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[Umbasaborne]

What im reffering to is the era of epic press conferences, huge game announcements, trapnsparency and communication. The years of 2013-2018 were the absolute best years to be a playstation fan. We were getting great e3 press shows like these





As well as amazing gamescom shows, paris games week presentations, and of course the ill fated playstation experience. 97 perecent of these shows guaranteed at least one or two very big, exciting announcements. Outside of the press shows, sony used the tag line “for the players” and that ethos was felt in their communication stratedgy.

Playstation under Jim Ryan has been a dissapointing run by comparison. The games are still good, which is arguably the most important aspect. But why are we going for such long periods of time now without new first party announcements? Where are the updates on already announced games like spiderman? Why are they asking for 600 dollars for their new vr headset when the launch selection is so poultry?

Im less vexed about the pricing than I am communication. These days when playstation has something to say, its about trying to stop Microsoft from purchasing Activision, not getting their community excited for the future.

 

[Chronicle]

No. (And cluck).

 

[Umbasaborne]

No.

Do you think they will become more communicative next year?

 

[German Hops]

 

[Umbasaborne]

Now that was a fantastic show of confidence. Maybe sony feels that when they are successful, there is no need to spend so much on marketing, which makes sense, but is also a bummer imo

 

[gow3isben]

E3 2016 Sony presser was the best Gaming conference of all time. And the games it showed lived up.

E3 2015 the Sony year of dreams was also great.

 

[feynoob]

We are in era of business and profit.
Be damned if you think these companies care about your hobby.

 

[Gaiff]

>Transparency and communications

lolno. Sony like all other big tech companies have always been pathological liars. Nothing changed except for the fact that they're now putting their stuff in State of Play instead of E3, and I don't mind. E3 has become too bloated with too much filler. Now it's spaced out more with Summer Game Fest, Nintendo Direct, The Game Awards, and State of Play.

 

[German Hops]

The games are still good, which is arguably the most important aspect.

Yep.

 

[Gaiff]

"Transparent and communicative Sony" that paired with Capcom and tried to pass this off as gameplay, even adding icons on the screen, only to pretend that this game never existed later on. OP romanticizes an era that never existed.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Yep.

They may be good, but they are all very samey imo.

If you don't like the third person adventure genre focused on story, you are shit out of luck. Previous consoles had far more variety when it came to it's exclusives.

 

[Umbasaborne]

They may be good, but they are all very samey imo.

If you don't like the third person adventure genre focused on story, you are shit out of luck. Previous consoles had far more variety when it came to it's exclusives.

That may be due to the sharp increase in costs and development time needed for games now. They may not be able to afford to be as experimental as the used to be. One way to get around this might be to license some if their older unused ip, like wipe out or ape escape, to indie devs.

 

[Umbasaborne]

"Transparent and communicative Sony" that paired with Capcom and tried to pass this off as gameplay, even adding icons on the screen, only to pretend that this game never existed later on. OP romanticizes an era that never existed.

Fake cg trailers trying to pass as the game were nothing new, and they still happen. I mean look at killzone 2’s first trailer in 2006, or watchdogs first trailers from 2012-2013, or halo infinite first trailer as recently as 2018. Not saying its not a shit practice, but i think sony got much better with that as the ps4 gen went on.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

What im reffering to is the era of epic press conferences, huge game announcements, trapnsparency and communication. The years of 2013-2018 were the absolute best years to be a playstation fan. We were getting great e3 press shows like these





As well as amazing gamescom shows, paris games week presentations, and of course the ill fated playstation experience. 97 perecent of these shows guaranteed at least one or two very big, exciting announcements. Outside of the press shows, sony used the tag line “for the players” and that ethos was felt in their communication stratedgy.

Playstation under Jim Ryan has been a dissapointing run by comparison. The games are still good, which is arguably the most important aspect. But why are we going for such long periods of time now without new first party announcements? Where are the updates on already announced games like spiderman? Why are they asking for 600 dollars for their new vr headset when the launch selection is so poultry?

Im less vexed about the pricing than I am communication. These days when playstation has something to say, its about trying to stop Microsoft from purchasing Activision, not getting their community excited for the future.

