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makingmusic476 on 27 August 2008
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Xen said:
makingmusic476 said:
Xen said:

I say, screw exclusive deals. Make all your exclusives by yourself, and use them to push your system.

Here is what I see as the SCE "Dream Team":

Platformers/Action Adventure: Insomniac (Spyro - gold, R&C beats the crap out of Mario for me), Naughty Dog (Crash Bandicoot games - all very good, Jak is great, even though I played only through the first one, Uncharted is and will remain one of PS3's best titles).  Don't forget Sucker Punch, the makers of Sly Cooper (thoguh the technically are second party, and they're currently working on inFamous).  And then there's Ape Escape series from SCEI.

Shooters: Insomniac (Resistance - great, R2 is shaping up to be my shooter of choice for the PS3), Guirella (KZ: Liberation - great title, KZ2 is shaping up to be a spectacular game, even though it's too colourless).  And Zipper, the Socom guys (though now working on MAG). :P

Racing: Polyphony Digital ('nuff said, no one will ever be better than these guys). Don't forget Evolution Studios and Sony Liverpool, working on MotorStorm and Wipeout, respectively.

J/S/ARPGS: Atlus... if Sony acquires Atlus, their home studios are complete. They are a terrific RPG dev, and my 2nd favorite RPG series belongs to them (SMT). Given that a big part of the Sony audience are adults, SMT will have an appeal (not they are only for adults though - I'm not ). Advertising and hyping those games up could make them much bigger than they are now... reaching far higher levels of poularity and sales, thus making them system sellers. Ha, they'll never buy Atlus.  Level 5, however...

PSN: Media Molecule+various others. PSN games are far more innovative than the regular PS titles, and Media Molecule seem like a quality dev and an innovator. While PSN games are not system sellers, they are good passtime between releases of new titles, and sometimes occupy for tens of hours... making the PS audience happy with their console.

In short: Sony, keep the focus on 1st party, buy Atlus (or Level-5, preferrably Atlus though), and you'll soon be independent. Maybe even a Nintendo first party even.

 

And then there's Team ICO, the second best action/adventure developers after Anouma's Zelda team, imo.

Team Siren, led by the director of the original Silent Hill, make pretty good survival horror titles as well.

Sony Santa Monica makes some of the best hack n' slash around. God of War also has fun puzzles and platforming.  :)

And there are a bunch of others I don't feel like naming (Hot Shots Gold, MLB: The Show, Twisted Metal, Warhawk, etc.).

Btw, Sony actually publishes more games for it's home consoles year for year than Nintendo.  They just don't have quite the level of quality as Nintendo across the board, imo (though between Uncharted, God of War, and the Ico games, it's close).  If they were to buy Media Molecule, I think my opinion might change, though.

 

What I've given here must've been very general. I forgot a couple of genres, devs and games... thanks for covering it for me. Also, Why can't Sony get Atlus? shouldn't cost too much.

 

 

I suppose they could in theory, provided either they or Atlus actually bothered to initate the move.  And even then it seems somewhat unlikely.

Sony usually buys studios that they already have a good working relationship with.  They usually start by forming second party contracts, then a few (or hell, 5-10) years later, they actually buy the studio.  This happened with Naughty Dog, Zipper, Geurrilla, and most recently Evolution Studios.  Based on this, possible next targets are either Sucker Punch, Level 5, and now Media Molecule and Quantic Dream.  Out of these, it's most likely Level 5, given that they are currently very weak in the JRPG area, and they generally focus on their weakest areas at that point in time (like the shooter genre a couple of years ago, which is why they aqcuired Geurrilla and Zipper in 2006). After that I'd say Media Molecule, given how damn talented they are.  I'm sure Sony REALLY wants them to stick around.  Either they'll buy them, or they'll give them the plushiest second party contracts ever, ala Insomniac.  In all depends on how intent Media Molecule are at staying independent, like Insomniac.