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It's almost absurd to think Sony hasn't had a major showcase in over a year

How do you prefer Sony communicating with fans and their showcase plans?

  • I'm happy with the current set up. The odd State of Play, Blog Posts and developer/publisher events.

    Votes: 34 15.6%
  • I preferred it when Sony attended more trade shows such as E3, GamesCom, Paris Games Week etc.

    Votes: 109 50.0%
  • I would prefer a bit of both, trade shows as well as State of Play videos

    Votes: 77 35.3%
  • I'm not happy with the current communication but don't feel like these suggestions are the solutions

    Votes: 23 10.6%

  • Total voters
    218

nial

Gold Member
The PSP did surprisingly well though, especially because it had some exclusive titles that everyone wanted to play
Sadly, that stopped with the Vita, most of its exclusives were PS3-like experiences, but far worse than actual console games, aside from the occasional experimental title like Gravity Rush (which ended up being ported to PS4 anyway).
 
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Look at it this way... the same way Sony does it's "reporting" to it's investors to show them how it's been going, the pressers are used to show it's consumers what to expect in the future. They don't "owe" it to us, but being silent is not usually a good thing... you don't generally want to keep your consumer's "in the dark." It's a confidence thing... we can't always operate on "faith" 🤷‍♂️
 
Maybe, but then, why no State of Play Deep Dive to give a spotlight for The Last of Us Part 1 remake or GoW Ragnarok?

These games sold just fine without a show, obviously, but those events for other Sony games have been part of their showmanship and have energized PS fans for what's to come as well as sometimes offering the developers a chance to speak directly to the audience in celebration of finishing their project. They were doing per-game State of Plays right up to GT7, so why'd they stop?

They didn’t have a state of play but they had a deep dive for The Last of Us Part 1.



This is about the length of a typical state of play, considering this is a remake theres even less of a reason to make it longer. Sony just didn’t consider the remake a tentpole release. It got announced and released in teh span of two months with no real marketing or ads.

God of War they probably just didn’t want spoilers or were trying to finish the game
 
They didn't need to cause their exclusive shit like Silent Hill 2, Final Fantasy, Forspoken etc. got revealed in other shows and state of play likes throughout the year. And maybe they simply are not ready to show off stuff, so why waste our time with a cg fest? Then we end up with stuff like Progmata, Fable, Perfect dark... where we have to wait 2-3 years still probably.
 

Ryu Kaiba

Member
State of play is their showcase. If they have showcases they can't have state of plays. How many announcements do you think they have.
 

gamer82

Member
so isnt this the 2nd year coming to a close soon so going forward we should be seeing true next gen stuff wasn't that what ms and sony stated in the begining.
 

Umbasaborne

Banned
No one had a great show case this year because shit just is not ready. Microsoft and nintendo’s shows consisted of mostly indie and aa games with only a small handful of updates on tripple a stuff. The issue right now is that due to covid, a lot of stuff just isn’t ready to be shown. Im sure sony would have loved to show off the last of us factions, spiderman 2, and some other things, but covid royally fucked everyone. So games that already take a long time to make now need even more time. Part of the reason sony is starting to bet on games as a service is because their tripple a heavy hitters just cant come out often enough anymore.
 

0neAnd0nly

Gold Member
Wow it’s almost like…

Game companies for *reasons* told people trade shows were BAD and we “can do the same ourselves” just so… they could… be lazy.

And journalist and gamers licked that up and gargled it.

E3 >>>>>>>>> whatever the EFF is happening in the industry now. ZERO hype for any event now. E3 was a specimen every year that pushed them all to drop hammers against each other.
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
Yeah but they've kept the Playstation Userbase update with PC ports instead....

I think it safe to say Sony is out of touch.
The only thing Sony has done since the first PS5 showcase is announced PC ports and announced stupidly priced accessories in the Dualsense Edge & PSVR2.
I find it mind boggling..... you can say but GoW just came out and Spider-Man 2 & Wolverine is coming too.
But when was they announced?
Those games wasn't even for this year either.
So unless they announce something that's coming out a few month's after they are announced in their next showcase, if they have one.
What have they been doing with the PS5 for 2 years outside their PC project.
 
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mortal

Gold Member
It's really not that serious. Why does it even matter so long as they continue to actually release games? Isn't that the main selling point of a showcase anyway?