 

[Umbasaborne]

>Transparency and communications

lolno. Sony like all other big tech companies have always been pathological liars. Nothing changed except for the fact that they're now putting their stuff in State of Play instead of E3, and I don't mind. E3 has become too bloated with too much filler. Now it's spaced out more with Summer Game Fest, Nintendo Direct, The Game Awards, and State of Play.

Really? I felt that summer games fest was way to bloated with small announcements, and nintendo directs and sop’s are mostly small game announcements these days. We definitely dont get as many big game announcements as we used to.

 

[ReBurn]

It takes more people and more time to make the big games so the big announcements are fewer and farther between. It's also not a good time to be talking up third party exclusivity deals. Things are just changing.

 

[Ozzie666]

Even when they miss, it's pretty epic. From ridge racer and realistic historical games featuring giant crabs.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Those days are gone forever. I should just let 'em go but...

 

[TintoConCasera]

That may be due to the sharp increase in costs and development time needed for games now. They may not be able to afford to be as experimental as the used to be. One way to get around this might be to license some if their older unused ip, like wipe out or ape escape, to indie devs.

That'd be fucking great. Give your IP's to talented indie devs, help them with marketing, earn a lot of money, repeat.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

I want this people

---------------------------------------

 

[Elios83]

Things have changed for everyone.
Publishers don't want to be dictated a schedule, they want maximum flexibility with the timing of their announcements.
I see no problem with that, it doesn't change anything if announcements are spread over different months or weeks.
Since summer we got many announcements and trailers (Dualsense Edge, Rise of Ronin with Team Ninja, FFXVI trailers, TLOU1 Part 1 announcement, God of War trailer, Silent Hill 2 announcement, Sony publishing Stellar Blade and Lost Soul Aside, PSVR2 launch details, Tekken 8 and Yakuza announcements during SOPs, Death Stranding 2, Horizon Burning Shores).
If they put all that stuff together it could have been a single showcase. Teams who haven't announced anything do not feel confident to announce stuff at this stage and they're not being forced to with cgi teasers or fake footage.
It's just a different approach, more flexible.
I don't think that putting all the eggs in a single basket and then it's wait for next year for more news is necessarily a better approach.

 

[Jennings]

Play the games. Forget about the peripheral fluff.

 

[Unknown?]

Do you think they will become more communicative next year?

*yawn* I'd rather have releases than shows.

 

[vivftp]

Just gonna jot down some points...

- First party announcements have been spread out more due to pandemic delays both for games and due to supply shortages decimating all of their intended plans
- Based on rumors and Sonys own statements, they're intending to ship a record number of consoles next FY, but this year they've been struggling to get the supply issues sorted out and they've only recently begun to recover. They're selling everything they can produce and holding a first party showcase would not have moved a single extra PS5, so it would've been wasted marketing. The time for a first party showcase is when they're able to flood the market with consoles to convince folks to go out and pick one up, and it seems that we're approaching that period
- Why are they asking $550 for the new PSVR2? Because it's cutting edge technology. Do you think a platform is only defined by its initial launch lineup and not by everything else that'll come over its lifetime? Anyways, we don't even have the full official launch lineup yet.
- Sony has been adopting a strategy of focusing on marketing closer to the release of a title rather than having a long, drawn out, multi-year marketing cycle. We'll see if they keep that up once things back to normal starting next year. I for one am perfectly fine with that. Even though E3 2016 was the GOAT event ever, they completely blew their load for the next 4 years and had pretty much nothing new to show, so every year afterwards we only got to see more of the same games.


As always, it can't be overstated just how much the pandemic completely fucked up all their plans both for game releases and console production. Remember that all the heavy hitter games they released this year (GoW, HFW, GT7) were supposed to release in 2021. We don't even know what the 2022 lineup was supposed to be in a non-pandemic world. Sony intended to let the games do the talking. Here's what the 2021 lineup was supposed to be for first party and console exclusive content (timed or otherwise):

Returnal
Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart
Destruction All-Stars
Horizon Forbidden West
Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intergrade
God of War Ragnarok
Gran Turismo 7
Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut
Death Stranding Director's Cut
Kena Bridge of Spirits
MLB The Show 21
Deathloop
Chicory A Colorful Tale
Guilty Gear Strive
Jett The Far Shore


That was the batshit insane year they were planning for 2021 coming off the even more batshit insane year that was 2020. That's the sort of pacing they were apparently hoping to achieve before the pandemic cut them off at the knees. It's not unreasonable to speculate that they will hold a showcase in the next couple of months now that console production is ramping up, so let's see how that goes.

