PlayStation Studios Development

[BananaKing]

Another fun one. Who from first party is releasing a game before Insomniac release Wolverine?

I can only think of Concord.

Well there could be a lot. Maybe naughty dog with TLoU multiplayer. Maybe GG with horizon multiplayer. Team asobi. Sucker punch, Cory's SSM game, haven softwares game (i forgot the name). Housemarque.

I doubt it, but even Sony Bend could release before wolverine. I think wolverine is 2025 at least

[Horizon]

Ghost of Tsushima 2 imo. No reason to announce it years in advance so I'm hoping it's releasing pretty soon.

I'd love it but think 2025 is more realistic

[the-pi-guy]

This was posted on Era in the MS Activision acquisition thread.

It includes some insight from Jim Ryan about SIE/PlayStation Studio's strategy.

There's nothing terribly new here, but I think it hammers in what Sony is after, moreso than anything I've read before.

Sony wants developers that give them support in ways that they don't currently have. Mobile development, PC support, live service support.  Potentially including different game genres as Sony wants to expand their userbase.  

Q: Bungie has 1,000 employees and 20-30 years of history making games. You're counting on a big contribution from them to help you with these 10 games and help you to allocate capital effectively as well as avoid making mistakes. Is that the strategy?



A: Yes, it is. I've been talking a lot over the past couple of years with our publishing partners, many of whom are slightly farther down the road than we are in terms of live service publishing. What they al have in common is that they've made a lot of mistakes on that road. And |think one of the benefits of being a fast follower in this space is that if we're intelligent and thoughtful, we can learn from those mistakes. But these partners can be viewed as our competitors and there's a limit to what they will share. Having a premier live service publisher within the group who is extremely keen to collaborate with Sony massively increases our ability to learn and our ability to avoid the mistakes that others have made.



Q: You've made it very clear that there's going to be more acquisitions to come. What is an ideal acquisition target and what are you hoping it will help you achieve?



A: I think an ideal acquisition target has to help us deliver on our strategies in a way that we're not capable of doing on our own. And when |look at our portfolio of studios and our publishing capabilities, we need help in the areas in which we're not strong at present. We aspire to grow our community, grow engagement with our games, grow the number of people who are playing those games, grow the amount of time people are spending on those games, move across to PC and mobile, and grow the number of people playing with each other. It's in these spaces, where we don't have expertise and presence, we need to build expertise. These are some of the reasons behind the acquisition of Bungie. We have publicly stated ambitions in the area of mobile. That's part of game development that we've not been present in any meaningful extent. So, you can assume that we have an interest in acquiring development knowledge and management expertise there.



Q: Did you look at Activision as a target? Was it too big to buy?



A: We know Activision extremely well. They are probably one of our principal partners. In terms of deployment of Sony's capital, when you look at 69 billion dollars for Activision compared to 3.6 billion dollars for Bungie, we believe that Bungie can give us way more than a 69 billion acquisition of Activision. And that's before considering the relative value of that particular transaction.



Q: Given the rapid change in competition in gaming, are there some potential M&A opportunities that are larger in size that you would consider? There are some unique software assets not focused on gaming such as Unity, Roblox and Epic for example. Are those targets you might consider going forward?



A: I go back to the comment that I made earlier that a necessary condition for us to consider when making any acquisition is whether it helps us advance our basic strategy of growing our first party publishing business across multiple formats in a way that we have not in the past. And if a potential acquisition ticks those boxes, it goes on the list.

[the-pi-guy]

Man this year was such a poor year.

Spider-Man, MLB The Show 23 and 2 PSVR2 games (Firewall Ultra and Horizon Call of the Mountain).  

[Legend]

When was the last time Sony had such a poor year quantity wise?

[the-pi-guy]

When was the last time Sony had such a poor year quantity wise?

In terms of publishing, quantity wise, I'm pretty sure it's the worst year ever, with the exception of 1994, where SIE only published 2 games, and that was with PS1 only launched in Japan.

In terms of first party games, 2019 was arguably just as bad  (Days Gone, Blood and Truth, Dreams Early Access, MLB The Show). But they also had Medievil and Death Stranding besides.

[Legend]

In terms of publishing, quantity wise, I'm pretty sure it's the worst year ever, with the exception of 1994, where SIE only published 2 games, and that was with PS1 only launched in Japan.

In terms of first party games, 2019 was arguably just as bad  (Days Gone, Blood and Truth, Dreams Early Access, MLB The Show). But they also had Medievil and Death Stranding besides.

Wow that's so much worse than I realized!

[kitler53]

I think you are making a mistake but leaving this off your list:
- horizon forbidden west: burning shores

techincally speaking,... there were also 3 ports to PC.
- TLoU
- R&C
- Returnal

and like it or not sony had a lot of 3rd party exclusives this year
- forspoken
- FF
- foamstars
- humanity
- techia
- BG technically i guess
- stellar blade is still not formally delayed as far as i've seen

not claiming this has been an amazing year but it's been far from a bad year.   there were some really good multi-plats there year including ps having marketing rights to harry potter making it sell as if it were a console exlusive.

[Legend]

I think you are making a mistake but leaving this off your list:
- horizon forbidden west: burning shores

techincally speaking,... there were also 3 ports to PC.
- TLoU
- R&C
- Returnal

and like it or not sony had a lot of 3rd party exclusives this year
- forspoken
- FF
- foamstars
- humanity
- techia
- BG technically i guess
- stellar blade is still not formally delayed as far as i've seen

not claiming this has been an amazing year but it's been far from a bad year.   there were some really good multi-plats there year including ps having marketing rights to harry potter making it sell as if it were a console exlusive.

Spiderman 2 alone makes this a fine year from the average gamer perspective.

Still a very sparse year though.

[the-pi-guy]

I think you are making a mistake but leaving this off your list:
- horizon forbidden west: burning shores

That's just DLC.

techincally speaking,... there were also 3 ports to PC.
- TLoU
- R&C
- Returnal

and like it or not sony had a lot of 3rd party exclusives this year
- forspoken
- FF
- foamstars
- humanity
- techia
- BG technically i guess
- stellar blade is still not formally delayed as far as i've seen

not claiming this has been an amazing year but it's been far from a bad year.   there were some really good multi-plats there year including ps having marketing rights to harry potter making it sell as if it were a console exlusive.

It's been a very strong year for PlayStation, but it hasn't been a very strong year for PlayStation Studios.

Makes me hopeful that next year will be stronger than it looks right now.

[kitler53]

"just dlc"
- that takes 8-16 hours to beat making it bigger than many AAA releases time wise
- that was a technical showpiece for PS5 exclusive content.  

you can have your opinion but just know,.. your opinion is wrong.  

[the-pi-guy]

"just dlc"
- that takes 8-16 hours to beat making it bigger than many AAA releases time wise
- that was a technical showpiece for PS5 exclusive content.  

you can have your opinion but just know,.. your opinion is wrong.  

Skyrim has two expansion packs that are similar in size.

[kitler53]

Skyrim has two expansion packs that are similar in size.

not by your logic.  they are just dlc so they never happened.  xD

[the-pi-guy]

They happened, I just wouldn't put them on a games published list.

[Legend]

Echoes of the eye from outer wilds is the only dlc I treat as a sequel, but it's also the only dlc I've ever played