By next year they probably have more titles ready to properly announce and show off at once.

If they went ahead and had one this year, rather than complaining about there being no show people would instead be complaining about it being a letdown with too many cinematic trailers, too many indies, not enough 1st party titles, etc.
 
It's really not that serious. Why does it even matter so long as they continue to actually release games? Isn't that the main selling point of a showcase anyway?

By next year they probably have more titles ready to properly announce and show off at once.

If they went ahead and had one this year, rather than complaining about there being no show people would instead be complaining about it being a letdown with too many cinematic trailers, too many indies, not enough 1st party titles, etc.

People on forums live on hype, then when games come out they complain and nitpick how they aren’t the games they wanted. Or if they get delayed they whine and complain about how companies shouldn’t show games so early

The actual idea of playing games is always secondary
 
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yurinka

Member
but TLOU Online has not had any kind of trailer or video announcement. We don't even know the official name of the game, let alone a release date.
Neil Druckmann himself appeared in an E3 event calling it TLOU Online, saying it's going to be their biggest game ever, that is set in a new city with new characters, shown some artwork and mentioned they'll share more about it early next year.

Same with Sony London and Bend. They're working on something, great, they haven't told us what it is.
Yes, they told us what it is. Bend is working on an open world action adventure that even if it's a new IP builds on top of the mechanic and core pillars they built for Days Gone.

London Studio is working on a non VR PS5 AAA exclusive new IP set in a modern fantasy London that will be an online coop combat game and will be their most ambitious game ever.

The rest of the games you mentioned are second party games, and do not qualify as my post
2nd party games are 1st party games.

Sony has been very vocal about how "They can't make a game that competes against Call of Duty."
Yes, and it's a fact that there isn't any other yearly IP that consistently sells 20M-30M copies for each game plus on top has a mobile game that generates $1B/year and the F2P Warzone games. The closest one is FIFA, but is far from it. No other publisher -including Sony- is able to create an IP that generates around $3B per year as CoD does.

Sony complained to Brazilian regulators to try and stop the Activision deal.
Obviously, the acquisition goes againts their interests because it may mean that Sony would likely end losing CoD and the other ABK IPs somewhere in the future.

  • Jim Ryan flew to Brussels to speak with European regulators to try and stop the Activision deal.
It's what a CEO of a key market player has to do if the EU regulators want to interview him to ask stuff about a $70B acquisition that is going to happen on their market. You don't go to visit the EU regulators just because you want.

  • Sony has released a "PlayStation Showcase" every September for the last several years.
No, they only did it 2 years. This doesn't mean that it's a rule that they must follow.

  • Many industry insiders spoke confidently about knowing of a September showcase.
  • Several games that were rumored to be in this showcase were making cryptic posts to drum up announcement hype before the PlayStation Showcase (example: Helldivers 2).
    Here's the speculation:
    • Jim Ryan cancelled the September PlayStation Showcase at the last minute so as not to contradict his claims to regulators that Sony's business would be irreparably harmed by the Activision deal.
  • It's very plausible, some (myself included) would say it's painfully obvious. The games are still being made, but we won't hear about them until the Activision deal is mostly finalized and the heat from it has dissipated.
You should learn that what these 'insiders' say is bullshit when these 'insiders' keep saying for like over a year every month or so that 'next month Sony will have a showcase/big State of Play/announce blablabla' and then nothing happens. You should stop believing them.

Sony didn't have enough consoles in the stores, so didn't make sense to rise the hype now when they already have demand on gaming history record levels if there are not consoles in the stores. It's smarter to save the hype bullets of 1st party games that will be released in the long term for later.

They focused their marketing in the many 1st party top tier stuff they released this year like Horizon 2, GT7, GoWR, TLOUP1, MLB and PC ports of GoW 2018, Spider-Man, Morales, Sackboy and Uncharted. Plus PSVR2 that will be released soon, the PS Plus rework, 3rd party exclusives like the 2nd part of Final Fantasy VII Remake and other Square Enix or Capcom stuff and cool 2nd party stuff. Plus also announcing acquisitions like Bungie, Haven or that mobile game studio take makes them over a billion per year and also marketing some cool indies or multiplatform AAA titles that had some deal with them and released this year or early next one.

They shown, announced or marketed a shit ton of stuff this year that has been really packed for them. And simply didn't make sense to rise more the hype, made more sense for them to keep other announcements for later.