 

[yurinka]

What im reffering to is the era of epic press conferences, huge game announcements, trapnsparency and communication.

Playstation under Jim Ryan has been a dissapointing run by comparison.

They are more transparent now, they communicate more frequently and at more events, they also added their own online events and use more their blog and social media for announcements.

In the Jimbo era their 'huge games' sell more than before and win more awards than before, plus made acquisitions like Insomniac and Bungie.

The games are still good, which is arguably the most important aspect. But why are we going for such long periods of time now without new first party announcements? Where are the updates on already announced games like spiderman?

They announce, market and release now more games than before. In addition to announce stuff at events like CES, E3, TGS or VGA they also have now several State of Play shows across the year and also outside them they also announce stuff at their blog. The thing is that the volume of great games announced, marketed and released is so big that they have a smaller marketing window to show multiple times their games.

Also, games like GoWR and Spider-Man 2 already have the people sold, everybody is going to buy them and will sell a gazillion copies, so don't need to be releasing trailers frequently and instead can keep their marketing teams focused in other games and the gamedev team focused on finishing and polishing the game instead of wasting gamedev time on making builds for events or trailers. They also prefer to wait and show the game when it's almost done, because the shown game will be more similar to the final game and there will be less downgrade complains.

Why are they asking for 600 dollars for their new vr headset when the launch selection is so poultry?

Because even if PSVR2 is cheaper than the complete/required PSVR1 kit was when released, high end technology is expensive.

These days when playstation has something to say, its about trying to stop Microsoft from purchasing Activision, not getting their community excited for the future.

In the Jimbo era PlayStation has record console sales and demand (only stopped by chips shortage), record MAU and engagement, record first party games sales and awards, record numbers on social media and youtube. Numbers show their community is more excited and engaged than it ever has been for them or their direct competitors.

 

[vivftp]

Also worth elaborating that they've intentionally been holding back the bulk of their first party content this year. They held a large SOP in June and another large one in September, with the focus being almost entirely on third party and some small first party updates/ports. TGA was also the equivalent of a State of Play for them and they began to peel back the curtains by showing us some first party content like Horizon FW Burning Shores and Death Stranding 2. Even with that, there's so very very much that they could show us but have been holding back. We know that a Helldivers 2 trailer has been ready for months, so I strongly believe we're getting a showcase early 2023 to kick off the post-pandemic push.

 

[K' Dash]

Play the games. Forget about the peripheral fluff.

Fuck. Yes.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Just gonna jot down some points...

- First party announcements have been spread out more due to pandemic delays both for games and due to supply shortages decimating all of their intended plans
- Based on rumors and Sonys own statements, they're intending to ship a record number of consoles next FY, but this year they've been struggling to get the supply issues sorted out and they've only recently begun to recover. They're selling everything they can produce and holding a first party showcase would not have moved a single extra PS5, so it would've been wasted marketing. The time for a first party showcase is when they're able to flood the market with consoles to convince folks to go out and pick one up, and it seems that we're approaching that period
- Why are they asking $550 for the new PSVR2? Because it's cutting edge technology. Do you think a platform is only defined by its initial launch lineup and not by everything else that'll come over its lifetime? Anyways, we don't even have the full official launch lineup yet.
- Sony has been adopting a strategy of focusing on marketing closer to the release of a title rather than having a long, drawn out, multi-year marketing cycle. We'll see if they keep that up once things back to normal starting next year. I for one am perfectly fine with that. Even though E3 2016 was the GOAT event ever, they completely blew their load for the next 4 years and had pretty much nothing new to show, so every year afterwards we only got to see more of the same games.


