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**NOTE: For a TL;DR that's shorter and summarizes the write-up, go to the "BRIEF SUMMATION" section.
SONY/SIE: HOW DO THEY IMPROVE MARGINS & EXPAND, WHILE RESPECTING PLAYSTATION'S ROOTS?
[WHAT ARE PLAYSTATION'S ROOTS?]
The legacy of PlayStation can be traced to its roots, specifically the prime motivations that brought the platform into existence. These can be traced to several factors, covering a period of some years leading to the first console's release. These are listed in no particular order:
These five tenets helped PlayStation fulfil the traditional console business model goals. That model's goals are:
The original PlayStation realized certain goals differently, given the make-up of the console market in the mid 1990s; for example, "subscriptions" could be interpretable as official PlayStation magazines
providing content & demos for readers, some subscribing for 1-2 years via mail. However, the main points of the model were as true back then as they are today, and Sony were able to achieve these seven goals with their first console, thanks to adhering of the five core brand tenets.
Such extended to other consoles such as the PlayStation 2, where a combination of momentum plus adhering to the five core brand's tenets, can shape the success of the given platform generation. The PS2 saw significant increase in some of the five precepts, which helped in achieving the seven goals of the traditional console business model even more than the first PlayStation, leading to growth in the market compared to contemporaries, who each struggled with one or more of their own "core brand values", thus could not maximize the seven aims of the traditional console business model as effectively as Sony.
Other Sony consoles, such as the PlayStation 3, failed to respect one or more of the brand's five tenets, and were unable to achieve the seven goals of the business model (either wholly, in effectiveness, or both) as direct result. Quickly, here are the PS3's mistakes in respecting the five root brand values:
Problems with Sony Corporation during the latter '00s compounded on the PS3, the company facing significant financial turmoil, needing to make changes. Kaz Hirai became the President of SCE (now SIE) during this time (later CEO of Sony Corp in 2012), helping both it & the PlayStation 3 remarkably recover. We will look at some of the things done to help in this recovery.
We can see how Sony addressed the concerns of the market, both for their own platform & vested interests, plus various 3P, with the PS3 in due time, to help it recover from a troubled launch. The PS4 would see the benefits of these improvements from Day 1, helping it gain market share over its direct rival, the Xbox One, surmounting a staggering lead in the years to follow. However, 2017 saw the resurgence of Nintendo with the Switch, helping them take a significant majority of market share in Japan & act as a larger, yet soft/indirect challenger, to Sony's PS4 in the global markets. The second half of the 2010s also saw a rise for both the PC gaming market, thanks to Valve's Steam, and the mobile gaming market, thanks to both Apple's iOS (&, Apple Arcade) & Google's Play store.
While these other competitors were not as direct a challenge to PlayStation as Microsoft's Xbox, they still competed for gaming time and dollars in some form, with varying degrees of customer cross-over. In particular, while yet to be confirmed, the combination of more console-exclusive or console-orientated 3P devs/pubs (particularly from Japan) expanding software support to PC platforms like Steam (itself with most of its base on Windows OS) & Microsoft's own push for Day 1 PC releases of all 1P games, likely helped heavily contribute not only towards declining demand of the Xbox One in its latter
years, but even (natural) demand for their 9th-gen consoles, the Xbox Series X & S. It's arguable that, had the effects of the pandemic not occurred, sales momentum for the Series consoles would have collapsed sooner than it actually did, as at current the consoles struggle to catch up with the oft-derided Xbox One in lifetime sales launch-aligned.
Other things which have come to "compete" against PlayStation's position in the market are external factors outside of Sony's control. Chiefly, the incurred, exponetial growth in required costs for producing big-budget AAA games pushing the envelope of production values, alongside high-powered gaming silicon needed to enable the creation & play of such games, at volumes of many millions over the course of a console generation. These costs do not come cheap, plus shrink margins. For the world's #1 entertainment industry by revenue, the desire from shareholders & investors to "chase growth", has created pressures far greater than in the past, leading to crucial decisions.
Sony's answers to these newfound points of concern & changing market dynamics, have been varied. We will briefly look at them now, then gauge probable short/mid/long-term effects of them.
[CON'T BELOW...]
SONY/SIE: HOW DO THEY IMPROVE MARGINS & EXPAND, WHILE RESPECTING PLAYSTATION'S ROOTS?
