On Wednesday, Edge will be publishing an interview with Microsoft's Phil Spencer, and early next week, Nintendo's Denise Kaigler in this three-part series.
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Sony has convinced about 20 million people that the PlayStation 3 is worth the price of admission. As the console enters 2009 behind Microsoft and Nintendo in the hardware race, the former leader needs to coax millions more to jump into the PlayStation fray—and this year it just might have the software lineup to do it.
It’s the first-party exclusives that distinguish Sony from its rivals. PS3 has entertained strong software in the past, but this year the strength of the company’s Worldwide Studios lineup runs deeper than before.
“I think we had a very good lineup in 2008, especially for the holidays, but in 2009, it’s an absolutely amazing lineup,” reckons Scott Rohde, Sony Computer Entertainment America’s VP of product development. “It’s one of the best lineups that we’ve ever put out in a single calendar year, so it’s very, very exciting.”
Before anyone repeats the tired line, “This is the Year of the PS3,” the announced exclusive first-party games should be examined.
This year, Sony kicked off its software drive with February’s chart-topping Killzone 2 from internal studio Guerilla Games. MLB 09 just launched in March, garnering critical praise for yet another season. And there’s more: The military-themed online game MAG comes from Zipper Interactive, the studio behind the acclaimed SOCOM series. Infamous is Sucker Punch’s next game—a gritty, original superhero action title from the same people that created the excellent Sly Cooper platformer series.
There are also the exclusive Sony-published games from external developers: The visually stunning Heavy Rain, published by Sony and developed by Quantic Dream, the house behind Indigo Prophecy (a.k.a. Fahrenheit in other parts of the world), and Level-5’s anticipated role-player, White Knight Chronicles. A new Ratchet and Clank from Insomniac Games is also on the cards.
While all of these games are commercially attractive in their own right, the real heavy hitters will be Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and God of War III, two sequels, most likely to be M-rated, from internal studios Naughty Dog and Sony Santa Monica, respectively.
Rohde says that there’s more to come this year: “There are several titles that are in the works that we have yet to announce.”
Fruits of labor
This plethora of promising first-party software comes over two years after the 2006 launch of Sony’s premium-priced console. Developers have been working to come to grips with the exotic innards of the capable console, and only now will we be seeing the results of months of development experience emerge in meaningful volume.
“It’s one of those things where we’re seeing the fruits of all those initial investments. They’re all just starting to hit and stack up for 2009,” says Rohde. “It’s like developing for any platform, or perhaps even a little bit more for PS3. We’re just now starting to see the fruits of that labor, whereas maybe last year and the year before we were just scratching the surface of what the machine could do. Now developers are seasoned; they understand how to develop on the PS3.”
While Sony is responsible for mass market “casual” hits like Buzz! and SingStar, as well as the astounding and widely-appealing LittleBigPlanet, some of the biggest releases that garner the hefty marketing and development dollars in 2009 are aimed at the core gamer, who is most concerned with high-def graphics, high-fi sound and more mature themes.
“Obviously, with the PS3 specifically, we cater to the core and, for lack of a better way of saying it, that’s kind of an easy audience to appeal to. If we build our shooters and our racers and our big titles like Uncharted 2 and Infamous, those are the blockbuster titles that cater to the core. We have big investments in [that group].”
With new casual, mass-market games likely due this year and more content coming to PlayStation Network, Sony’s games will cover a healthy amount of genres. Rohde says SCEA doesn’t necessarily sit around and concern itself with creating games in specific, defined genres in an attempt to appeal to all kinds of gamers. “I think what we try to do is come up with original concepts, and even twists on some existing genres, like what we’re doing with MAG for later this year. Really, we just try to come out with a nice stable of new IP that, in some cases, perhaps even busts those genres wide open.”
October 2008’s LittleBigPlanet is one example of Sony’s first-party publishing philosophy, says Rohde. Media Molecule’s concept is based on the classic platformer format, but user-generated content and a robust community network—all layered with a stunning graphics engine—succeeded in “busting open” a classic genre while appealing to both core and casual. It was a different kind of game, and a new IP, but Rohde says he never considered it a risky release.
“…There’s a certain feeling that you can get about a title; one that is indescribable. Looking at LittleBigPlanet a year or more before the launch, there wasn’t a single person in this company who thought that title was going to be a risk, right? There’s just a special feeling about it.”
SCEA will need a few “special feelings” this year. The company has struggled with consumers who have found that the premium price of the $400 PS3 doesn’t balance with the amount of must-have software available for the console. Such an imbalance is only exacerbated in light of Microsoft’s less-expensive Xbox 360, the PS3’s closest competitor. The soccer moms in the market for a Wii wouldn’t even consider such a pricey console.