As always, it can't be overstated just how much the pandemic completely fucked up all their plans both for game releases and console production. Remember that all the heavy hitter games they released this year (GoW, HFW, GT7) were supposed to release in 2021. We don't even know what the 2022 lineup was supposed to be in a non-pandemic world. Sony intended to let the games do the talking. Here's what the 2021 lineup was supposed to be for first party and console exclusive content (timed or otherwise):

Returnal
Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart
Destruction All-Stars
Horizon Forbidden West
Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intergrade
God of War Ragnarok
Gran Turismo 7
Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut
Death Stranding Director's Cut
Kena Bridge of Spirits
MLB The Show 21
Deathloop
Chicory A Colorful Tale
Guilty Gear Strive
Jett The Far Shore


That was the batshit insane year they were planning for 2021 coming off the even more batshit insane year that was 2020. That's the sort of pacing they were apparently hoping to achieve before the pandemic cut them off at the knees. It's not unreasonable to speculate that they will hold a showcase in the next couple of months now that console production is ramping up, so let's see how that goes.

Even before the pandemic, Sony had removed itself from E3.

That being said, I think some of those games they were hoping to have at launch or near launch like GT7.

I don't think we see a showcase for a while now. Spider-Man is their big game next year, so we can largely expect every other game to be smaller and as such we can expect that their larger franchises won't see release next year, lest they be crowded out by Spider-Man.

God of War came out in the same year as Spider-Man but it came out very early in the year. We don't have any big games coming from Sony in Q1, it just wouldn't make sense and their focus for Q1 is VR.

I don't think we will get a showcase until Q2 once VR is out there.

 

[Beer Baelly]

We are in the woke era now

 

[Jaybe]

Those days are gone forever. I should just let 'em go but...

 

[jufonuk]

That’s fucking ballzy

I’ll never get over how extreme Sony related things can be… eeeeexxxxstreeeeeem

 

[Umbasaborne]

It also just dawned on me that next year will be the first year in a while that they dont have a tent pole q1 release

 

[Mibu no ookami]

It also just dawned on me that next year will be the first year in a while that they dont have a tent pole q1 release

What was their tent pole Q1 release for 2020?

 

[lh032]

Sony is like your cool MC in manga.
They are quiet, but very powerful.

 

[vivftp]

It also just dawned on me that next year will be the first year in a while that they dont have a tent pole q1 release

Jim Ryan has stated that they'll be releasing 2 live service games before the end of this FY. It's within the realm of possibility that the TLOU MP game will be one of them, and that would definitely qualify as a tentpole release.

Even before the pandemic, Sony had removed itself from E3.

That being said, I think some of those games they were hoping to have at launch or near launch like GT7.

I don't think we see a showcase for a while now. Spider-Man is their big game next year, so we can largely expect every other game to be smaller and as such we can expect that their larger franchises won't see release next year, lest they be crowded out by Spider-Man.

God of War came out in the same year as Spider-Man but it came out very early in the year. We don't have any big games coming from Sony in Q1, it just wouldn't make sense and their focus for Q1 is VR.

I don't think we will get a showcase until Q2 once VR is out there.

Yeah, E3 hasn't been relevant to Sony for years, they're able to get more eyes on their State of Plays and Showcases than with many of their past E3 shows.

Launching a big first party game in the same year as Spider-Man 2 won't be a problem let alone in the same half of the year. Hell, we had TLOU2 and Ghost of Tsushima launch a month apart and that worked out just fine.

 

[BlitzerRadic]

Playstation under Jim Ryan has been a dissapointing run by comparison. The games are still good, which is arguably the most important aspect.

"Arguably?" lol?!? Shouldnt that be the most important aspect, and anything else a distant second?

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Jim Ryan has stated that they'll be releasing 2 live service games before the end of this FY. It's within the realm of possibility that the TLOU MP game will be one of them, and that would definitely qualify as a tentpole release.



Yeah, E3 hasn't been relevant to Sony for years, they're able to get more eyes on their State of Plays and Showcases than with many of their past E3 shows.

Launching a big first party game in the same year as Spider-Man 2 won't be a problem let alone in the same half of the year. Hell, we had TLOU2 and Ghost of Tsushima launch a month apart and that worked out just fine.

I don't see them releasing 2 unannounced live service games within the next 3 months.

I think we were looking at TLOU MP and Twisted Metal, both of which have likely been delayed to Q2-Q4.

Not sure they're getting more eyes on with state of plays and showcases than they did E3. Their e3 trailers have way more views than their state of plays and only one showcase video for spider-man 2 has similar level of views, with ragnarok shortly behind.