[WHAT ARE PLAYSTATION'S ROOTS?]
The legacy of PlayStation can be traced to its roots, specifically the prime motivations that brought the platform into existence. These can be traced to several factors, covering a period of some years leading to the first console's release. These are listed in no particular order:
1: HOLISTIC HARDWARE ECOSYSTEMS
Even as far back as Sony's MSX computers, the company always seemed to value hardware ecosystems with various parts serving a greater whole. In terms of their MSX machines, this encompassed manufacture of all necessary peripherals made compatible with machines, in an era where such tight integration was only seen with microcomputer platforms like the Amiga. In terms of the PlayStation, it was through a unified chipset design, each component consciously built to uplift overall performance. In both cases, making things streamlined for software creators.
2: INDUSTRY-DEFINING STANDARDS
Also traceable to Sony's MSX line of computers (if not even earlier), is a strong presence of leveraging hardware technologies to lead what seemed could or should be new industry standards. With MSX, it was in supporting a relatively open PC platform for Eastern markets (which in time replaced closed standards like those from NEC, as PC-compatibles running Windows gained popularity in the mid-'90s). With the Super Famicom, it was CD-quality sound & sampling for video games (at a time when other consoles mostly used standards like FM synthesis). With the Walkman, it was portable music. With CD, it was the promise (and realization) of the then-futuristic data format. And with PlayStation, it was 3D visuals in the home to complete what was a pinnacle of immersive gaming for the time.
3: MARKET LIBERATION
This is in the act of establishing business standards which allowed Sony & various 3P to manufacture, distribute, & promote with more flexibility, while increasing revenue and profit margins. PlayStation's licensing policy stood in stark contrast to comparatively more draconian Nintendo & SEGA ones. Sony's deep experience with licensable open standards like the MSX computer, combined with their experience as a software publisher prior to PlayStation via Sony Imagesoft, informed their business model for the console.
4: PARTNER FOCUS
With the PlayStation, Sony was the first platform holder to truly place stock & value in enabling 3P developers, publishers, and their content on their platform. Whereas those like Nintendo & SEGA prioritized their own 1P offerings in lieu of 3P focus (unless they were a heavily favored 3P, such as Squaresoft with Nintendo or EA with SEGA), Sony sought to work closely with 3P to elevate their
development & market pipelines. A good example of this is the collaboration with Namco on System 11 & System 12 arcade boards, which would go on to spawn cherished IP such as Tekken.
5: LIBRARY UNIQUENESS
Thanks to understandings of content differentiation in the film & music industries, combined with feature differentiation in the electronics market, and synergized development for the PlayStation, Sony were able to amass both a significant amount of exclusive & primary support from 3P software creators towards the platform. The market presence PlayStation amassed, combined with the industry growth this helped stimulate, made PlayStation the favored platform for "defacto exclusives" from many 3P in obtaining more-than-desired revenue & profits. For those whom exclusivity (defacto or not) did not present, the PlayStation's qualities made it attractive as a lead platform for multi-platform development & marketing efforts for games originating on platforms such as arcade or PC, console ports.
These five tenets helped PlayStation fulfil the traditional console business model goals. That model's goals are:
1: Intensive R&D on prototyping, architecting, design, QA testing & refinement of embedded system specs targeting a specific TDP profile
2: Manufacture finalized hardware designs at mass scale (multi-millions per fiscal quarter), includes securing large wafer volume for chip production
3: Sell hardware at a set MSRP and take direct loss on hardware being sold (aka hardware subsidization) to aggressively push install base size
4: Recoup losses on hardware with combination of B2P software, add-on content, subscription and peripheral sales (peripherals often sold at for-profit prices)
5: Design marketing campaigns to draw in customers at scale to justify rate of hardware production (can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, in phases)
6: Develop lots of exclusive gaming content (combination of 1P and 3P) to draw customers to the platform vs direct rivals
7: Create virtuous cycle where preceding six elements generate enough revenue & profit to create feedback loop of positive reinforcement (lower production costs, lower MSRPs, bigger budgets for exclusive content, more ROI per advertising dollar, etc.)
The original PlayStation realized certain goals differently, given the make-up of the console market in the mid 1990s; for example, "subscriptions" could be interpretable as official PlayStation magazines
providing content & demos for readers, some subscribing for 1-2 years via mail. However, the main points of the model were as true back then as they are today, and Sony were able to achieve these seven goals with their first console, thanks to adhering of the five core brand tenets.