Rohde holds fast to the belief that core consumers recognize and value Sony’s tendency for developing new, original properties, in spite of the obstacles laid down by the PS3’s price tag. “You could say that every time we put out a new IP it’s a risk, but I think that’s what Sony does best. I think the core gaming audience specifically understands that when you invest as a consumer in a Sony platform, one thing you know for sure is that Sony is going to push a lot of new IPs at you. They’re going to try things that haven’t been done before, they’re going to try new twists on genres, they’re going to try new things like LittleBigPlanet. That’s what you expect as a consumer with Sony platforms and we’re going to continue to do that. That’s one of the top reasons we have such a big investment in first-party studios.”
First-party investment
Sony has about three times as many internal game development studios as Microsoft. SCE Worldwide Studios includes Team ICO, Gran Turismo house Polyphony Digital, God of War developer Sony Santa Monica, Wipeout house Studio Liverpool, MotorStorm creator Evolution Studios, and several more top-tier game developers. SCE’s internal game development strategy is markedly different than Microsoft’s.
“In my position, I’m certainly glad to be working for a company that believes in that strategy of investing in the first-party studios,” Rohde says. “To have that under your own control is amazingly beneficial. For us to be able to sit down and just craft a dozen or more exclusive first-party titles and not have to abide by anyone’s rules is beneficial.
“We can build something that doesn’t fit nicely into a boxed genre, and deliver a unique experience. You can’t necessarily do that if you’re working with a third-party, and you need to kind of abide by the rules of all the publishers."
Rohde ponders further the upside of having a large stable of internal studios. He says that having numerous unique, exclusive first-party IPs on PS3 is another aspect that raises the brand value of the console in the minds of consumers.
“We’re very proud of the fact that we have a huge investment in our first-party development, as opposed to what some of our competitors do. In the case of Nintendo, they perhaps rely heavily on existing IP, just pushing out the tried and true. With our other main competitor in Microsoft, they have a large investment in co-marketing for third-party titles. What we do is to invest a ton of money in these first-party studios, which we believe gives the consumer the best and most unique experience out there.”
Digital Battlefield
A growing part of Sony’s software strategy doesn’t rely on the constraints of physical media, but rather on digital distribution. PS3 currently offers downloadable versions of full premium titles like Wipeout HD, Burnout Paradise, Warhawk and Tekken 5, along with smaller pick-up-and-play games like Pain, as well as add-on content for previously-purchased software.
Rohde says Sony is ready for the digital distribution battlefield, and the company wants to be on the cutting edge. “[Downloadable content] is a very important strategy for us, not just in the traditional way with add-on maps and so forth, but with a constant refresh of smaller DLC for games. Consumers have a very big desire for that, and we’re certainly going to provide it for them.”
He used the downloadable title Pain as an example. Sony released the game back in November 2007, and has continually offered small pieces of content to freshen up the gameplay for consumers. “Almost a year and a half after its initial release, it continues to be a very successful title.”
The weak spot
To critics, the sizable chink in the PS3’s armor is undoubtedly the price. Rohde admits the console comes at a premium price, but still considers it a value considering its multi-functionality. Speaking from the software perspective, however, the challenge lies beyond hardware pricing issues.
“I’m not going to necessarily call it a weakness,” he says, “but I think that we need to broaden our audience. We already have that strategy in place with lots of unique first-party games based on both new and existing IPs. But again, I’m not necessarily going to call it a weakness.”
Sony has displayed the ability to establish mass market franchises aimed at broad audiences, namely in the popular SingStar and Buzz! series. Karaoke game SingStar has sold over 13 million units worldwide, for instance.
SingStar and Buzz! have both made the transition to PS3, but as Rohde said, Sony’s focus is squarely on the core at this point in the console’s life. For now, the company is serving the casual gamer with the PS2, whose sales continue to decline. And Sony can’t expect the PS3’s audience to broaden drastically beyond what it is now with a $400 price point.
The strong suit
All along, Sony’s ace up its sleeve has been its internal stable of first-party studios. With sales of the console lagging behind competitors and the psychological factor that comes from seeing number one drop to last place, some seem to forget just what a software powerhouse SCE Worldwide Studios really is. The question mark that remains is when exactly PS3 will drop its price (soon, we expect). An even bigger question is just how much a price drop can broaden the existing audience.
A price cut alone isn’t enough in itself to drive a meaningful, long-lasting boost to hardware sales. As signs point to an inevitable PS3 price reduction, though, Sony has already lined up a formidable exclusive software offering that can support a pricing move. We saw the positive effects of price-slashing in September 2008 when Microsoft coupled a strong holiday lineup with an Xbox 360 price cut. And with a larger installed base comes more software sales, and therefore larger margins for Sony’s games business.
Microsoft and Nintendo certainly are not resting, and we expect big announcements from both of the game makers in the months ahead. It’d be presumptuous to call 2009 the “Year of the PS3,” or the year of any platform, for that matter. Just because Sony lays claim to a number of exclusives doesn’t guarantee commercial success in the face of more than capable competition. But this year it would seem that PS3’s chances at making a bigger impact on the games market are the best they’ve ever been.
http://www.edge-online.com/features/exclusives-analysis-playstation-3?page=0%2C0
