There’s no denying that Sony has a nice collection of video game titles. PlayStation 4 owners have access to a number of exclusives such as Bloodborne, Infamous Second Son, Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Detroit: Become Human. The list goes on and it’s certainly helped Sony move a ton of units out of the market and into the homes of gamers. Though when we mention these games above, there is a lacking element and that is multiplayer. These exclusives really thrive on their singleplayer narrative focused adventures that it takes players through, but in the future, we may see a slight switch.
In a recent interview with a big Sony chairman, Shawn Layden, it looks like Sony may have a focus on bringing out multiplayer focused exclusives. Shawn spoke with Business Insider and gave his thoughts on where the video game industry trend is right now. While Sony has a big catalog of video game exclusives, there is a movement with the industry that has the majority of the gameplay, if not all, online. You have the big battle royale titles like Fortnite and Apex Legends, which are available on the PlayStation 4, but it may seem that Sony wants the next big hit to be an exclusive one.
Couch co-op — I mean that’s a whole category I think the industry needs to look back at. We have that with sports titles, and some racing titles, but not with much else. And I think that speaks to the power of the internet on the one hand, but otherwise we might wanna revisit that to get more family engagement in the gaming experience.
But, no, I was referencing more with the things like “GTA 5 Online,” or you look at “Call of Duty,” or “Fortnite,” or any of those experiences. Worldwide Studios, like I say, we’ve been going really heavy into story-driven gaming. The power of the narrative. Big, spectacular experiences. But not a whole lot in the multiplayer side of things, I think. That’s an area where you will likely see us start to make more noise in the new term.
The chairman feels that there needs to be a more direct approach to online multiplayer video games and likely capturing this new movement before the trend starts to die down. For now, there is no news regarding what development teams are working on and if this new movement is something that the company is holding off until their next big console release, the PlayStation 5, is available in the market.
Regardless, we don’t know just when these big reveals will happen in terms of games and hardware. Sony has already announced that they will be skipping this year’s E3 event which is just a few months away and that’s generally been the place for big names to announce what they have in the works.
[Source: Business Insider]