Sony seems to have made a nightmare announcement for PlayStation players.
Takashi Mochizuki, reporter for Bloomberg Japan on the video game industry, revealed this statement from Sony’s latest earnings call on Twitter:
“Sony says it plans no new title releases from existing big PlayStation game franchises planned in the next FY and less burden from game unit M&A.”
Now, it’s important to understand that Sony doesn’t make a statement like this primarily for the PlayStation playing audience. This was information they disclosed to their investors, to properly inform those investors of what to expect for the coming financial year. They would have to be honest with investors in this exact way to keep their trust, even if Sony understands they may see some of those investors sell off their shares or back away in other deals with the company.
In any case, the statement is as straightforward as it gets. Given the specific wording, we may try to gleam what other possible releases could be coming from Sony this year. Do remember that the financial year starts on April 1, and ends on every March 31.
We know, at least, that Insomniac has a still unannounced Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Online for this year, and other DLC for the main title, based on information leaked as a result of the Rhysida ransomware attack. However, since that information was leaked, we wouldn’t know if any of those plans have changed. It is possible that any planned releases from Insomniac, or other Sony first party studios, have been delayed, for various reasons, to after the coming financial year.
Another possibility could be that Sony’s first party titles will be slated to release on PC from PlayStation Studios. We had already noted that possibility earlier in the year, as it would be comparatively easier to make such ports. Still, such efforts may not move fast enough if they only started this course of action last January, so those may also take a while before they release.
The last possibility is that Sony could still release some of their long gestating live service games. That could include titles like Marathon, Concord, Fairgame$, and the two unrevealed titles from PlayStation London, and Horizon developer Guerrilla Games.
It may not be the case that any of these titles are really ready to be released yet. But what Sony may do is launch early betas for these games, to give PlayStation gamers something to play.
Now, as many fans have pointed out, Sony is not lacking in third party games to keep PlayStation 5 owners happy. But if we are looking at this from Sony’s point of view, they have too many studios not releasing games, and subsequently, not justifying their investment in them.
The PlayStation 5 may not be lacking for games, even if most of them will be multiplatform, as Sony enjoys the advantages of being the market leader. But Sony is already seeing sales of their console falter, and subsequently, there are questions about how well the gaming division understands sustainable profitability.
Those questions come from no less than Hiroki Totoki, the man who will be taking over running PlayStation in this financial year. Suffice to say, PlayStation may not have a good year this time.