Such extended to other consoles such as the PlayStation 2, where a combination of momentum plus adhering to the five core brand's tenets, can shape the success of the given platform generation. The PS2 saw significant increase in some of the five precepts, which helped in achieving the seven goals of the traditional console business model even more than the first PlayStation, leading to growth in the market compared to contemporaries, who each struggled with one or more of their own "core brand values", thus could not maximize the seven aims of the traditional console business model as effectively as Sony.
Other Sony consoles, such as the PlayStation 3, failed to respect one or more of the brand's five tenets, and were unable to achieve the seven goals of the business model (either wholly, in effectiveness, or both) as direct result. Quickly, here are the PS3's mistakes in respecting the five root brand values:
1: HOLISTIC HARDWARE ECOSYSTEMS: Sony's ambition for the PS3 included the joint-developed Cell processor. This processor promised to be the revolutionary future of computing, at one point set
to be both the PS3's CPU & GPU. However, less-than-desired maturity on the GPU promise, led to a rushed redesign, and a final system that pursued (at the time) ultimate power, yet forced into undesirable compromises.
The result was a system with promising technology, but an extremely high learning curve to extract the potential. Combined with growing software budgets, increased complexity in game development,
and less TTL (Time-To-Learn) for programmers vs. the commercial work expected of them, this made the PlayStation 3 a less attractive holistic hardware & product design compared to its direct rival.
2: INDUSTRY-DEFINING STANDARDS: Whereas the PlayStation's pursuit of 3D as standard was a goal aligned with the majority of the gaming market at the time (even if through proprietary
means), the PlayStation 3's push for heterogeneous programming via the Cell, was partly forward-thinking ambition obfuscated by corporate-driven financial desires and industry control on the parts of Sony, IBM, & Toshiba. Sony's specific implementation of heterogeneous computing clashed with desires from the majority of the games industry.
Similarly, the push for Blu-Ray disc standard was seen by many, as less games "needing" that level of additional storage (at least tied to a single disc), and more a push from companies like Sony to assert format control in the market. This created friction between Sony, 3P developers & publishers, plus increased costs for the PS3 beyond at-the-time tolerable levels for the majority, hampering adoption rates.
3: MARKET LIBERATION: With PS3, Sony failed to correctly gauge the demand for online-based multiplayer gaming. This led to many a massive multiplayer games that generation, such as COD & Halo 3, to either be exclusive on or prefer their direct console rival, Microsoft's Xbox 360. Also, during this time the console market in the US would reach its peak in terms of growth rate, PS3 being the least poised of the Big 3 to capitalize.
While Sony were able to leverage other markets globally to offset many of the install base loss in the US & UK, it was never enough to meaningfully overtake the 360 in install base.
4: PARTNER FOCUS: With a complex architecture, high level of TTL (Time-To-Learn), & lack of market share in key markets relative competitors, the PS3 was mostly unable to leverage strong
3P partnerships, particularly Western 3P developers & publishers in the AAA space. For example, with 360, Microsoft provided strong brand synergies with IP such as COD, Saint's Row, & the Mass
Effect trilogy. Sony were incapable of this aside with some Japanese 3P such as Konami; with Western 3P, it'd be later that gen with games such as GTA V.
5: LIBRARY UNIQUENESS: With the PS3, Sony lost many "defacto exclusives", with many once-exclusive Japanese 3P franchises either going multi-console with Xbox 360, turning towards breakouts like the Nintendo Wii, or both. Many Japanese 3P who primarily focused on PlayStation hardware in the past, turned to doing exclusives for rival consoles. For example, Capcom launched the IP Lost Planet & Dead Rising on the 360, while that system also got early JRPG exclusives such as Blue Dragon & Lost Odyssey.
Western-wise, rivals like the 360 saw preferred support from devs like Bethesda, Volition, Obsidian, EA, & Silicon Knights, either with exclusive IP exclusive, or with games that ran much better on 360 vs Sony's console. The PlayStation 3 would not see parity in most Western 3P releases until the second half of that console generation, and never saw priority from Western studios for new or exclusive IP the way 360 did. Things went better on the Eastern side, with Sony's Japan Studio partnering with From Software to birth the "Soulsborne" genre via 2009's Demon's Souls, and securing exclusives (in some cases defacto) with games like Metal Gear Solid 4.
