generally i agree with you. one of the things i love about sony is they seem content to let development teams work on what they want to work on. you can really see the passion for their games in the work they complete. I wouldn't force changes on any of the studios but at the same time i think sony should influence or suggest they work on types of projects that give playstation studio's overall a more well rounded output. honestly this wasn't a problem on ps2 or ps3. only on ps4 do i think first party got a bit to "samey".PS4 was the one that had a problem with being samey but it was also the best gen for first party Sony games by a long long way. Building a reputation for a type of game really works.
basically i'm saying get more studios but don't get studios that feel like ND or SM. In summary:
- force MM to make games and not game engines. they make amazing games. to not make even 1 game for all of ps4 is such a fudgy waste. ..and yes i'm intentionally not counting dreams because from everything i've read it had almost no campain from MM.
- put bend on a new IP and not days gone 2.
- acquire new studios that WANT to work on big (mid-teir) games that aren't soo dark and first person shootery. Kena or R&C-esque games are my target here. high quality AAA that aims to look more like "pixar" than dark and dystopian and super high detailed graphics. dark games are stressful and sometimes i just want something more light-hearted. also these would be cheaper to make overall which would mean games more than once every 5 years. astro bot was great. so far i'm really impressed with sackboy a big adventure. but add in knack, rachet and clank, and lbp 3 we we are talking 6 games in the entire generation and 3 of them were crud.
- acquire or start about 5 high quality low-tier developers. i really, really miss the psn titles from the ps3 era and early ps4 era. they've given up here but some of my favorite titles include: echochrome, pixal junk shooter 1 and 2, sound shapes, escape plan, flower, journey, unfinished swan, hohokum, and fat princess.
- yeah Dreams kinda sucks. I hate to say it but it is just a game engine that's accessible to all and while its cool it does not help the PS brand in any way, it isn't popular and Media Molecule's creativity is totally absent. You're right it had almost no campaign, it was a 2-3 hour weird thing with super low production values that would have got absolutely blasted by all media if it was put out as an actual game. MM are a game dev studio, they should make games.
- 100% no days gone 2 plz
- indeed, housemarque working on returnal level games would be perfect. And yes I think Sony needs more light hearted stuff for sure
- more smaller studios would be great. PixelOpus are awesome and exactly the right size for this, 4-5 more studios on that level to steadily put out smaller games would be fantastic.