I'm asking, what exactly is bait? Who am I baiting? I don't get it. 

I do not think this is a uniquely Sony problem, the entire industry is too focused on film-like presentation and stories. So many studios try to hit the player over the head with slick presentation and big Hollywood narratives, and I think a number of these games have aged poorly and will age poorly.


I think Sony is a smart enough and well resourced enough company to pivot if and when this trend starts becoming less popular.

Yes exactly. They're doing the same thing as Capcom did at around 2005-2015. They have a lot of dormant IPs but they try to appeal to a specific type of people. they don't want to diversify because I think they don't really have the means to do so, since they fired all their developers anyways. 

They had Playstation Japan Studio but they fired them and killed the studio off. 

this is like if Nintendo suddenly fired the Zelda developers because Link is not appealing to the dudebro crowd. Its one thing to make diverse games to appeal to all, but to just fire all devs and instead focus on just a single type of game, its not going to keep people interested for long, and you will have fatigue really quickly. 

Capcom is doing very well right now because they're using their IPs and giving them more respect and attention. Sony used to be the king of diverse IPs during PS1 and PS2, heck even PS3. but then they moved to California and just made made big budget AAA games with American-flick like games. 

which one ? Gran Turismo?

You mentioned that Sony will let China expand the market. Chinese devs have massive pockets, they're already buying a lot of Japanese devs, not the other way around. 

As much as I hate the direction Sony took their 1st party games during the late PS3/early PS4 era I cannot blame them. They are selling more 1st party games than they ever had before, so they will continue to make the same games with the same formula just because that is what the market wants (mainly the Western market). Almost every single 1st party game to come out of Sony nowadays I have no interest in, but it's OK because there are tons of other games to play that spark my interest. If they no longer make the type of games you want to play then I suggest you move on and look at other developers and other games to play that does catch your eye. It's like when the market was all about platformers then went to shooters and now it's more about story-driven games. When the next big genre takes the market then Sony will follow.

To be fair, the biggest threat to Sony right now is their inability to just meet the demand of consoles. That and their weirdly inconsistend censorship. But if I had to put my two cents here, I do agree that Sony's big cinematic products are in detriment of, at the very least, the variety of their 1st party. They really ought to put more effort on more lighter and cartoony products for all audiences, instead of all of this PG 13 - 18 cinematic experiences. The latest Ratchet & Clank game sold well, and they have more of that kind of series still doormant. At the very least Sony moved on from the "Order 1886" kind of game, all looks and hype and no substance.

Also, now that we're being controversial, I'd say the current gen has not yet really justified its existence, but considering the consoles keep selling out, the market doesn't agree with me on that.

Yes, that is true. My appeal from Playstation was the diverse IPs they used to have, mainly Japan Studio (Shadow Of the Colossus and their weird and quirky games) 

but now I am mostly on Steam and Nintendo that's where the JRPGs as well as the quirky asian games. 

They have the Astro mascot, but they really need to have more mass appeal, more general appeal. Going after the people who fight over "Muh exclusives" on twitter and forums isn't really going to make them any profit. 

They need to diversify. The current gen came in at a terrible time too. 

Well, let's look at it this way: you have <new medium> but creators tend to imitate <old medium> with their works. This is what cinematic games are. And sure, I understand it from a company standpoint: marketing to the known works better than marketing to the unknown. But what pushes the medium forward will be other stuff.

It's like early movies tried to emulate theater plays instead of using the new techniques like close-ups, different camera angles or moving camera to their advantage.

I don't know, most 1st party exclusives tend to sell very well nowadays. The most controversial one I can think of is TLoU2, and despite the fierce controversies, it sold a ton of copies. I don't know if a potential TLoU3 could really reach anything like that after burning out so many fans, though...