Problems with Sony Corporation during the latter '00s compounded on the PS3, the company facing significant financial turmoil, needing to make changes. Kaz Hirai became the President of SCE (now SIE) during this time (later CEO of Sony Corp in 2012), helping both it & the PlayStation 3 remarkably recover. We will look at some of the things done to help in this recovery.
1: HOLISTIC HARDWARE ECOSYSTEMS: Aside PS3 itself, Sony made changes in reorganizing its TV & appliances sectors, plus selling off the VAIO line of computers, which proved financially unsound. Specific to the PS3, hardware redesigns removed some non-critical functions (though removal of native PS2 hardware for BC would become controversial in hindsight), simplified the motherboard, found cheaper alternatives for component costs, increased storage capacities, and effectively rebranded the console platform with a new marketing campaign in 2009.
Meanwhile, new peripherals such as the Move controllers provided options to PS3 owners for gaming experiences, paired with successive iterations of the Eye Toy, & various other peripherals 1P & 3P. The proliferation of 3D-enabled televisions in the market later that era saw the PS3 provide support. Considered a gimmick by some, it nonetheless was present for owners, helping condition acceptance for future products such as the PlayStation VR (PSVR), released for PS3's successor, the PS4.
2: INDUSTRY-DEFINING STANDARDS: While not intended, Sony's inability to iterate their online gaming infrastructure as well as rival Microsoft, meant their online gaming service stayed a free option for console owners. This wound up attracting gamers during the generation to pick up a PlayStation 3 as the price came down, becoming a convenient marketing point against Microsoft's paid-online walled garden of Xbox Live.
Although the Cell was a complicated chip to learn, its design was nonetheless forward-thinking, and contributed long-term to game developers adopting what became the standard for heterogeneous computing in the consumer electronics space, more so than Microsoft's ambitious-but-simpler Xenon CPU. Blu-Ray, similarly, in time proved its worth to the gaming market, being the preferred option vs. using multiple DVD discs (increasing physical production costs along the way), as was to be the norm with the 360, particularly since the add-on HD-DVD player (in the Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD format war of the late 2000s) gained zero traction.
3: MARKET LIBERATION: While forgotten today, Sony were the first platform holder to advocate for cross-play. However, a stern rejection from Microsoft, whose 360 was dominating the North American & United Kingdom markets, kept that from happening. Additionally, many today consider the incidental aspect of free online on PS3, the preferred model for online gaming in the console market, something even Sony reversed course on with the PS4.
The PS3's use of Blu-Ray was also liberation for the market, helping to reduce manufacturing costs for physical games. Instead of needing up to 4x DVD-ROMs, a single Blu-Ray could hold the same amount of data. This helped with keeping case sizes small & counts lower, aiding with logistics of materials shipping for physical games on the platform, often as a benefit vs. the 360, which prioritized the aging DVD-ROM format.
Sony's PS3 also standardized mandatory game installs & user-replaceable non-proprietary HDDs. The latter became a godsend for many core enthusiasts who sought larger capacities of storage at a cheap price for their growing catalog of games. Conversely, the 360 began a more questionable trend of Xbox consoles using proprietary storage solutions often limited in capacity and more expensive per GB than open market standards.
4: PARTNER FOCUS: Late in the PS3's lifecycle, Sony made efforts to court support from favored 3P developers & publishers, both to eliminate challenges related to development for the system, & getting more support for it in general. This included: reaching out to Valve to get The Orange Box collection on PS3, & Rockstar to prioritize the PS3 as the lead platform for GTA V (alongside a marketing deal). Updating the PS3 SDK & documentation so that programming for Cell became less of a barrier, was also a major focus for them during this time.
5: LIBRARY UNIQUENESS: Since the PS3 lost a lot of defacto exclusives to a competitive Xbox 360 & even (or better to say in different ways) Nintendo's Wii, Sony were forced to double-down on a combination of 1P & select 3P co-developed exclusives to add brand identity & value to the PS3. This resulted in a swell of 1P exclusives, such as the big push for what would become a signature "cinematic" narrative-driven action/adventure focus, with games such as the Uncharted series, The Last of Us, Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls.