Not sure if things really worked out for TLOU2 like they thought it would. Ghost certainly ate into their numbers.

 

[Efren is G.O.A.T.]

What are the first-party games releasing in 2023 that we know of? Spider-Man 2?

I doubt it'll be the only one so the question is will the rest be in a bigger showcase or individual SoP?

 

[vivftp]

I don't see them releasing 2 unannounced live service games within the next 3 months.

I think we were looking at TLOU MP and Twisted Metal, both of which have likely been delayed to Q2-Q4.

Not sure they're getting more eyes on with state of plays and showcases than they did E3. Their e3 trailers have way more views than their state of plays and only one showcase video for spider-man 2 has similar level of views, with ragnarok shortly behind.

Not sure if things really worked out for TLOU2 like they thought it would. Ghost certainly ate into their numbers.

Live service games don't require the same sort of multi-month/year marketing build-up that single player games do, especially if any of them are F2P. My guess for the two titles are TLOU MP and Helldivers 2. Jimbo made the statement about releasing them this FY just a few months ago, so one would presume he knew what he was talking about at the time. Plus timing the TLOU MP game to come out near the TLOU HBO series will allow them to build off of one another for marketing/hype. Twisted Metal, I would expect to come out closer to the release of the new show, which could be later next year since they've already finished filming.

What are the first-party games releasing in 2023 that we know of? Spider-Man 2?

I doubt it'll be the only one so the question is will the rest be in a bigger showcase or individual SoP?

All the first party and console exclusive stuff we know about so far are:

Spider-Man 2
Horizon CotM
Horizon FW Burning Shores
Forspoken
Final Fantasy 16
RE8 PSVR2 mode
2 live service games launching before the end of the FY (guessing TLOU MP and Helldivers 2)
MLB23
Destiny 2 Lightfall
Stellar Blade
Firewall Ultra

 

[cash_longfellow]

I love how folks continue to forget that COVID even happened

 

[K2D]

PlayStation is flying high still. Things will change once the tides change.

 

[vivftp]

PlayStation is flying high still. Things will change once the tides change.

Care to elaborate on what these tides are?

 

[ACESHIGH]

"the years 2013 to 2018 were the best to be a playstation fan?

Maybe you are too young op but playstation from 1996 through 2006 was on fire.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Do you think they will become more communicative next year?

Sony is Spartan:

“For as the Celtiberians make steel of iron by burying it in the ground, thereby to refine it from the gross and earthy part, so the Laconic way of speech has nothing of bark upon it, but by cutting off all superfluity of words, it becomes steeled and sharpened to pierce the understanding of the hearers. So their consciousness of language, so ready to turn the edge to all manner of questions, became natural by their extraordinary practice of silence.” -Plutarch

 

[alabtrosMyster]

"the years 2013 to 2018 were the best to be a playstation fan?

Maybe you are too young op but playstation from 1996 through 2006 was on fire.

Then 2007 to 2013 was amazing too!

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

"Transparent and communicative Sony" that paired with Capcom and tried to pass this off as gameplay, even adding icons on the screen, only to pretend that this game never existed later on. OP romanticizes an era that never existed.

What does Capcom have to do with Sony?

PlayStation is flying high still. Things will change once the tides change.

Well I can name one company that's definitely not changing the tides with the way certain things are going...

 

[iHaunter]

Can mods mark this thread as Cringe please.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Wait until next year.

 

[nial]

It's weird, if you pay attention, all of their first party announcements this year have been made in different months.
January: Horizon VR/MLB 2022 - releasing in February 2023/released in April 2022
March: Returnal Ascension - released the same day
June: TLOU remake - released in September/Multiplayer title announced
July: GOW Ragnarok release date announced
August: Destiny 2: Lightfall release date announced
September: Firewall Ultra and Stellar Blade/Rise of the Ronin - releasing in 2023/2024
October: London Studio's new multiplayer title announced
November: Convallaria/Lost Soul Aside - releasing in 2023/2024
December: Horizon Burning Shores/Death Stranding 2 - releasing in April 2023/TBA

 

[Chronicle]

Do you think they will become more communicative next year?

Eb and flow. Up and down. The gaming landscape is changing. We'll have good years and bad like always. It's good not to see stuff that is so far away.