I don't think they'll announce anything at the Game Awards, maybe 'only' a Death Stranding 2 teaser since Kojima is friend of the Doritos Pope. Btw, regarding acquisitions SIE saved a good chunk of money (like twice of the one spent on Bungie and Haven) to close acquisitions from October to March. And if they may expect to close them before April they may announce them basically now. So probably they'll announce a big acquisition at the Doritos Awards.

Now that they released all their 2022 stuff and don't need to market it anymore they'll move their focus to the next stuff, which very likely will be a State of Play in December or January to highlight some early 2023 releases including the PSVR2 launch window stuff and 3rd party games with some kind of exclusive (Street Fighter 6, Resident Evil Village VR, RE 4 remake, Forspoken...) plus some upcoming exclusive indie.

In fact they could make a 'Q1/H1 2023 AAA games State of Play' for January, a 'Launch windown PSVR2 stuff State of Play' for February and an 'indies focused State of Play' in March or April.

And then at the E3 they could have a Showcase where they could announce and show new 1st and 2nd party big things: new Spider-Man 2 trailer and release date, Bungie new IP announcement, Firewalk new IP announcement, TLOU Online showcase, Death Stranding 2 announcement if not announced at the Doritos Awards, Team Asobi's next game, Helldivers 2 if real, London Studio's new IP, NC Soft's Horizon MMORPG if true, Bluepoint's next game, the next Onimusha, FFXVI launch trailer, PS Plus cloud gaming release for mobile devices or maybe also some acquisition.
 

0neAnd0nly

Gold Member
It's really not that serious. Why does it even matter so long as they continue to actually release games? Isn't that the main selling point of a showcase anyway?

By next year they probably have more titles ready to properly announce and show off at once.

If they went ahead and had one this year, rather than complaining about there being no show people would instead be complaining about it being a letdown with too many cinematic trailers, too many indies, not enough 1st party titles, etc.

The problem is this feels like a building excuse annually for Sony for several years.

Go back to all the showcase threads - everyone ends up disappointed. The last one that was 🔥 was when they announced Wolverine.

It’s been disappointing IMO. This is true nearly across the board for all of them since they convinced the public is was not good to have events like e3.

Remember the 2007 show? When they showed Killzone 2? Remember the show they came out tossing darts at Microsoft’s conference the day prior about DRM, etc.

Those were good times. E3 needs to be a thing again. They said nothing would change, but it was a lie. They don’t have the awesome shoes and hype of the past, it’s disappointing IMO.
 

bender

What time is it?
It's because all their titles are crap and they NEED call of duty to survive
you-have-smoked-yourselves-retarded.gif
 

mortal

Gold Member
The problem is this feels like a building excuse annually for Sony for several years.

Go back to all the showcase threads - everyone ends up disappointed. The last one that was 🔥 was when they announced Wolverine.

It’s been disappointing IMO. This is true nearly across the board for all of them since they convinced the public is was not good to have events like e3.

Remember the 2007 show? When they showed Killzone 2? Remember the show they came out tossing darts at Microsoft’s conference the day prior about DRM, etc.

Those were good times. E3 needs to be a thing again. They said nothing would change, but it was a lie. They don’t have the awesome shoes and hype of the past, it’s disappointing IMO.
Excuses for what though?

It's not like they haven't shown off their titles in shorter, more focused State of Plays. Again, the whole point of showcases is to preview games they and their partners have been working on.
We've already gotten quality 1st party releases and their respective trailers in shorter formats, does it matter if they skip a massive showcase for this year?
It's more or less the same result, no? Instead of getting previews for all their major games at one time, we get previews for a handful at various times throughout the year, often with release dates attached too.

If they were out here not releasing any 1st party games, in addition to not having any showcase or SoP, and went into complete radio silence then I'd be inclined to agree with your argument.
They've released several major 1st party titles this year and unveiled PSVR2 which is set to release in February. It's just one year, it's not the end of the world. They'll likely have more titles ready to be shown off in 2023.
Just go enjoy some games in the meantime, lords know our backlogs aren't getting any smaller lol.
 
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Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
I mean, yeah, it sucks and I hate that this is possibly Sony's way going forward (they didn't even do a big GoW Ragnarok or TLoU1 State of Play, which is really weird in my book)...