This combined with new entries in established IP such as Gran Turismo (GT5 & GT6), God of War, Twisted Metal, Warhawk, & SOCOM. As well, new IP would be fostered, both among 1P teams & in conjunction with select 3P studios, such as Puppeteer, Echochrome, the Motorstorm series, the Little Big Planet series, the "Metaverse before Metaverse" PlayStation Home, PS All-Stars, & seminal favorite (plus precursor to the modern-day Soulsborne sub-genre) Demon's Souls (Japan Studio x From Software).
We can see how Sony addressed the concerns of the market, both for their own platform & vested interests, plus various 3P, with the PS3 in due time, to help it recover from a troubled launch. The PS4 would see the benefits of these improvements from Day 1, helping it gain market share over its direct rival, the Xbox One, surmounting a staggering lead in the years to follow. However, 2017 saw the resurgence of Nintendo with the Switch, helping them take a significant majority of market share in Japan & act as a larger, yet soft/indirect challenger, to Sony's PS4 in the global markets. The second half of the 2010s also saw a rise for both the PC gaming market, thanks to Valve's Steam, and the mobile gaming market, thanks to both Apple's iOS (&, Apple Arcade) & Google's Play store.
While these other competitors were not as direct a challenge to PlayStation as Microsoft's Xbox, they still competed for gaming time and dollars in some form, with varying degrees of customer cross-over. In particular, while yet to be confirmed, the combination of more console-exclusive or console-orientated 3P devs/pubs (particularly from Japan) expanding software support to PC platforms like Steam (itself with most of its base on Windows OS) & Microsoft's own push for Day 1 PC releases of all 1P games, likely helped heavily contribute not only towards declining demand of the Xbox One in its latter
years, but even (natural) demand for their 9th-gen consoles, the Xbox Series X & S. It's arguable that, had the effects of the pandemic not occurred, sales momentum for the Series consoles would have collapsed sooner than it actually did, as at current the consoles struggle to catch up with the oft-derided Xbox One in lifetime sales launch-aligned.
Other things which have come to "compete" against PlayStation's position in the market are external factors outside of Sony's control. Chiefly, the incurred, exponetial growth in required costs for producing big-budget AAA games pushing the envelope of production values, alongside high-powered gaming silicon needed to enable the creation & play of such games, at volumes of many millions over the course of a console generation. These costs do not come cheap, plus shrink margins. For the world's #1 entertainment industry by revenue, the desire from shareholders & investors to "chase growth", has created pressures far greater than in the past, leading to crucial decisions.
Sony's answers to these newfound points of concern & changing market dynamics, have been varied. We will briefly look at them now, then gauge probable short/mid/long-term effects of them.
1: HOLISTIC HARDWARE ECOSYSTEMS: New stress points for stability & growth in the industry have driven Sony to adopt a semi-tiered strategy of expanding PlayStation's brand reach to platforms beyond the console, while doubling-down on enticing peripheral options to complement the console experience. This has caused an increasingly aggressive push for porting of 1P software to PC, primarily Steam, & expanding SIE's publishing arm to that platform. It has also resulted in new peripherals such as the DualSense Edge (a premium DualSense controller), PSVR2 (a premium VR headset & successor to PS4's PSVR1), PlayStation Portal (a local streaming-orientated companion device), PlayStation Pulse headset, earbuds, etc.
2: INDUSTRY-DEFINING STANDARDS: With PS5, game prices for new AAA released increased by $10, from $60 to $70. While Sony were not the first publisher to go through with this increase, they nonetheless joined the choir & made this new price point the standard for their big 1P releases. Adjustments were made to the PlayStation Plus subscription service, including consolidating the then independent PS Now streaming service into it, plus increasing prices to match. Recently, streaming functionality of PS Plus has enabled 4K quality to PS5 owners, allowing for things such as trying out anticipated games as a streamed demo (foregoing the need to download files directly) before committing to a purchase & download. This contrasts with streaming-side features of competing subscription services, such as Microsoft's Game Pass, which only offer Series S-level 1080p streaming quality, dinging usefulness as a demo feature for Series X owners to gauge aspects of a game before committing to a download.
Other examples include a limited multi-console publishing strategy, which can be seen with IP like MLB: The Show, a title now available on Microsoft's Xbox Series systems & Nintendo's Switch. Although in a way, this is nothing new for Sony; after completing the purchase of publisher Psygonsis in 1993, they released ports of select IP primarily made for PlayStation, such as Wipeout, on competitors SEGA Saturn and Nintendo 64, even platforms like PC.
