By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sony Discussion - Sony turned a lack of Exclusive Multiplayer Games to a Strategic Play...

Was sifting through some site and forum topics and this concept and it got me thinking.

Sony has purposely not had too many MP only endeavors in their coffers of Exclusives this gen, and it strangely has given them an advantage. I will explain.

Early in this gen there was a rumored Scifi Multiplayer title brewing at Sony Santa Monica. The game was Cory Barlog's dream game supposedly, with a lot of behind the scenes hype about it. Unfortunately....the game was internally scrapped after further review by Sony heads who thought the game needed more refinement and means of differentiating itself from the wealth of 3rd Party MP games. It was also said that the game was scarilly similar to Destiny in scope, a game that had the pedigree of ex-MS studio Bungie behind it. Sony ultimately dumped their own internally produced game to throw weight behind what would be a more massive title. This could be seen as strange but it has benefit.

 

  1. Sony has not actually had the best of luck in the MP space. The competition is stiff because pretty much every 3rd Party concentrates on it. They attempted to invest in some less  common MP games (Killzone, Resistance) and uncommon (God of War Ascencion, SOCOM, MAG, War/Starhawk, LBP, Uncharted, TLOU). A few positively perceived experiences that still are second to the attention their single player sides get, and others that completely floundered.
  2. Game Development is expensive and Risky. For Sony in this situation, more risky than just supporting the 3rd Party content.
  3. Third Party Game development is where the real money is. 3rd Party game development dwarfs 1st Party in amount of content.
  4. Single Player games are a more spacious playing field, that Sony now has the freedom from most 3rd Party competition to thrive.
Ultimately, what Sony has discovered is they can apportion a fraction of what they would have normally put in dev cost of a MP game of their own in a Third Party title instead. I imagine What one internal game costs could be used to garner several 3rd Party marketing deals.  Destiny, Call of Duty, and some years even Battlefield and Assassin's Creed. The Royalties from these games would dwarf what Sony could most likely make from their own attempts. Sony is getting the biggest game marketing deals over MS who obviously has more money to throw around than them. So how can Sony be out maneuvering MS in these kinds of endevours you ask? Simple combination of things.
-
For one, Playstation is the market leader by a large margin. It is far easier to convince the 3rd Parties to side with you when you have the biggest chunk of the market pie. A team up has far less risk.  That is basically what got so many of Sony's closest market allies to diminish their ties with them during the beginning of PS360 era. Games like GTAIV or Devil May Cry 4 were pitted with the question would they sell as well as their previous iterations did on the PS2 if the PS3 was at that point lagging behind 360.
-
The opposite side of that is MS has become far less tenacious on getting 3rd Party co marketing deals. I think it is because early on they realized that their First Party was suffering and people were starting to wonder why should they choose Xbox when Playstation has what they have but more. They started funneling those kinds of funds into building up more of a First Party, because 1st Party is the only thing that keeps a Console afloat in any generation where you are really not doing well console sales wise.
-
Take the Gamecube for instance, which sold somewhere around 35mill compared to the PS2's 150+million. Yet...... the Gamecube like all Nintendo main consoles, except for the WiiU, maintained a good sense of profitability from internal exclusives support.
-
Yet the most important aspect I think is that Third Parties are choosing playstation to team up with because they don't have to fight Sony specifically for gamer attention for their games. Sony is doing Single Player stuff which doesn't really compete on the same field all the time as the MP space. In this sense, its actually harmful for MS's Third Party relations that up to this point they concentrated so heavily on making MP experiences. MP titles from other publishers will in effect have less space to shine. We all know releasing things that are too similar around each other causes one or all to suffer do to disparity in popularity. See Titanfall 2 who was unfortunately(tho I suspect deliberately) released sandwiched between COD and Battlefield giving it no chance of ever succeeding. Or take note of Rise of the Tomb Raider's one year exclusivity contract with Xbox of which I imagine in part was due to Uncharted 4 was scheduled to come out that very same holiday and the games are obviously very similar.
So basically Sony is paying for co advertising and giving the Publishers an uncontested space.
-
Also take note, Sony has been surrendering the Holiday to Third Parties also. Most of Sony's big games are coming out in the early part of the year, giving their partners even more room to shine. The Last of Us, God Of Way, Horizon, Detroit ect all came out in Q1/2 of their release years. I can only think of 2 AAA titles Sony released during the holiday-ish time frame and thats Spiderman(a joint Venture with the titan Disney and Insomniac) and GT Sport(Sony's oldest and previously best selling franchise in what is currently a deserted racing market).
-------------------------
None of this is to completely say they have given up internally on the Multiplayer space. It  is just they want to play to their strengths and tread in mostly uncharted territory if they are to risk MP. They took the smallest of gambles on things like Drawn to Death, they still incorporate MP in some of their popular Cinematic Story titles. Dreams is probably their biggest MP risk title, where when it finally releases it will be making a play for the Minecraft crowd.
-
I do fear that it might come back to haunt them if they don't have some good MP centric titles lined up by next gen. Third Parties are fickle, and the continued success of their partnerships could change on a dime for a myriad of reasons. Without the backing of Third Parties to mask the lack of their own MP games it could become a very large problem. 
-
I don't think the traditional FPS is ever going to be their fortee....but they should maybe dabble in more Monster Hunter, Souls-esque kind of gaming. Honestly some of their PS3 attempts could have really shined if the timing was different. Especially MAG, a game that would have benefited a lot from the current Battle Royal hype and the power to truly handle itself on the likes of the PS4. Some of the Vita titles (RIP) showed promise like Killzone Mercenaries(the best in the series IYAM) and Soul Sacrifice. I am also personally sad that the 2 player cooperative title Eight Days Sony was making last gen never got to see the light of day because it seemed to have a really good Army of Two meets Uncharted formula.
Last edited by forevercloud3000 - on 26 September 2018

      

      

      

Greatness Awaits

PSN:Forevercloud (looking for Soul Sacrifice Partners!!!)