...However, everybody's showcase season has been miserable this year (in part because of COVID delays and just general timeshifting in the game market.)

Look at MS's Xbox-Bethesda Games Showcase, XGX have announced at least 11 upcoming Xbox games (plus some PC/Mobile games like Ara and AoM Retold & Mobile) but we only got an update here on Forza (they also announced Minecraft Legends, and I can't remember if Dusk Falls was announced or re-announced here?), and then the rest of the show was their other publisher showing off its delayed games. At least they had a showcase, sure, but there were a lot of asterisks on the announcement of this show that it was only Holiday-2022/Early/Mid-2023 games, which didn't hide well that the next 12 months were going to feel a little light if you were looking for big exclusives.

If we're just playing a horse-derby betting game on which publisher is out in the lead with what they've shown of their product line, Sony didn't have a show (and for the most part have depleted their backlog of announced games, except for the two Marvel games and the new studios' titles) yet I don't feel they're significantly behind anybody else who did have a show this year. It just wasn't a great year to play the ponies.
After that Xbox Bethesda showcase I wish MS didn't have a show but instead held off for when more of their bigger games are ready
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
The State Plays have been great lately and they're releasing great games so a showcase can wait

If you take away the games and State of Plays from the equation then I'm mad

Angry Season 2 GIF by The Office
 

CamHostage

Member
Remember the 2007 show? When they showed Killzone 2? ...

Those were good times. E3 needs to be a thing again.

Wait, are you talking about the 2005 show? The one where they had the fake Killzone 2 and Motorstorm and Warhawk and Heavenly Sword and Killing Day and FF7 trailers, which they then had to spend the next two years apologizing for and trying to make software good enough to make people forget the BS they pretended their console was capable of and Xbox 360 wasn't?



Or are you talking about the actual 2007 show, which had Jack Tretton pretending to host the whole show from inside PlayStation Home?



(That 2007 show did introduce Infamous, and also eventually did reveal actual Killzone 2 gameplay, but otherwise, looking at it now, I remember a lot about many E3 shows but oddly enough don't remember anything at all the 2007 show despite it being 2 years after the insane 2005 show and the catastrophic 2006 show.)
 
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0neAnd0nly

Gold Member
Wait, are you talking about the 2005 show? The one where they had the fake Killzone 2 and Motorstorm and Warhawk and Heavenly Sword and Killing Day and FF7 trailers, which they then had to spend the next two years apologizing for and trying to make software good enough to make people forget the BS they pretended their console was capable of and Xbox 360 wasn't?



Or are you talking about the actual 2007 show, which had Jack Tretton pretending to host the whole show from inside PlayStation Home?



(That 2007 show did introduce Infamous, and also eventually did reveal actual Killzone 2 gameplay, but otherwise, looking at it now, I remember a lot about many E3 shows but oddly enough don't remember anything at all the 2007 show despite it being 2 years after the insane 2005 show and the catastrophic 2006 show.)


I’m speaking on 2007, the show they revealed KZ2 at the end which look nearly every bit as good as the 2005 trailer.

I was a ps3 early adopter, and the 2007 show is when I could feel the ride turning in PS favor, finally.
 

CamHostage

Member
I’m speaking on 2007, the show they revealed KZ2 at the end which look nearly every bit as good as the 2005 trailer.

I was a ps3 early adopter, and the 2007 show is when I could feel the ride turning in PS favor, finally.

OK, well, good, that Killzone 2 re-reveal must have made a big impression then I guess, and it just slipped my mind for whatever reason.

However, if you watch that whole hour-34+ show, I think you'll be reminded of the bad parts of shows like E3, which was most every other interminable minute besides the one that showcase the games you are interested in.
 
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midnightAI

Member
I actually think none of the above.

Trade shows arent the answer, many publishers don't like E3 because its too much news in one weekend which means hype can get lost amongst all of the announcements.
State of Play's are 'ok', sometimes even 'good', but are too short to get excited about.
The best way of doing things (in my opinion) is State of Play's throughout the year for already announced games, and then also a PlayStation event/showcase to show off any new games, preferably in December. I think this is Sony's intention, they are maybe not quite ready for a showcase or other factors, such as the Actiblizz acquisition, or both, have got in the way this year but hopefully business as usual next year.
I still think Sony 'may' have a showcase in December/January, if not then a State of Play focused on PSVR2.
 
