible before.
"Games for the PS5 that deliver this new gaming experience are being made by first-, second-, and third-party developers, and we plan to introduce a compelling line-up of titles to our users.
"In executing these strategies, greater emphasis will be placed on user engagement. SIE plans to provide content for a variety of game genres and formats and make advances in unique and immersive interactive experiences such as VR. At the same time, SIE aims to create a better user experience, improve usability, and strengthen its use of data analysis.
"Making the best use of new and existing partnerships while driving growth will be important for achieving further expansions in scale. Through maintaining the momentum and ecosystem that PS4 built up until now, we will promote a smooth transition to the PS5."
Sony is exploring the possibility of releasing more of their titles on PC to help promote more growth and increase profits.
"SIE aims to achieve robust revenue growth by accelerating the virtuous cycle that has been established for the PlayStation Platform. This entails increasing active users and play time, enhancing network services, and reinforcing content IP so that consumers select PlayStation as their platform of choice. Targeted outcomes include growth in active users, stronger retention, and a shorter cash conversion cycle, from which expanded cash flow can be expected.
"We will explore expanding our first-party titles to the PC platform, in order to promote further growth in our profitability."
The PlayStation 5 will launch in Holiday 2020.
Thanks, ResetEra.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Good News for PC Gamers
Bad news for Sony's long term financial health.
yep! If you dont want to play the PS exclusive right away then its better to not buy a PS5.
Bad news for every gamer...
How is it bad news for every gamer?
I hope they are going to bring games to PC Day 1, i would drop Playstation for sure and save some good money. No reason to own a console with no exclusive games.
They won't though. They'll wait 3 years, and then release a bad port for full asking price.
Playstation's success is owed to exclusives, developing a PC version along-side a PS version would take extra time, and their games would have to be designed around slower I/O which would limit the design of games on PS5. It's extremely unlikely that we'll get simultaneous launches for these reasons. In my opinion, TLoU 2 is one of the best looking games of all time on 7 year old hardware--I would like to see Sony's studios keep optimizing for one piece of hardware to keep raising graphical standards and to keep development time as low as possible.
They're talking about older titles. Not day and date simultaneous launches. This is a good strategy. Bloodborne might be the next big PS4 exclusive to come to PC and it'll sell like crazy. Also rumored to be coming to PS5.
No one should be surprised that they are bringing more games to PC. Logical people tried to explain this is what was going to happen.
I already suspected this when PS5 exclusives game cases didn't have "Only on PlayStation" on them.
Not a surprise. They have been testing the PC water for awhile now and starting to see the profit growth by moving games over to it. Too much potential profits is lost in the walls of the console market.
Besides the 3 year delay stuff, I do seem them moving to dual platform (PS/PC) launches. Dual platform games doesn't mean less exclusive games, as they are more profitable than exclusives, so they can grow their income and plow that into even more games. This just goes hand in hand with the Epic deal (and I'm certain they knew about the Apple Store war before buying into Epic's capital). In fact it seems likely Epic could soon be co-financing Sony's games.
Ideally they'd do the same thing Microsoft is doing but even if it ends up being they bring their first party games to PC 2-3 years later that's still a massive improvement from the current or it seems now previous situation of little to nothing coming ever. Sony will get a lot of money from PC gamers and more people will be able to experience their games so it's a win-win.
I wonder if they mean they will bring their first party game’s years after to PC or at the same time like for ex HZD. If they release their exclusives right away, doubt they will, then I see myself moving to PC gaming.
I think it will be PlayStation first and then PC later. I don't see it being a day one deal! There's plenty of games in their catalogue they can start bringing over.
Sounds to me like they are going to follow MS steps and start their version of Game Pass within a couple of years
i belive they are waiting to see how Game pass will fare... if it do well than sure, why not make Ps now more like Game pass... but if it sinks... it's safer to let Xbox be the Guinea Pig.
I was surprised to see Horizon Zero Dawn on Steam just recently. And when was it first released on the PS4? 2017. Three years later on Steam. Expect a similar trend going forward until the trend changes. It looks Sony will port their 1st party offerings to the PC only when financially feasible while using a platform such as Steam as an advertising media. So this notion of "What's the point of a PlayStation 5 since it's not going to have exclusives?" is not even an argument at this point. And what if Sony only releases a small handful of its 1st party titles on the PC while the rest is only on the Playstation 5? Get it now?
hmmmm looks like in the near future we wont be needing a console after all,
although its pretty tedious to build ur gaming pc
Hasn't really been all that tedious for me or others out there. First time buyers can even pay to have theirs built for them entirely even.
I wonder why they're bringing games to PC now...
as long as they dont do day & date. Like 1st party exclusives should stay exclusive for a platform for atleast 3years or such. They need to make a rule like that to protect the platform (PS), so people dont just view it as a "it ll just play it on pc" type of deal.
Sony just lost me as a customer. I'm not buying a console that lacks exclusives, and I'm not paying $50 for three year old shoddy PC ports. Nintendo is the only company staying true to what a console is supposed to be. Series X, and PS5 are just limited PCs, offering up no exclusive content, and no useful functionality that distinguishes them from a PC. Nintendo offers up exclusive games, and portability to set them apart in the market.
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