You know how there are folks who want Nintendo to behave like Sony and Microsoft and push performance and realism? And you know how that’s just not in Nintendo’s DNA and fans wouldn’t want it anyway, for the most part.

Well that’s how what I am going to say is going to come across. I think Sony should take an inventory of the IPs they’ve created over the years and begin a revival project with small to medium sized budgets. They should experiment with some of their dormant IPs and lean a bit into nostalgia. The titles wouldn’t have to be AAA updates, but something that we could have expected to see on the PS3 or early PS4.

I don’t think this strategy would grow their brand, but it may help to bring some wayward players back into the fold. The current Sony just doesn’t have much in common with anything pre-PS4 and and I feel like they’ve made their way by appealing to the massive XBox360 audience that Microsoft left behind.

But yeah, this doesn’t sound like a winning strategy for the company. It’s just something I’d like to see to rekindle my own enjoyment of the brand I had during the PS1/PS2 era.

I won't argue as to the Brit. He struck me as winging it from the first couple times I ever saw his leaks.

I also don't think MLID is the GOAT when it comes to leakers, but it seems the recent SNY next gen rumors kicked off due to him. Was it another leaker? He does leak a lot, and some is always going to be fake or bait vs what is solid. He does also give a lot of takes on those leaks, and if you're going to do that, just about anybody is going to end up more wrong than right, since there can be only one final outcome (per SKU).

Lastly, this is a thread about our opinions on what SNY should, could, or may do next gen, so we can either just wing it ourselves, or take what little insider info or leaks we have, plus historical references, to try and perhaps get closer to the final outcome. I don't really have a clue what SNY is going to do. Do you?

An example sure, but not a great one really.

GTA is basically guaranteed profit. Even if GTAVI was more comparable to GTAV, as long as the gameplay was there, with just enough extra, it would profit. Now it wouldn't profit like GTAVI will in the end, with being leaps and bounds above GTAV with tons extra, but Rockstar can do that because they would have to screw up so bad it would seem impossible. We're talking like PS3+WiiU+XB1 combined bad in order for GTAVI to fail. Especially with GTA Online now, Rockstar doesn't really have to worry much. When was the last time GTA or Rockstar failed big or screwed up royally?

SNY doesn't quite have that same luxury at the moment. Gamers aren't happy because of a lack of games, and we've all seen what that did to MS with XB1 leading to Series X/S. SNY also wasn't able to create massive growth with TLOU2 or HFW, and perhaps even did some damage to those franchises and their brand. On top of that, SNY has been focusing on GAAS and their first real shot at it tanked hard. So hard they've shut some games down or delayed them to make what would seem considerable changes based on the timeline. Even Bungie's next game is looking shaky at the moment.

SNY doesn't just like to go big, they like to go big from the start. How much of their new IP's ending up a huge success was pure talent vs luck isn't exactly as clear anymore, and as of now, it doesn't seem like they can solely rely on that same method of game creation. At the very least, they need to keep the pipeline somewhat full. Having longer and longer droughts, only to eventually drop banger after banger after banger, then another even longer drought, isn't sustainable and will eventually cause massive backlash. If the GAAS games caught on, and were liked by the majority, that would certainly help the problem, but you need them to end up a hit, yet you also need to be aware there is a hardcore group who also want nothing to do with GAAS period. So something has to be there that interests them, often enough, or you're going to start to lose those hardcore players once the droughts get long enough.

A giant AAAA title every now and then can totally work, but pumping them out yearly, even if they're AAA, doesn't seem to be working. Buying even more studios probably isn't going to fix the problem either based on what's been happening. More smaller, cheaper, AAA and AA games, would seem like a rather simple and easy way to solve at least some of the problem.

I disagree with this. GTA5 was designed on consoles with very extreme bottlenecks as the PS3 literally had about 180mb of usable System Ram and only 256 VRAM. Difference between that and PS5 is extreme with 14GB usable unified RAM. The impact that would have on a games development would be completely transformative. If you saying you can make another game comparable to GTA5 and that would be enough, you're saying that you could design the game on PS3 again and still have it be a massive success? 

With regards to the rest, I don't really feel the need to comment about Sony anymore. They're so so far ahead of the competition is doesn't matter what they do with any future decisions. They could literally close all their first party studios now and it wouldn't matter. MS has brought over about 8 games this year and you've also got all the other publishers too. 

Once Xbox finally drops out, the Sony people will look very bright. Right now, there is not enough room for 3 consoles, and so they all have to tighten their belts so to speak.

I mean create another overall experience not that much different than GTAV. How it's accomplished behind the scenes, most gamers won't know or care. The presentation is what I'm talking about. Slight graphical improvements, bigger and or more densely populated map to some degree, some more interaction with NPC's, buildings, etc. It would work and make a profit if it just had another decent campaign and online. It wouldn't profit anywhere near what GTAVI will though.

Can PS create guaranteed AAA or AAAA behemoths and get away with only launching them once every 5-10 years or more?

Yes, SNY will be fine in general, and without XB, maintaining what they have won't be too difficult, but the growth they want isn't going to come if they don't get these things ironed out.

I'm not sure. Look at Saints row 2022. It had a budget of 100M and even though everyone was dog-piling it and calling it a bad game, it actually wasn't that bad. I played through the whole campaign and enjoyed it and didn't really understand all the hate it got. 100M budget, a solid game and it got mocked and ridiculed and it failed. You could argue that it was the record breaking budget and success of GTA5 that just made it look bad, which comes back to budgets being about competition and not hardware. 

While 1 billion is crazy, it would probably also be crazy for the game to cost less than 500 million. GTA V is one of the most successful games ever and you can't skimp on the budget after it's done so well and VI has taken so long.

But I do agree budgets need to shrink on the whole. 

Sony should release a hybrid system where every game comes completely physical on cart.

That would be cool and from a pro-consumer perspective humiliate Nintendo with the Game Key Card nonsense. But I doubt even if Sony makes a hybrid that every game would come complete on a Game Card.