Will the PS4's First/Second-Party be more influential to hardware sales than with the PS3?

[Kresnik]

And to answer your question in my own post Jay - yes, I think they will be more influential. I think Sony is working towards getting a better handle on their franchises in recent years.

I think with the shift towards their key internal studios develop a big property and then having their smaller studios make portable games, or hiring third-parties to use the IP, is a good decision. It's less investment for Sony, they're not having anywhere like as many people on their payroll, but the IP's still get made and get made to quality.

So for example, Naughty Dog are one of Sony's big studios. They'll make an IP - Jak & Daxter, finish what they're doing with that series then move on. Then someone like Ready at Dawn comes in and makes Daxter, a great game that continues the series, while Naughty Dog work on Uncharted which in turn gets another game made by Sony Bend. So on and so forth.

Another one of the things I've noticed about Sony that Nintendo/Microsoft don't seem to have (although maybe I have missed it) is support studios. SCE Foster City was founded by Psygnosis in 1998 and has worked to provide support to third-party developers working on first-party IP's - so exactly the kind of stuff I was talking about before. They'll help Ready at Dawn with Daxter, they'll help Sanzaru with Sly Cooper and so on. Combine this with the ICE team at Naughty Dog to help with PS3 tech, or the XDev team in Europe to help external developers, and you've got a pretty good network. And a network which is a lot more sustainable than simply "buy the studio, own the IP".  At least, that's how I see it.