SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
A few year ago, Shawn Layden gave an interview where he defended Sony pigeonholing themselves into third person action adventure games pointing out that he does not want to be in competition with his third party partners. IIRC, it was in context of launching more online shooters.
But now Sony has found themselves in a position where they will not have THE biggest WRPG on their next gen system. Not only that, they had already lost Obsidian a year ago, and with MS investing in Avowed and Fable, they have 3-4 AAA WRPGs that Sony simply has no reply to.
Looking at Sony's first party studios, only GG have any real experience with open world games with RPG elements, but Horizon always felt like an action adventure game with dialogue trees than a real role playing game. Sony's lack of new acquisitions this gen has now left a gaping hole in the WRPG genre as their sole big acquisition was Insomniac, another action adventure developer. Aside from CD Project, which sony simply cannot buy without MS outbidding them, their only hope is Bioware which again cannot be bought.
With Prey, Dishonored, Doom, Wolfenstein also going to bolsters Microsoft's shooter lineup, Sony will now have to shift away from action adventure to have some shooters of their own. But things are looking much more rosy here since GG, Insomniac and Naughty Dog have a lot of experience with shooters. Hopefully this forces Sony to greenlight some KZ or Resistance reboots or better yet new IPs.
Sony will have to turn their new Uncharted studio into a WRPG studio, and maybe have Sucker Punch take Ghosts of Tsushima into full on RPG territory. Otherwise I am struggling to see what other acquisitions they can make at this point.
This is why you dont rely on third party studios, Shawn.
But now Sony has found themselves in a position where they will not have THE biggest WRPG on their next gen system. Not only that, they had already lost Obsidian a year ago, and with MS investing in Avowed and Fable, they have 3-4 AAA WRPGs that Sony simply has no reply to.
Looking at Sony's first party studios, only GG have any real experience with open world games with RPG elements, but Horizon always felt like an action adventure game with dialogue trees than a real role playing game. Sony's lack of new acquisitions this gen has now left a gaping hole in the WRPG genre as their sole big acquisition was Insomniac, another action adventure developer. Aside from CD Project, which sony simply cannot buy without MS outbidding them, their only hope is Bioware which again cannot be bought.
With Prey, Dishonored, Doom, Wolfenstein also going to bolsters Microsoft's shooter lineup, Sony will now have to shift away from action adventure to have some shooters of their own. But things are looking much more rosy here since GG, Insomniac and Naughty Dog have a lot of experience with shooters. Hopefully this forces Sony to greenlight some KZ or Resistance reboots or better yet new IPs.
Sony will have to turn their new Uncharted studio into a WRPG studio, and maybe have Sucker Punch take Ghosts of Tsushima into full on RPG territory. Otherwise I am struggling to see what other acquisitions they can make at this point.
This is why you dont rely on third party studios, Shawn.