Yeah, I thought the first one was a little rough around the edges, but there was so much potential that I was chomping at the bit for a sequel.

I’ve seen it in countries like Spain and some Latin America ones since a few years ago (4 years or so), and Slightly in the USA from around 2018-2019 and intensified last year. 

No matter what “good” they do, it seems that the last part is becoming true for a lot of people. 

Folks going on about the pointless TLOU remaster are forgetting that Sony was looking for programmers that have worked with Nvidia, meaning they likely intend to release a PC port down the line, as well as selling it on PS5, which ideally would see both systems recouping those costs and reaching new/old audiences.

That said, I feel like the indie focus is tapered down since the start of the PS4 days (as in indie's being at the forefront to them).

If they want a profitable ecosystem they'd need profitable hardware, and the Ps5 is still selling at a loss last I checked so....

Also Skyward Sword is not Last of Us. For one thing the title isn't playable via existing backwards compatible features like LoU apparently is, the other is that it isn't already remastered for the Wii U before going to switch. A more accurate compare would actually be TP being it was on the Wii, then remastered for HD on the Wii U. If it appeared on the Switch as a remake that would be the same sit....

Probably won't, because there are many games that need a remake before TP, but the point. 

Also I am noticing the 'Nintendo does the same thing'. I'd argue that it isn't because the Switch is still getting a mix of Nintendo's top hype games (Smash, Zelda, Pokemon) and smaller titles (stuff like Paper Mario, Ring Fit, and Clubhouse Games). They also are a bit more diverse than the output that Sony is going for (Fighting, RPG, Adventure, Platformer, Shooter, etc) 

You have to factor in rising development costs and rising development time. That's a huge difference. It has meant bigger studios slowing down releases.

Naughty Dog

PS3: 4 games

PS4: 2.5 games

Sony Santa Monica

PS3: 3 games

PS4: 1 game

This problem is industry wide. As costs continue to rise over the $100 million mark for a AAA title, publishers will be wary of releasing a title early (Anthem/Cyberpunk) and will double down investment/increase development time. Gamers demand higher quality and standards and the games industry will continue to more and more closely mirror the movie industry. Where blockbusters are king, risks are more calculated, investing in sequels is safer than producing new IP and games become more formulated to a specific standard that's proven to sell.

Your analysis is flawed though. You're assuming Sony are making the decisions, when in reality its the market. Those 63 games sold more than those 139 games. So are they losing out on console buyers who would have purchased a console for Warhawk, Singstar or Folklore? Or are they gaining customers because a single title like Spiderman can now move over 20 million units?

Their new IPS during the PS4 included:

Horizon- GG biggest game ever

GOT- SP biggest game ever

Spiderman- IG biggest game ever

Along with the likes of Bloodborne, Death Stranding, Days Gone and Until Dawn.

Not 'Horizon and a few VR titles'.

As a side note: I just finished playing Control, was a very good game albeit with some flaws and being a bit repetitive. Reminded me a bit of Max Payne. I may have to find a way to play Alan Wake and Quantum Break.

I think only TLOU:2 stood out to me as being 'AAAA' if we were to use that expression. That game had a level of polish that was above and beyond anything released before. Entire buildings, fully accessible with unique lighting, design and props that the player didn't even need to explore. It screamed 'money'. I think that project may have ballooned out of proportion though, as there were rumours ND was already split in two but the other team (including outsourcing as well) were drawn in to complete it.

I believe ND, SSM and GG are all apparently two team studios now. GG since their move to a new development studio and nearly doubling their staff is looking to half their development time. The hiring listings for SSM seem to imply a new IP, but we know GOW is on the way, and with ND prior to all the staff being used to finish TLOU2 I believe the other team may have been doing preliminary work on a new IP.

It's an interesting discussion, because on one hand do you limit the scope of one project in order to adhere to a tighter schedule and timeline of releases? Or do you allow it to blow up to a point where its unnecessarily big and ambitious? The most effective route is probably somewhere in the middle and on a case by case basis.

I believe Remedy were fortunate that they brokered a $10 million deal with Epic just to make it exclusive to their store. That covered a quarter of their budget. It also didn't sell as well as they would have liked and they seem to be brokering deals left and right in order to be financially secure as a studio. Which is very important, if Control had bombed it could have been disastrous for them.

The success of those titles is moreso linked to the success of the system. All the people that bought in to the mass hype campaign during the early years of the PS4 needed something to play eventually.

It's much like how the unprecendented success of new series entries for Nintendo on the Switch are closely tied to the booming success of the system. Even Pokemon Sw/Sh which had minimal effort put in and I'm assuming a reasonably low budget to match, is still going to end up as one of the best-selling games in the series.

Absurd productions costs are just a by-product of the current industry 'standards', mostly for the higher-specced systems, but hardly any of that equates to higher quality titles outside of technical aspects. Almost all the highest-selling exclusives for the current and likely next generation will be Nintendo titles and their production costs are nowhere as absurd.

Sony's philosophy for console manufacturing and game distribution has helped mold the current market. If anything, they've recently been leading the charge in making the industry more forumlated to a specific standard, because that's exactly what they've done with their recent console designs and associated services. Everything about their transition from the PS4 to PS5 reeks of it. They're likely already planning out the ideal time to move on to PS6 while watching for what little things they could've done better this time, but there won't be any thoughts of great risk or innovation until they're absolutely forced to. When Gamepass becomes a serious enough threat to challenge their market share, that's when they'll consider rolling out a truly competetive service to match becaue that's how they operate.

