Why Are First-Party Sony Video Games Unpopular? ~ BITTER Truth or LIE?!

[Sullla]

Reliance on Third-Party

Sony did not always have the biggest first-party development core in the industry. They have to assemble them from the ground up. So during the early days of the Playstation and Playstation 2, they needed to rely on third-party publishers and developers. As a result, non-Sony games like Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid managed to define the Playstation brand. Games made and published by Sony had to take a back seat until recently with the PSP and Playstation 3.

I would probably point to this as the biggest factor. Most of the games that propeled the Playstation and PS2 to success were not made by Sony themselves; people bought Sony's console because it had "everything" on it, thanks to all of the third parties. In an environment where Sony doesn't have exclusive control over Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil, etc. the PS3 is naturally going to struggle to move hardware... which in turn means lower first-party exclusive software sales. It's a bit of a vicious cycle.

This isn't a knock on Sony's development studios either, as they've turned out some very high quality games already for the PS3. But for whatever reason, Sony is still looking for that breakout hit that becomes a true "must-have" game. The lack of a Wii Sports/Gears of War type popular new franchise has definitely hurt them. It's not a good sign when rather generic launch games (Motorstorm/Resistance) are still your top-selling first-party exclusives.