Sony, as a company, is in a curious place right now. On the hardware side of things, it’s doing rather well. Sure, the pandemic “slowed it down” initially due to key part delays, but the PS5 has mostly caught up to the sales of the PS4, which has made the company very happy. However, when it comes to its software lineup, gamers have found it lacking, and some of the company’s decisions on live-service games frustrating. At times, it’s hard to see how the company even views its own games. Thus, hearing from the former head of PlayStation Studios is very telling in this time of “need.”
We speak, of course, of ex-PlayStation Studios head Shuhei Yoshida, who left the company after over three decades of service, including being the leader of the 1st party games and their devs during the PS4 era. During a chat with Last Stand Media, he revealed how Sony looks at 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party games. The tweet below spells it out well:
There are many interesting tidbits in that tweet, including some of the games that were named to help define the “lineup.” Many of you will notice that certain key games from 2024 were made by companies NOT owned by Sony, yet were Sony exclusives, until they went onto PC. We all know of the 3rd party exclusives listed, and how those caused problems for both Sony and Square Enix.
The 2nd Party games are arguably the most interesting, especially since Yoshida himself pushed Sony to bring Stellar Blade into the mix. This move turned out rather well for them and added to a rather “light” release schedule in 2024.
That being said, even with this clarification, it’s still sad knowing some of the things that Sony hasn’t done in recent years, including making the PS5 as great as the PS4 with its gaming lineup. The reason that the console sold over a million units was because it had one of the most incredible gaming lineups ever. However, the PS5 truly can’t say that. It doesn’t help that Sony was determined to “bust into the live-service market,” only for many of its titles to either be canceled before they were ever fully revealed or fail so badly that they were straight-up abandoned after a couple of weeks.
Yoshida himself said that he was forced out of the first-party head position to become the head of indie games within Sony and that he would’ve steered away from the live-service market if he had been in charge still. One can only imagine what would’ve happened if that shift in leadership had not happened.