Around the Network

Let's discuss !



Sorry for the wall of Text.......why won't VGC let me indent my paragraphs?!



      

      

      

Greatness Awaits

PSN:Forevercloud (looking for Soul Sacrifice Partners!!!)

Oneeee-Chan!!! said:

Let's discuss !

Lets



      

      

      

Greatness Awaits

PSN:Forevercloud (looking for Soul Sacrifice Partners!!!)

One of the smartest things you can do as a business is to identify where the market is strong and where it is weak. The gaming market right now seems pretty darn strong when it comes to multiplayer content. Part of that is the presence of so many developers and publishers trying to carve out of piece of that pie, but another part is that there is less actual need for more multiplayer games when so many people sink hundreds of hours into just one title. There are people who play the same collection of games year round, only poking their heads up for the annual sequel.

Sony really has no need to jump into that arena. Third party material covers that base and then some.

We can also see Sony employ that philosophy in their release schedule. They know the holiday period will be covered with popular third-party games so they spread their own releases out over the course of the year. I've been saying for a long time that I'm a fan of that strategy.



Around the Network

Sony has created or attracted plenty of multiplayer exclusives this gen.

Killzone Shadowfall
Driveclub
Little Big Planet 3
Planetside 2 (also on PC)
Uncharted 4
GT Sport
H1Z1 (also on PC)
Street Fighter 5 (also on PC)
The Last of Us
RIGS
MLB The Show
Bloodborne
Knack

Sony has a large variety of exclusives and lately Sony's single player exclusives have been receiving the attention but that doesn't mean they don't have multiplayer. They have more exclusives than the competition which is why I think the narrative of "PS4 not having multiplayer exclusives" was a lie created by fanboys to move goal posts to try to prop up Xbox.



Agreed, but a lot of people have been saying this for years. Sony has been shooting for December-March for its japanese games, and February-October for any other game. Sony has always been singleplayer focus though, and that is why they have dominated the space. A lot of Nintendo games were co-op friendly or taking turns and Microsoft has always been online multiplayer friendly. Sony games from the start with new ips like; Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, Gran Turismo, LoD, Wild Arms, etc. excelled at Single player only and the PS4 and its SW was a return to form unlike the experimental stage with the PS3 and new ips like ; Resistance, killzone, MAG, Starhawk, LBP, Playstation All Stars Battle Royale, and etc.

I do think Sony should release a MH like game sequel to one of their Vita franchises during December-March for PS4, built from ground up.

3rd parties and 1st party alike have been ignoring the summer though sadly, I think some games can flourish during that time. Particularly an experimental MP game, maybe one that could potentially take off like Fortnite did.



I'm gonna be honest. I skipped the OP. Sorry. I usually try to read them but the formatting made me not.

Anyways, I at least agree with the idea that Sony not focusing on multiplayer heavily (a lot of their exclusives do have the option) was a great idea. In the gaming industry companies are looking toward strategies that make people play their games for significantly longer. It used to be that only a few games could cultivate a healthy player base for extended periods of time, and it was only through the game's quality that this was achievable. Now EVERY multiplayer game is trying to throw it's hat in the ring of retention models.

The fact that so many triple A's are multiplayer-focused as well as the fact that most people are only going to play a few of these games makes Sony's triple A stand out from other publishers and makes it so that they don't always compete 1:1.



Enemy said:
Sony has created or attracted plenty of multiplayer exclusives this gen.

Killzone Shadowfall
Driveclub
Little Big Planet 3
Planetside 2 (also on PC)
Uncharted 4
GT Sport
H1Z1 (also on PC)
Street Fighter 5 (also on PC)
The Last of Us
RIGS
MLB The Show
Bloodborne
Knack

Sony has a large variety of exclusives and lately Sony's single player exclusives have been receiving the attention but that doesn't mean they don't have multiplayer. They have more exclusives than the competition which is why I think the narrative of "PS4 not having multiplayer exclusives" was a lie created by fanboys to move goal posts to try to prop up Xbox.

While there are plenty of them that I enjoy, I would comment that many of what you listed are niche(Knack,Driveclub, LBP), poor performing(RiGs, Killzone), or actually developed by 3rd Party (Bloodborne, Street Fighter V).

None of these game's multiplayer component are pulling in Overwatch, PUBG, or Halo kind of attraction.



      

      

      

Greatness Awaits

PSN:Forevercloud (looking for Soul Sacrifice Partners!!!)

I do think sony have done well but i suspect that their proficiency with open world games, certainly in the early stages of the gen were more luck then a deliberate strategy. But they seem to have recognized it as a good thing and run with it.



<a href="https://psnprofiles.com/fauzman"><img src="https://card.psnprofiles.com/2/fauzman.png" border="0"></a>