PlayStation Will Not Release 'Any New Major Existing Franchise Titles' Before April 2025 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 March 2024 / 7,495 Views
Sony President Hiroki Totoki revealed Sony Interactive Entertainment does not plan to release any new major titles based on existing IP in the next fiscal year, which runs from April 2024 to March 2025.
This does not mean PlayStation won't release any first-party games before April 2025 as they could release major titles based on new IP, as well as smaller titles like the remaster of Until Dawn.
“Regarding first-party software, we aim to continue to focus on producing high-quality works and developing live service games," said Totoki (via Gematsu). "But while major projects are currently under development, we do not plan to release any new major existing franchise titles next fiscal year like God of War: Ragnarök and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
Although the burden of acquisition related costs will ease next fiscal year, we expect profit from first-party software to decrease slightly from this fiscal year due to the impact of the decrease in sales. Due to this, operating income for the next fiscal year is currently expected to increase slightly from this fiscal year. However, while this our baseline, we are reviewing measures for further improvement in profitability in advance of the annual forecast results announcement this May."
Totoki has also stated he wants to grow PlayStation profit margins and one way to do it is by releasing more multiplatform games.
"In the past, we wanted to popularize console and the first-party titles' main purpose was to make the console popular," said Totoki. "It is true, but there is a synergy to it. So if you have strong first-party content, not only with our console but also other platforms like computers, first-party can be grown with multiplatform and that can help operating profit to improve. So that is another one we want to proactively work on. I personally think there are opportunities out there for improvement of margins, so I would like to go aggressive in improving our margin performance."
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 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Are Sony and MS trying to help Nintendo launch their next console or what...? WTF is going on?
mabey Xbox and playstation are Nintendo's advertising department?
Sony is heavily reliant on third-party exclusives and second-party published exclusives in 2024. Currently, Sony has MLB: The Show, The Last of Us Part II: Remastered, and Concord. There may be 1 or 2 unexpected games as the quote seems to mean new IPs. With Concord definitely being a part of that.
Unfortunately when your games cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make, this is the price to pay. You have to wait years. People shouldn't be surprised that we haven't heard of what ND, Sucker Punch, or many others are working on because it's just too soon.
At least in my case, I barely started my Platinum run for Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut and still have God of War: Ragnarök lined up and I do have interest in Rise of the Ronin. So Sony needing additional time for their next major releases is a bit of a sigh of relief to give me more time to beat my current games lol.
I prefer to play on PC for all third-party and Xbox games. I just happened to luck out on a free PS5 for Christmas lol, so I'm enjoying the PS5 games that aren't currently available on PC. So far, I've gotten Platinum on Astro's Playroom, FFXVI and Spider-Man 2.
Ultimately though as time goes on and if day and date releases on PC do become a thing for Sony, I'll eventually consolidate to PC/Nintendo. Which I technically already was. I highly doubt Nintendo will ever go multiplat lol. They seem to be securing their future in the business they've always dealt in with the theme park attractions and the film industry. Not to mention, doubling the size of their game development offices.
Well it wasn't until fairly recently that PC really started getting pretty much all third party games I'm interested in. So these days it could be an option for me. But my PS digital library is already so big with a huge backlog, that its still my go-to system for the foreseeable future.
"Any New Major Existing Franchise Titles" is such a long way of saying "sequel".
It also seems to easily lead to confusion and misleading information.
Only sequels in major franchises. I believe it wouldn’t include something like an Astro Bot game. The wording seems to quite specifically imply a sequel is coming but not a major franchise, or they’d just say no games in existing franchises.
True it could have been cagey wording. But it reads so messy it needs descriptions etc.
Proper crap gen, no wonder Ryan was booted (my opinion).
Maybe Everybody's Golf...
Enough of those were made that either a standard PS5 version or PSVR2 version seem like easy money.
I believe Naughty Dog is working on a new ip, I do hope they at least show it off this year.
Maybe. Personally speaking, I'd only like it shown this year if it comes out 2026 or before.
I don't like announcements or short CGI teasers for games that are 3-5 years out (or even 7 or more like Bethesda with The Elder Scrolls VI).
This is tragic, it's been 5 years since bend studio's last release. Maybe the only game they intend to launch this year is fairgames and concord
A new rumor from today says that an Astro Bot game from Asobi is on track for release this year - I am super excited about their next title as well!
Sony still has a number of games releasing this year, just not from their "core" first-party franchises. Concord, Silent Hill 2 Remake, Stellar Blade are all 2024 titles. And Bend Studio could release their next game this year, as we already know its not a Days Gone sequel (and therefore an original IP). Bluepoint could have something out as well. I feel like Sucker Punch will reveal Ghost of Tsushima 2 this year, but probably launch it in summer 2025.
If there is also no new IP, that's just plain stupid. Very bad timing.
Disappointing, but the 2024 lineup could still be really good if the announced games end up being good.
2023 was depressing: Two PSVR2 games, MLB, and Spider-Man 2. When you only have 4 games in a year (only one heavy-hitter) excluding ports, that's pretty light. I feel like Sony should strive for at least 5 (Microsoft in a similar boat) and Nintendo needs to strive for 8 or more because of how essential their software is to their hardware.
I really hope 2025 is a banger for Sony's software. Sony had a notable 2018 and 2020 when the PS4 was not a new system anymore. Heck, PS5 launched in 2020 and two of its first-party launch titles were cross-gen and The Last of Us Part II and Ghost of Tsushima had released on PS4 in mid-2020.
Huh, Well new IP is a good thing. Third parties are a good thing. gotta get that balance, you know?
Ok so we welcome new i.p's hopefully haha
Well mabey that gives them more development time.
Outside of a potential 2024 release for Death Stranding 2 (now 2025), it should've been obvious that no other major games were going to be announced for this year. And Sony rarely ever has a major release in Q1 either.
That said, we got tlou2r and Helldivers 2.
Until March 25 there's also MLB, Stellar Blade, Lost Soul Aside, Convollaria, Concord, Until Dawn and Rise of Ronin. - 7 more games. And a new Astro Bot is rumoured.
And whatever else qualifies as non-major existing IP.
A lot of resources were wasted on live service games in development/cancelled, unfortunately this has probably pushed back the games we actually want to play
We are mid gen and thank god third parties are doing great cause the exclusive pipeline for MS and Sony is weak as hell
Sony Badly needs new studios. And lots of them. These 3rd party exclusive games are not going to be as frequent in the future.
Also, don't forget that Sony existing franchises like GoW had worse sequels than the original....So a lot of Sony franchise games are going backwards in quality.
Same could be said for Horizon Forbidden West which had a disastrous launch and had too much filler, same staggeringly boring main character - Aloy.
Same could be said for Spiderman 2 which also had and awful launch, was too short, bad side missions, too much agenda nonsense, walk and talk boredom, and elevated MJ over Venom which is crazy.
Over the past 5ish years, Sony has acquired Insomniac, Bluepoint, Firesprite, Housemarque, Nixxes, Valkyrie, and a few other studios. PlayStation Studios now includes more than 20 devs. Sony Interactive has over 12,000 employees, compared to companies like Nintendo that only have 7,300.
A lack of manpower is NOT the issue.
Most of their console exclusive content this year will come from hats, aka paying for content not to release on Xbox. Starting with FFVII Rebirth. And most likely Silent Hill remake will follow.
Since Xdev worked on Rise of the Ronin, it would not be right to call that a full hat. Helldivers is a Playstation IP, so that's kinda expected.
