We have a new rumor on Sony’s next upcoming State of Play.
As shared on reddit by user Progenitor3, Nate The Hate concurred with a fan who asked if the State of Play was coming between January 31 to February 1, 2024.
Earlier this month, we reported on speculation that a State of Play was forthcoming. Actually, what Jeff Grubb stated then was that the frequent State of Play events felt like a contractual obligation. This is because Sony mostly used these events to feature third party titles instead of their own. So, Sony may not have any big title of their own to reveal, but they will still hold these shows for those third parties.
It’s well known that Sony doesn’t have any major AAA first party titles announced for this year. Truthfully, it’s expected that after Helldivers II, Sony does not have any first party games to release in 2024 at all. It’s not a good position for the company to be in, but obviously, they can’t lie about it.
The fact is, if Sony had any titles that were ready for release soon, they wouldn’t just want to reveal that, they would be obligated to. This time, it would be their responsibility to shareholders that would prompt them to make that information public.
Helldivers II was already featured in the last State of Play last September. It wouldn’t be unexpected if they were featured again in this potential State of Play just before release.
While Helldivers II doesn’t seem to have the budget of a full AAA, in the same way that we have seen Bungie’s upcoming Marathon does, it still seems set to be Sony’s first major first party live service release. The original Helldivers did have a host of microtransactions that came after release, mainly to support that game’s community.
Outside of this, September also came with a major preview of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, as well as Foamstars. It’s games like these and Stellar Blade that are expected to be the future of PlayStation 5’s focus. Sony has historically been a strong platform for third-party titles, and they have mainly benefited from being most gamers’ default choice.
So Sony may not fare too badly if they end up not really having any more first party titles after Helldivers II for this year. The advantage of being the preferred console over Xbox may be enough to get them by.