Though I do agree, I'd like to nuance it a little. Take a movie like Indiana Jones (think Uncharted for a sec). It's dusky, it's gritty. Yet it maintains a charm via humor and character. The colors are still there despite leaning towards tones of brown.

Yet, it had mass appeal.

I think grit is good, as long as the experience doesn't lose its charm and become so serious people are reluctant to pick it up.

It's called hyperbole, and I don't like nitpicking. There is no need to say anything when what you said doesn't add or detract from the point.

I kinda agree with the overall article.
My main beef isn't however the quality or the marketing that Sony applies to their games as much as the time frame they pick for some of their releases.
Some of their first party games are released at times when there is already a glut of titles releasing and they do not help boost PS3 overall software sales while failing at the same time to generate much profit.
Some such examples would be for me Resistance 2 and 3, RC : All for One, Twisted Metal,...


As a first party your overall goal should be to fill the gaps in the software release for your platform, both in terms of genres and release time-frames ( even if Infamous has never really performed that well, it's still a title I would keep as it boosts the May-June release schedule which is typically very poor) and generate hype for your platforms by releasing must have franchises ( Uncharted, GT, LBP).
Now not every title can be a must buy franchise and that's totally fine.

What isn't fine is releasing a B-Grade title the same month that 3 others third party A or B titles are being released.
That B-title isn't going to bring much money and it's sales will mostly come at the expense of third party sales on which Sony would have generated revenue anyway....So in that case releasing nothing wouldn't have hurt the platform much and might actually have resulted in higher profits for Sony...

Good point. Also, it had studly han-solo, which helped quite a bit, and also nazis dying.

Games like Resistance and KZ are really super serious, I totally agree. Also infamous isn't as wacky as it could be. I think infamous could improve by a long way. It isn't nearly as "well-selling comic-booky" as it is just comic-booky.

Twisted Metal is the kind of game that takes grit and injects humour and color, at least historically, and that was quite the popular game.

So here's where I mostly disagree. A good portion of 1st-party titles or exclusives should be must-haves. It was like that for the PS2, and that's one of the reasons why it was so successful. The question is, what happened?

Sure, some titles can be A or just good to haves, but as a manufacturer they should have must-haves so as to not dominated by MS like this. How a company can mainly win on multi-plats beats me.

@theprof00. Cool! Hey, I gave more of my opinion in the "The Last of US" thread. I think this is the way to go for Sony.

The thing is on a given year there's only room for 2 or so must have game for a first party. 

Add 3-4 must have third party games and you're up to 5-6 must have games a year. Add the fact that most players have a genre they prefer ( shooter, prg, sports, take your pick) and you're up to 7 or more games and that is already above what most gamers will buy in a year....

Release more must have and the must have start competing with each others and the overall result isn't actually a lot greater. 

I thought 1st party games were supposed to have must-have priority. It was like that pre-PS3, it's like that for the Wii and the 360. You're making excellent points, but why are the PS3 exclusives not performing as well as 360 exclusives. I as some others would argue:

1st and foremost marketing is needed.

2nd. Some games need to either be dropped or overhauled to increase appeal and quality.

What you say is true, but tradition has it that 1st party games trump 3rd party games in terms of must-haveness, bar a few exceptions (e.g. GTA).

Technically, you're agreeing. Sony should pare down. Have 4-6 franchises that each have games release every 2-3 years. On the side, pour a lot more development into the more casual niche devs like flower, fat princess, etc, so that you have games that don't compete with one another.

For example, with FPS, Sony really only needs one big IP either KZ or resistance or even maybe they're fine with uncharted even being a third person...because there is already so many musthaves in that area. Then with Racing, one in straight racing, one in karting. In platforming, well, at least have one, but ideally two to three since they are much cheaper to develop. With third person, GoW and uncharted. Get a solid puzzler. Get a solid RPG, get a solid JRPG.

Sony could be fine with just:

GoW
Uncharted
LBP
Twisted Metal (hopefully they pick it up again)
GT
Puzzler
Platformer (R&C? Or something different?)
RPG/JRPG
Music game

Now you're talking. I would throw in inFamous in the mix, for fun.

Make SOCOM II HD to make money.