Cherry-picking at its best! The PS4 launch is 16 months ago... only ONE of these listed games was released in the same time frame since PS3 launch, two of them were released in year 5.

• MGS 4 = 20 months after PS3 launch
• Heavy Rain = 40 months after PS3 launch
• God of War 3 = 41 months after PS3 launch
• Killzone 2 = 28 months after PS3 launch
• LittleBigPlanet 1 = 23 months after PS3 launch
• LittleBigPlanet 2 = 51 months after PS3 launch
• Uncharted 1 = 11 months after PS3 launch
• Uncharted 2 = 35 months after PS3 launch
• Uncharted 3 = 60 months after PS3 launch

And if Heavy Rain counts as "Sony's First-Party-Exclusive"... what has happened to quality games the Sony published in 2006 and 2007?

Genji: Days of Blade (Metascore 55), Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom (Metascore 58) and Lair (Metascore 53)?

They probably are, but that's not really the point. It's about the quality, not the sales.

If they develop & publish games with lower quality and they still sell well then that gives them the wrong message.

Second-party developer is a colloquial term used by gaming enthusiasts and media often used to describe two different types of game development studios:

1. Independently owned studios who take development contracts from the platform holders and what they produce will usually be exclusive to that platform.
2. Studios who are partially or wholly owned by the platform holder (also known as a subsidiary) and what they produce will usually be exclusive to that platform.

In reality, the resulting game is first party (since it is funded by the platform holder who usually owns the resulting IP), but the term helps to distinguish independent studios from those directly owned by the platform holder. These studios may have exclusive publishing agreements (or other business relationships) with the platform holder, while maintaining independence. Examples are Insomniac Games (which previously developed games solely for Sony's PlayStation platforms as an independent studio) and Game Freak (which primarily develops the Nintendo-exclusive Pokémon game series).

Sony can't be blamed for the quality of a game they chose to fund, not to develop. Hence why they should be treated like second-party, not first, which the author of the news use in order to have more games to compare the "failures".

Reviewers are just harder this gen I think especially on Sony. I think GoW Ascension was better than the PSP games and 1. I think LBP3 was better than the first 2. Infamous has always gotten low scores for some reason (85, 83, 80). Driveclub was destroyed for server issues that other games have had at launch (GTA5, MCC). Bloodborne will probably only get an 85 meta even though it looks to be superb in its genre (not my thing but I can see quality even so). What I don't get is I have most high profile WiiU exclusives and I find them of similar quality to Sony's yet they seem to score better for some reason. I dunno I care less and less about reviewers when I disagree with them on so many fronts. They always seem to score sequels that just improve on their predecessors lower and I usually find those to be my favorites in the series (Uncharted 3, LBP3, Ratchet and Clank ACiT, Jak 3, etc.). I had a great time with the Order much more so than with games that have higher metas than it.

Based on what? Call of Duty, AC and Pokemon also sell really well each year, but that doesn't mean that they are good games.  Casuals might like them, but coregamers don't like them as much. Most casuals aren't able to compare them to other games anyway, since those are the only games they play.

I for one am disappointed with the exclusives so far. The only exclusive I liked is Infamous. It will surely get better the next few months, but for now I am rather disappointed by the first party games.

Perhaps they are quality and reviewers are just getting it wrong?

I really loved Shadowfall's campaign.  It was very open and fun to do things your own way.

This

Yeah that might be the easy explanation if you yourself like the games, but it's not just reviewers who have pointed that out. Look at respected youtubers opinions (AngryJoe, Projared, ...) about those games and you'll see that they share the same opinion as reviewers.

You might ask "what if youtubers got it all wrong too?", but who should you ask then? Reviews are just opinions and they tend to represent the general opinion of coregamers quite well.

This here is a very good point and I for one am glad that reviewers are trying to do their jobs properly.

As far as sonys exclusives go I think theyve just been rushing them. Once they start giving games proper dev time the scores will get better. My feelings on sonys releases are as follows....

Knack: terrible game. Just bad. Period.

Infamous SS: felt a bit rushed, like content had been cut. Was unfortunately the follow up to infamous 2 which was a better game I felt.

LBP3: honestly the single player has seemed very good from what ive played, better than the first 2. However it's short and reviewers can't keep giving a toolset for users to create levels high scores. The wow factor for that has long gone.

Driveclub: quite clearly came out unfinished. probably suffered development problems as it was due out around launch.

The order: I feel like this game was also in development hell. It was supposed to release a year ago yet it's still incredibly lite on content.