PlayStation State of Play showed the strength of third-party partnerships
The first State of Play presentation of 2024 may have been light on first-party announcements, but PS5’s early year release lineup is stacked nevertheless.
I’ve never been one to believe in video game developer acquisitions at the best of times, but especially in cases where they don’t make sense. Microsoft’s strategy as of late has been a chief example of this in my opinion, where welcoming in the likes of Bethesda and Activision Blizzard seem great on paper, but don’t really turn out to be all that Earth-shaking in the long run. Guaranteeing Call of Duty and Diablo on Xbox for the indefinite future? News flash, those franchise were never going anywhere. The only real change is that their status on PlayStation and Nintendo are now in doubt. Brilliant .
And while Xbox’s main rival PlayStation has acquired plenty of developers recently too, it’s only in response to actions elsewhere. Insomniac Games made sense to welcome into the Sony family, for instance, with exclusives like Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, and Resistance being firmly aligned with the PlayStation brand. These days I tend to believe that every major third-party publisher or developer will end up being gobbled up by one of the big three platform-holders in the end. Imagine my surprise after watching this week’s PlayStation State of Play, then, which while light on first-party PS5 titles, proved that the power of third-party relationships and partnerships still exists.
The show’s opener was perfect proof of this. Helldivers 2 has been on the horizon for a mightily long time, with the original top-down shooter launching in 2015. The more we’ve seen of the sequel, however, the more it makes sense why the wait has been so long. The switch to a third-person shooter format is drastic, sharply changing up the style of gameplay while fitting it around the existing idea that was taking down endless giant bugs alongside completing objectives with a squad of friends.
PlayStation doesn’t own Arrowhead Game Studios, the team behind Helldivers 2, but rather has given them the time and money needed to make a great game for PlayStation devotees. Arrowhead gets to enjoy the benefits of staying independent, while PlayStation isn’t tied down with the need to manage the studio. So far, this approach looks to have resulted in an excellent game, giving PS5 owners something excellent to play early on in 2024. The platform-holder isn’t even leveraging its investment to make Helldivers 2 a true exclusive, with it being the first example of a Sony-funded and published game launching simultaneously on PC. Everybody wins!
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State of mind
The fortuitous third-party partnerships were abound elsewhere in the January 2024 State of Play livestream too, as countless announcements were made about what PS4 and PS5 players have to look forward to for the rest of this year. Foamstars was already previously announced as a PS Plus launch game, further cementing PlayStation’s tight partnership with Square Enix on all things Final Fantasy and now this suds-filled Splatoon rival.
Rise of the Ronin looked great in its debut gameplay trailer also, while upcoming PS5 exclusive Stellar Blade tickled my Nier Automata love – especially now that we know it’s coming as early as April, 2024. The true meat of the show, though, was unequivocally given to Silent Hill, the much-beloved survival horror series that is seeing the Konami machine slowly waking up. And who is it choosing to make its main console partner? That’s right, PlayStation.
The upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake did look a tad questionable in the so-called ‘combat trailer’, appearing much more action-oriented than what fans of the cult-classic original have come to expect. Even still, when it releases later this year Silent Hill 2 will be a console exclusive on PS5, unlikely to arrive on Xbox Series X until at least a year later (judging by past platform exclusivity deals). Konami as the game’s publisher doesn’t have to do this but for whatever reason – be it both companies’ Japanese heritage or the 2001 original’s legacy launching on PS2 over Xbox first – it sees PS5 as the best fit in which to promote and launch the remake.
Typically it doesn’t serve publishers well to make their games exclusive to one platform. They want to make the most money possible by making it available to the most people possible, right? Only Xbox hasn’t traditionally done a great job at cultivating these relationships the same way that PlayStation can, and therefore its missing out on both the Silent Hill 2 remake and also the shadow dropped spin-off Silent Hill: The Short Message. Last year saw Hi-Fi Rush shadow release on Xbox Series X|S following last year's Xbox and Bethesda Showcase, but it was a Bethesda game that Xbox had since acquired.
Not a single first-party PS5 game was shown during this week’s State of Play. I won’t lie, this does make me concerned. What is Sucker Punch Productions working on if not Ghost of Tsushima 2? What is PS5’s big holiday game for 2024? The list goes on… luckily, PlayStation’s ability to cultivate and then lean into these valuable third-party relationships with the likes of Konami, Square Enix, Arrowhead Game Studios, and Kojima Productions, ensures that there will be plenty to play for the rest of this year – and beyond when you count Death Stranding 2.
How long can these third-party relationships last? I’m not sure, but for now, whereas Microsoft feels the need to absorb a multitude of developers to keep its gaming platform afloat instead of investing in the studios it already owns, PlayStation is wisely choosing to keep its distance. For as long as it can keep this up PlayStation can place its investments on wherever it makes the most sense, garnering exclusivity agreements that keep the PS4 and PS5 fire burning to give it more time to focus on supporting the first-party studios it already has, rather than cultivating new ones.
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