3: MARKET LIBERATION: One could argue that Sony's more aggressive push for 1P content on non-PlayStation platforms like PC, gives would-be customers on those platforms more choice in where to buy & play these games. Though not the entirety of Sony's catalog & no Day 1 for titles besides certain GaaS (most recent example being breakout hit Helldivers 2), the option is still there & has shown some measure in properly pursuing such a model, while balancing needs of the primary device in that ecosystem family. At least, in theory.
4: PARTNER FOCUS: This has involved a mixture of initiatives in solidifying relationships with select 3P. For example, Sony have engaged in a continued partnership as the premier platform for mainline Final Fantasy content from 3P Square-Enix, with timed exclusivity on console before getting ports to PC, but skip other platforms like Microsoft's Xbox. They have also fostered co-development opportunities with studios like Ember Lab for Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Housemarque for Returnal, & Bluepoint for Demon's Souls Remake. The latter two were acquired by SIE (Sony's gaming subsidiary; SIE and Sony are used interchangeably throughout this writing) shortly after then-recent projects released.
Sony have also worked with new up-and-coming studios, via global initiatives in the China Hero Project, India Hero Project, & Africa Hero Project. Certain games from these initiatives, the upcoming Stellar Blade (South Korean developer Shift Up), are very promising, with that one in particular resulting in a tightly coupled strategic partnership. While certain competitors set sights on acquiring massive 3P publishers, Sony's M&A focus in gaming has been more reserved; beyond the aforementioned Housemarque & Bluepoint, they've mainly stuck to smaller studios, like Firesprite or upstart Haven (with industry veterans Jade Raymond & PS4/PS5 architect Mark Cerny at the helm). An outlier exists in the form of Bungie, who recently became a publisher after ceasing a publishing partnership with ABK.
Aside from various project initiatives & M&As, Sony have placed investments into companies like Epic Games, plus purchased minority stakes in developers like From Software & its parent company, Kadokawa. Most recently, Sony was one of two main entities (the other being Tencent) responsible for helping From Software acquire the massively successful Elden Ring IP rights from publisher Bandai Namco.
Aside from various project initiatives & M&As, Sony have placed investments into companies like Epic Games, plus purchased minority stakes in developers like From Software & its parent company, Kadokawa. Most recently, Sony was one of two main entities (the other being Tencent) responsible for helping From Software acquire the massively successful Elden Ring IP rights from publisher Bandai Namco.
5: LIBRARY UNIQUENESS: As more of what were once defacto PlayStation-exclusive or primary 3P franchises have spread their wings to other platforms like Xbox, Nintendo, & PC (mainly Steam), Sony have sought to try forms of software exclusivity through a mixture of 1P titles via internal studios (i.e Demon's Souls remake from Bluepoint, GT7 from Polyphony Digital, Rachet & Clank: Rift Apart from Insomniac & God of War: Ragnarok from Sony Santa Monica), 3P co-funded & co-developed exclusives (such as Death Stranding 2 from Kojima Productions & Stellar Blade from Shift-Up), plus 3P timed exclusives (like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth from Square-Enix, Sifu from NoClap Studios, Stray from Annapurna etc.).
Meanwhile, 3P content unable to be secured as exclusive to PS5 (either wholly or as console exclusives), like Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, Harry Potter: Hogwart's Legacy & more, have established marketing deals with SIE, to push brand association between them & PlayStation to help bolster market appeal & sales. A growing number of Sony's own 1P & 1P-owned (in terms of IP rights) games have seen ports to PC anywhere from time frames of Day 1 (exclusive to GaaS titles, like Helldivers 2), to 6 months (i.e TLOU Remake), up to 2 years (i.e the upcoming Horizon Forbidden West).
This, combined with a large bulk of previous releases this generation up until Spiderman 2 (released October 2023) being cross-gen titles, has created a need for balance in maintaining sufficient library uniqueness on the console while leveraging a multiplatform expansion policy to other ecosystems which naturally conflicts with the drive for library uniqueness.
This, combined with a large bulk of previous releases this generation up until Spiderman 2 (released October 2023) being cross-gen titles, has created a need for balance in maintaining sufficient library uniqueness on the console while leveraging a multiplatform expansion policy to other ecosystems which naturally conflicts with the drive for library uniqueness.
[CON'T BELOW...]