The amount of 'A' in your post is making me dizzy bro.

Yes but they are slowing down because more of an emphasis is being placed on making big AAA blockbusters and less of an emphasis on smaller titles. Other publishers aren't having this same problem. Is there any reason Last of Us 2 or Ghosts should have taken as long as they did? No way. Also, the average cost of a AAA title is between 60-80 million, not 100+. I don't know of anyone outside of maybe Rockstar who consistently spends over 100 million to make their games and they subsidize that with heavy emphasis on GaaS and continued spending.

The game industry has always been like the movie industry and there have always been proven formulas that sell that publishers push developers to use in their games. It's not some new movement and it exists in every single entertainment industry. Even Sony said a year or so into the PS4 gen that most games they create don't make money, but the big ones offset the smaller ones. This works the same way as a movie studio using the profits from a blockbuster to fund smaller projects. Does it make business sense to just stop doing those smaller projects and focus only on big blockbusters? Sure I guess. But you get less content as a consumer.

One of the things people have praised most about Sony since I've been a member here is their variety. They lost a lot of that during the PS4 era and if these sources are right, will continue to do so. That's a good thing? Personally I like the idea of companies producing a varying level of content. I don't see any flaw in my analysis. My point was that Sony is focusing less on creating new IP's and are releasing less games. Basically they are going from a place where their studios made big AAA titles and smaller scale stuff with new IP's sprinkled into both, to a place where their studios all make big AAA blockbusters solely and they rely on moneyhatting third party games for the smaller stuff. The sources Schreier spoke to shed light on why that is and the numbers themselves confirm it. Yes, you're right, AAA games are more expensive and take longer to make but that was never disputed.

As for the market dictating Sony's decision, nah not at all. For starters the PS4 sold way more than the PS3, not surprising considering the competition the PS3 faced vs what the PS4 faced. So when you're selling 30+ million more consoles, you'll sell a lot more games. And in the case of games like Spider-Man and GoW, they were heavily bundled especially during the holidays. But the market isn't dominated by those types of games. Those games are a flash in the pan, they come and they go. Does anyone even talk about Ghosts or LoU2 anymore? Not really, no. And they were huge AAA titles that took 5-6 years to make and just came out last year. The industry is dominated by evergreen titles. Nintendo titles, GTA, Fortnite, etc.

So I guess we can say goodbye to Ratchet and Clank after Rift Apart.

Just being honest, this is one of the most pathetic discourse strategies. You have not remotely shown that many or most people "forgot" that.
In fact I remember some posts explicitly discussing the PC release strategy for that, but the fact majority of posts on the subject didn't mention
it doesn't mean they "forgot" it or are not aware of it. One can be fully aware of the facts but still look down it happening, for the simple reason
that one may have personally just recently played the PS4 remaster. It doesn't need to be about opposing a remaster for PS5/PC as such,
but simply the pure wastefulness of doing it right after the PS4 remaster, i.e. they would be happy with no PS4 remaster but one for PS5/PC.
Now you can bring that up, perhaps couched as a reminder, but when you ascribe the reason for other people's stance to ignornace of fact
which in fact doesn't need to correlate directly to their position, you make yourself look like an idiot just as much as you try to smear others.

Anyways,  to the broader topic, I think it's specifics are all mostly bullshit and in many cases done in bad faith. That said, I'm sympathetic to
the desire for broader diversity of games beyond AAA / AAAA often 3rd person epics and feel like Sony is getting too focused on those.
I don't claim that is somehow bad or illogical move for Sony, but if they are finding greater success with it, I think they can also re-invest that
income in other smaller projects too. That said, I don't think their older studios orientated to lower end projects were necessarily ideal for that.
The Japan Studio seemed condemned to irrelevance that perhaps served cozy fare to certain in-group but wasn't really a success for it's size.
Compare that to smaller budget projects they are doing with partners now, like Kena, and there is clearly room for higher aspirations in AA space.
Of course that also falls in 3rd person single player action niche which I agree is limited, and I think Sony needs to get more into other genres.

Overall, I see Sony shifting gears particularly regards to multiplat release on PC, and their big AAA probably seems safest bet for success there.
But again, with all the increased revenue from that, they shouldn't be actually pressed on funds for smaller game development. And I think
having a broad stable of games outside of AA is certainly good, and fair to say with Sony's position in console market that doing Playstation/PC
games with console exclusivity is giving up the smallest amount of profits (as opposed to MS who excludes 2/3 of high end console market).
Their relation with Epic seems very prone to evolve to deeper relation, possibly including merger/joint venture, and maximizing monetization of
biggest properties probably makes sense if they are concerned at their relative valuation in such deals... But I don't see that as perpetual strategy
and the pendulum will swing back to smaller projects, even if via 2nd party deals. And really, if people want creative/quirky/innovative then
independent studios seem more suitable to that, compared to lethargic entities like they had with Japan Studios that you can't expect that from.
Not saying they can't or shouldn't do that in house, possibly by acquiring outside studios, but if they choose 2nd party projects that seems fine.