Conina said:
Spider-Man is a new IP? There have been Spider-Man games since 1978, on PlayStation since 2000: God of War is a new IP? There have been GoW games since 2005. Pikmin is a new IP? There have been Pikmin games since 2001. |
Spider-Man isn't a new IP but it's a wholly new telling of the tale, not taking forward from any other iteration ever put to games. That's just sort of how comic book stuff works. I considered Batman Arkham series to be a new IP in that it's that particular take on the adaptation. Same as the Spider-Man ones from Insomniac. IT's its own canon and such.
God of war is similar, in that it's basically a new genre compared to the old games. Soulslike action RPG instead of Hack and Slash. Not new, but the point was that Sony is willing to try new things a lot more, to try risking things more than before. To change things up for the better.
Pikmin isn't new at all but it did come after Nintendo's established IP bombing of the late 80s/early 90s, and alongside Splatoon and ARMs shows that Nintendo does occasionally make new IPs. As an extension of that, Nintendo also tries new things with each franchise entry. Like God of War, you can see just how different that Breath of the Wild is compared to Skyward Sword or even Twilight Princess.
The point wasn't that they exclusively make new IP, but that these companies mix things up a bit by trying new things. Sony COULD just release a new Ratchet & Clank game every year, but they don't. They could just keep releasing Uncharted games, but they don't. A lot of their teams make new IP, have some fun with them, they do reasonably well, and they move on or try something new. inFamous, Resistance, Sly Cooper, Jak and Daxter, and Killzone are examples of IP that could have been ongoing stories that never ended but the devs/Sony were willing to let their developers move on. we got Ghost of Tsushima, we got the new Spider-Man games (not a new IP but a new take on an established character by a new developer), we got Horizon Zero Dawn, we got Uncharted (back when Naughty dog moved on from Jak and Daxter), we got God of War 2018 (which again is not a new IP but so different from its previous iterations that it might as well be.) The point was that these companies try new things. While that includes new IP it also includes new takes on old IP.
Not every game needs to be a microtransaction-riddled live service or another shooter that you can't tell from its predecessor or a racing game that, to the onlooker is just a prettier version of last year's model.
Of the three major companies (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft), only two of them can be claiming to create new and unique gaming experiences with any semblance of frequency. Sometimes that means making new IP, sometimes it means mixing things up.
Microsoft needs more identity. and if they're gonna nail down the FPS market then I think they should. Because they're not being creative right now, they're just buying up the competition. There's a reason I'm so critical of them overall. They aren't actually bringing anything to the table, they're just grabbing platters and saying 'mine', and getting to chose when others get to have a bite of their meat. I hate metaphor but that's what it feels like. Sony and Nintendo are bringing delicious desserts and delectable dishes, each one made with love and care, while Microsoft brings a well-cooked but kinda bland roast, then offering to buy up a bunch of the dishes brought by the third parties and taking credit to mask the fact that they aren't actually all that good at cooking. They try, and they have the best equipment and the most money and genuinely seem to want to make the customers happy, but they're actually not that good at it so they just buy up IP from other people.
IT's an apt metaphor, even if I hate metaphors.
My Console Library:
PS5, Switch, XSX
PS4, PS3, PS2, PS1, WiiU, Wii, GCN, N64 SNES, XBO, 360
3DS, DS, GBA, Vita, PSP, Android
