Sony's lack of first-party focus left PlayStation Showcase feeling like a letdown

What might Sony have in store? Expectations were sky high following a string of blockbusters over the past few years, all of which were largely detailed before the console's launch. What was next? Sony told us a few game names, showed a few CGI trailers, but ultimately these were just glimpses

[sparky77]

I am glad someone else is pointing this out, Sony's first party must be in development hell right now. We have seen multiple projects cancelled and are being told to keep waiting. I mean what happened to Factions?

Sony seriously need to considering replacing their management teams because someone has dropped the ball.

[Flawlessmic]

Lollllllll ur trying way to hard and clutching at straws with this take 🤣🤣

I'm the first to say as far as big Sony shows are concerned this was a let down by Sony's very very high standards, the standards they set I might add.

To say the games are in dev hell and management needs to change is laughable.

This was clearly the live service show for them, and yea it was crap lol.

If you think Sony's next showcase won't be literal bombs being dropped then your living with the fairies.

Don't let the rare slip up fill you with to much confidence sparky, Microsoft can be kings of showcases but when it comes to actually delivering great games, consistently, there's only Sony.

P.s ur name reminds of the dog from a south Park episode, kinda fitting actually lol

[sparky77]

Wow so it's "wait until E3...." for Playstation now.

How the tables have turned lol

[Flawlessmic]

The irony was not lost on me as I typed it lol

Difference is Ms has been wait till e3 for what, 13 yrs now?

Like I said don't let the rare slip up fool you, by next show case, expect majority of the big names to be there, and it's not like we need to worry about if those games will be good unlike someone else.

So again enjoy your spiteful victory lap, it'll be short lived.

Looking forward to Ms showcase though give me a good look at motorsport and starfield and the rest will be a bonus. Hopefully see avowed and fable as well.

[shinoff2183]

The tables haven't turned though. You guys have had redfall and halo infinite the last 2 years

[gleepot]

A rare slip up? None of their showcases are ever good.

[Lightning77]

"Microsoft can be kings of showcases but when it comes to actually delivering great games, consistently, there's only Sony."

That's my thought as well. MS are just now having good showcases but barely deliver where it matters. You can have all the fancy and cool looking games in the world but it means nothing if we never play them or worse they're they're bad (Redfall)

[meanmallard]

Yea, don't hold your breath waiting for PlayStation to go a whole generation without games just because they only showed things close to release....

By the time FF16 releases next month and PS5 is still outselling xbox 4:1 nobody is going to care about any of this.

If you're hoping this show (which was fine and showed a ton of games not coming to xbox) is going to be the downfall of PlayStation you're going to be extremely disappointed.

Always get back to playing Redfall in 30 FPS while you continue to wait for E3.

[gleepot]

But what happens to all the people that don't play or like final fantasy? FF isn't even a first-party game. Where are all of Sony's studios games? It's going to be a barren offering for the next year at least.

[meanmallard]

But what happens to all the xbox fans who aren't even going to get to play FF16?

Sony is not going to not have games next year, they just said in their financial report two days ago that they plan to release 2 or more big-budget games every year aside from all the smaller games they publish that people conveniently forget about over and over.

[RNTody]

@gleepot What happens to all the people that don't play or like Starfield? Doesn't Xbox's entire generation hinge on that game according to articles on N4G like a week ago? You see how bad arguments don't hold weight?

[shinoff2183]

A particular fanbase has no room to talk about any of that if it's true lol.

[Lifexline]

I really just believe games are just taking longer to make and we shouldn’t expect games from franchises to release as frequent as they used to. Unless they have a 600 plus team even then it’s difficult it seems. Gamers have irrational expectations now they have to wait so those expectations can be met.

I feel bad for developers they have so much pressure from gamers like never before.

[ModsDoBetter]

Listen man, whilst the showcase was underwhelming, that’s some next level reaching to claim “development hell” for Sony first party studios, come on, this has to be a troll?

[GamingSinceForever]

Let there be development hell. So what? At least they have the decency and respect for their customers to not release a broken POS with delayed features.

[Obscure_Observer]

@sparky77

"Wow so it's "wait until E3...." for Playstation now.

How the tables have turned lol"

Lmao! XD

[outsider1624]

"Sony seriously need to considering replacing their management teams because someone has dropped the ball."

It's alright, someone dropped the ball on the floor. Can be picked, dust it and play again.
You guys need to find the ball first that you lost like what 13 years now?

[jjb1981]

Cool story bro.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

They were very upfront at the beginning of this gen that they were going to stop doing so much showcasing of games. From here on out, expect a teaser 2-3 years out, and gameplay 6 months or less away. That might be it for most games.

It delays a game about 6 months in order to produce a vertical slice for showing off. And, with these huge games taking longer and longer to make, 5 years on avg it seems, and a console gen is 7-8 years…. They can’t afford any delays, or they could miss their window to release.

Not to mention, we have to ultimately wait longer for the final product in order to get a good preview… it isn’t worth it, be patient.

Trust Sony to CONTINUE to deliver on promises.

[Relientk77]

There was even insiders talking about how the showcase was getting delayed internally because their first party developers weren't ready.

Well I watched the showcase and the only developer who was ready was Insomniac Games with Spider-Man 2. So where are all these other first party devs that are ready? I saw CGI trailers from Haven, Bungie, and Firewalk Studios for what appears to be multiplayer GaaS games I'm not buying. So yeah definitely disappointed and underwhelmed by Sony's first party presence at the showcase.

[sparky77]

That was the reason there was no showcase last year, there is no excuse for showing nothing this year unless they are seriously struggling and in development hell.

[shinoff2183]

Sparky I don't think you know what your talking about. Development hell huh. Could be what theybare working on is just a big game could be anything but sony doesn't show things off 5 years to early so we will never know.