As far as I'm concerned they are delivering where it matters, so while it would be nice to get more frequent updates on what's upcoming if they continue to consistently release high quality games then I can't complain. The only reason to be concerned is if the game releases suddenly dried up and there were no showcases.

Most people are in this to play games, not act as hypemen. So to that end, games over showcases please.
Yep exactly. I saw some cgi trailers during an Xbox show like 2 years ago and not a single screenshot of most of those games have been showed so far. I rather get to actually play the games than getting fake cgi trailers of games.
 

Crayon

Member
Weird thread. A bunch of guys that talk all day everyday about video games trying to say they don’t care and never cared about games showcases, these same people that spend dozens of posts daily talking about the most inane details of the industry, suddenly don’t care if games are being announced or shown, because they are only interested in playing games.


Something isn’t adding up.

I like talking on a forum because I don't know people personally who can talk games like that. Unrelated, I don't need regular pep rallies. I don't get the conflict here.
 
Why don't they have nothing to show? Have their studios stopped making games including 2nd party and 3rd party exclusives?
Are you OK?

You don't seen to understand how these game conferences/events work. Like I said before, it's likely that it's simply because they have nothing to show to warrant the event.
 

Swift_Star

Banned
Yeah but they've kept the Playstation Userbase update with PC ports instead....

I think it safe to say Sony is out of touch.
The only thing Sony has done since the first PS5 showcase is announced PC ports and announced stupidly priced accessories in the Dualsense Edge & PSVR2.
I find it mind boggling..... you can say but GoW just came out and Spider-Man 2 & Wolverine is coming too.
But when was they announced?
Those games wasn't even for this year either.
So unless they announce something that's coming out a few month's after they are announced in their next showcase, if they have one.
What have they been doing with the PS5 for 2 years outside their PC project.
They aren’t out of touch because of a bunch of forum dwellers are crybabies that can’t play their games and are dying to get excited for the next big thing. The fact that their games are selling like they are means they are actually doing what it matters: delivering games.
Stop waiting for silly showcases and actually play the games you get excited for.
 
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John Wick

Member
You don't seen to understand how these game conferences/events work. Like I said before, it's likely that it's simply because they have nothing to show to warrant the event.
Are you for real? They can show games that are two years out. It simply isn't they have nothing to show. It's more a strategic decision probably tied in with the ABK acquisition investigation.
 
Whatever they got going they really need to place an emphasis on games that are current gen only and new IPs. No remakes or remasters.
PSVR2 is coming though, so no doubt they will have a lot to show for that. I will not be purchasing that however. I've already spent enough time with Oculus Rift CV1 and the first PSVR to know that I will likely not be using it very much. Very cool tech though and I'm looking forward to VR becoming better and more accessible with less hassle.
 
Are you for real? They can show games that are two years out. It simply isn't they have nothing to show.

It's really not this hard to not be pointlessly stubborn over something so simple They likely don't think they have enough for an event = don't have anything to show to justify the event.

I have no idea why you're having a problem with this given it's one of the most probable causes for a lack of a showcase. Sony switched to trying to fill up time without padding or pushing too much filler or time for one game since 2018, if they don't have enough to show then it's a possible reason why there's no event.

It's actually less likely it has anything to do with ABK because a conference showing upcoming games have nothing to do with game performance.
 
They aren’t out of touch because of a bunch of forum dwellers are crybabies that can’t play their games and are dying to get excited for the next big thing. The fact that their games are selling like they are means they are actually doing what it matters: delivering games.
Stop waiting for silly showcases and actually play the games you get excited for.
If we join everything they have given us during State of Play's you actually get quite a lot of stuff this year.

People are just out of touch. It makes no sense in 2022 to have reveals for games coming out in 3 years. Announcing stuff 4 months before release is more than enough. People thinking Sony will only release Spider-Man 2 next year because that's the only thing we know about are crazy. In fact, if we only got Forspoken, Final Fantasy XVI, Spider-Man 2, Silent Hill 2, the new MLB, Horizon DLC and possibly even Factions, 2023 would be a better year than 2022 for me.
 
They don't have to.

Ragnarok had a couple of trailer, no State of Play and certainly no Showcase gameplay reveal - and it sold gangbusters.

They simply don't need these major calendar moments anymore. Sony's games almost sell themselves at this point, when shown at the right time, and in the right place.
 
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