[gleepot]

@shinoff

except sony DOES show off things super early, their entire history is filled with games that were announced 2+ years ahead of time

[Asplundh]

Games are just taking longer to make, they're going to have years where there isn't going to be a lot of 1st party games released.

[Gamerscore2077]

It’s interesting to see Tom Phillips,a well known Xbox supporter, have this opinion about a PS showcase.

Very interesting.

[masterfox]

it seems that way but in the end was more than enough, they display SpiderMan 2, announced MGS3, the phantom ninja game looked amazing, helldivers 2 out nowhere appeared and it look great as well, and lots of other games too like Alan Cake 2, it was a pretty solid showcase imo, yes it was lacking alot more first partly titles, and lots of third party was shown and everyone think it was a letdown, but for this year it will be great for Sony.

Now that other thing nobody is talking is that first party devs are already in the works of the next IP and this is known and confirmed, for example ND, SuckerPunch, Insomniac besides SpiderMan, Guerrilla and who knows who else Im missing here, what Im trying to say is that these new IPs will probably come next year and so Sony already has on its pockets 2024 as well for gaming imo.

[shinoff2183]

For sure masterfox

I've got all the faith needed in Sony there's no reason not to. I've been simply letting off steam because I was let down with that showcase. I did not go into it with high expectations either their just wasn't anything for me to be super hyped about.

I also seriously believe Sony needs to invest in some sort of rpg whether jrpg or wrpg. They lack in the wrpg at the moment. 3 of the bigger wrpg studios/publishers were bought up

[phoenixwing]

Shinoff I agree with the rpg statement. I always want more of them and sony needs one

[VersusDMC]

They definitely don't need to invest more into jrpgs. FFXVI, Grandblue, FF7REBIRTH, and all the other jrpgs come out on Playstation as well.

And on the wrpg side baldurs gate 3, dragon age, Dragons dogma 2(is that wrpg?) Witcher all come out on Playstation as well.

As an aside...if Bethesda got tango gameworks(japanese developer) to make an elder scrolls game that played and had the same style as skyrim would it be a JRPG or WRPG?

[phoenixwing]

For as bad as this show is talked up to be... it's still miles better than 99% of xbox showcases for the past years. At least these games will arrive and not be development hell from what was shown (and will probably score well). Honestly I favor Sony but I can easily admit this was just a very average showcase. Also, to the xbox fanboys you've been having average to bad showcases for around 10 years and acting like xbox has some edge is laughable at this point. Phil himself has all but told you guys he threw in the towel on coming up with decent games to combat Sony.

The only game I am hoping releases but is probably in development hell is Granblue Fantasy Relink. I would love to be proven wrong but they keep showing 99% of the same footage every event and barely anything else and keep extending the wait time while announcing changed features half the time. Again that's just my take but it is concerning for granblue.

[RNTody]

I don't get the catastrophic reactions to this showcase, like Microsoft can suddenly win now after a 10 year draught. Was it a letdown compared to how Sony normally knocks it out of the park? Yeah, sure. Did we miss Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog, Santa Monica and others? Sure, but that also means plenty more to come for another day. It was a one hour show after all, with 12 minutes devoted to Spider-Man. Was it light on PS5 exclusive announcements? Yeah. As a showcase, it was decent and I totally get people being disappointed by it, no problem with that.

HOWEVER, let's not forget Spider-Man 2 and Final Fantasy 16 and Street Fighter 6 are all still coming this year. That's after Sony launched PSVR2 with Horizon Call of the Mountain earlier this year. Remind me again which game of Xbox is coming this year apart from Starfield? Wasn't it yesterday that we were reading articles on here of how Xbox's entire generation somehow hinges on Starfield, now they suddenly have a foot in the door because Sony had a light showcase for once since the PS4 era?

Even if Microsoft has an excellent showcase, which I hope they do, none of those games are likely to release this year unless we get a surprise announcement concerning Hellblade 2's release.

So can the sensationalism stop? Sony doesn't have to worry when Spider-Man 2 is going to skyrocket their sales this fall and they still have plenty of studios to reveal games.

[__SteakDeck__]

Street Fighter 6 is a multiplat.

[RNTody]

Thanks mate, my mistake, was under the false impression it was a timed exclusive. Rest of the point stands.

[Viljong]

It sure did and psvr2 showcase give allreadyknown games expect arizona sunshine 2 which look great

[z2g]

I was surprised, but not necessarily in a good way. For all that PlayStation and its diehards talk about high quality AAA exclusives, Sony was surprisingly light on them, focusing more on multiplatform, 3rd party games. Even their acquisition Bungie is releasing a multiplatform multiplayer game, the exact opposite you would expect from a Sony first party. And the only game they wanted to have multiplayer didn’t and seemingly also runs at 30 fps.

I think some great games were shown, but Sonys few exclusives weren’t even the highlights imo. If anything, this showcase just made me excited for a new Alan wake and for the first time, question the long term future/strategy of a PlayStation console.

Even project Q was disappointing and ppl weren’t even expecting it. You can already do what project Q does with a quick visit to Amazon. Is that a vita 2?? Oh. A Wi-Fi streamer…. That requires the same Wi-Fi network as the ps5. Like who is this for? It’s a solution looking for a problem in a comically lazy design. Get a tablet. You’ll get more use out or for other stuff.

Weird.

[Soulsborne]

Should have been a "State of Play".

[Pyrofire95]

Why do people feel so entitled? Who cares if they didn't mention a bunch of first party games. They'll be talked about eventually, when it's time.
People are spending more time writing crap articles about shallow complaints than just playing the games that are already out.

[CS7]

You see the problem with this line if think is, many people do not like the direction that Sony is heading.

In the game industry it take years to correct course.