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Could Sony be saving their big announcements for The Game Awards?

Announce/reveal?

-God of War Ragnarok.
-Factions II.
-Guerilla Games multiplayer project that started development in 2018.
Arrowhead Games co op project that started development in 2016.

Those 4 projects are probably far enough along to reveal to the public soon, and most will release in 2022.
A sequel that everyone knows is coming, two multiplayer-only games, and a game from a mostly unknown studio. Yeah, not very hype inducing honestly.
 

T0minator

Member
You guys convinced yourselves that Sony has some kind of grand plan but the reality is they simply didn’t have any games ready to show off.

But you guys continue hype yourself and right after get disappointed for heck of it.
Sony definitely has games to show..I'd rather wait for them to have great gameplay segments to show off at a PlayStation Experience event. Sony hasn't been one to show CGI as a big reveal. Microsoft on the other hand loves to do that. Waiting to show gameplay at an event is a smarter move if that's what they're doing
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Sony hasn't been one to show CGI as a big reveal. Microsoft on the other hand loves to do that. Waiting to show gameplay at an event is a smarter move if that's what they're doing
What Sony did was....
lRCEOcV.png
PHbEer9.png

Knowing full well it wasn't releasing in 2021.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
You think?

Notwithstanding that we’re due a bit more info on a couple of already announced projects (Gt7, GoW), we’ve had nothing confirmed from ….
- Naughty Dog
- Media Molecule
- Guerrilla 2nd team
- Santa Monica 2nd team
- new San Mateo studio
- new Malaysia studio
- Team Asobi
- Sucker Punch (apart from GoT expansion)
- Bend
- Pixelopus
- London Studio

and that’s before you get into any “second party” games, like they did with Sumo, Bluepoint, etc. Oh and any 3rd party exclusives, marketing rights, etc. Oh and I wouldn’t be surprised if Insomniac have another 1or 2 projects cooking (Spiderman 2, Sunset Overdrive, etc).

So yeah, Sony have nothing to show.

With up to 6 years dev times, chances are most if not all of the potential games you listed didn't even left the pre-production phase yet. Which indeed means there's nothing concrete to be shown.
 

SaucyJack

Member
With up to 6 years dev times, chances are most if not all of the potential games you listed didn't even left the pre-production phase yet. Which indeed means there's nothing concrete to be shown.

The simple fact is that we don’t know because they haven’t announced anything yet.

But you’re tripping if you think it’ll be 6 years before we see games from those studios.
 

Dr Kaneda

Member
It's going to have to be a big show, whether Sony one or something like returning to E3 or being at TGA etc.. but it seems obvious to me that's it's going to have to be a big show. You simply can't announce big new games in 30 minute SoP that are 80% indies and shovelware. They can do dedicated SoP and blog posts for already announced games, but those games need to initial be announced at a big event. Otherwise you simply do not get the buzz you want.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
But if you’re tripping if you think it’ll be 6 years before we see games from those studios.

Keep in mind it's Sony we're taking about, the company whose studios have twice the dev time than others, a company who's "king" in delaying the fames. Of course it takes less than 5-6 years to get a playable code, but it's not a year either. SSM has been working on next GoW since 2018 and all they showed so far was a black screen and a logo, which isn't even the final title. GG has been working on HFW since 2017, and we saw the game in action literally just a month ago. That how long it takes to have anything meaningful to show, at least in Sony's case, if most of their devs launched their games in the past year or two we won't see anything new from them earlier than somewhere in 2022. CoD is launching in 4 months and it hasn't even been announced yet, let alone shown any gameplay, that's just the (sad) reality of the industy nowadays.
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Would hilarious if the 1st gameplay of GoW2 was shown at the same show that said it would be released this year…
 

Dr Kaneda

Member
People have short term memory.

PS4 had major drought periods in first 5 years of the generation. It even earned a nickname Soony.

Its major releases are concentrated in last couple of years, from about 2018 when God of War arrived.

Before that, sales were driven by what an ass Mattrick was and how funny this video was:


Horizon Zero Dawn, Bloodborne, Uncharted 4 and The Last Guardian all released before 2018. I'd say those were all "major" releases.

After 2018 it was GOW, Spider-Man, Days Gone, Death Stranding, TLoU2 and Ghost.

So it's 4 vs 6. Not too big a difference.
 

Zeroing

Banned
I rather they show things when they have the games ready, they drop E3 for a reason, look how awful E3 was.
Also we gamers complain about everything. Studios do not work like clockwork, games got delayed, dates get changed etc.
 

Hinedorf

Banned
Sony doesn't really care right now with the way the console keeps selling without any good reasons for the success. They already pushed all their competitive content out to 2022 so I wouldn't expect we'll see anything more than what we've already seen last year.

IMO the last year of COVID was far better than this year, last year we got excuses-but-effort, now we get excuses-and-fuckyou
 

SaucyJack

Member
Keep in mind it's Sony we're taking about, the company whose studios have twice the dev time than others, a company who's "king" in delaying the fames. Of course it takes less than 5-6 years to get a playable code, but it's not a year either. SSM has been working on next GoW since 2018 and all they showed so far was a black screen and a logo, which isn't even the final title. GG has been working on HFW since 2017, and we saw the game in action literally just a month ago. That how long it takes to have anything meaningful to show, at least in Sony's case, if most of their devs launched their games in the past year or two we won't see anything new from them earlier than somewhere in 2022. CoD is launching in 4 months and it hasn't even been announced yet, let alone shown any gameplay, that's just the (sad) reality of the industy nowadays.

Dude, take the Xbox goggles off for a minute. 🙄
 

arvfab

Banned
Keep in mind it's Sony we're taking about, the company whose studios have twice the dev time than others, a company who's "king" in delaying the fames. Of course it takes less than 5-6 years to get a playable code, but it's not a year either. SSM has been working on next GoW since 2018 and all they showed so far was a black screen and a logo, which isn't even the final title. GG has been working on HFW since 2017, and we saw the game in action literally just a month ago. That how long it takes to have anything meaningful to show, at least in Sony's case, if most of their devs launched their games in the past year or two we won't see anything new from them earlier than somewhere in 2022. CoD is launching in 4 months and it hasn't even been announced yet, let alone shown any gameplay, that's just the (sad) reality of the industy nowadays.

Dude what are you talking about?
Sony at least had titles at launch and the months after AND they had some major games for the PS4.
Sure, there are outliers like Media Molecules (and also postivie ones, like Insomniac), but the rest is totally in the business norm, especially for the quality they deliver.

So tell me, as you seem to think Sonys studios are worse than others, tell me how quick are the ones of the competitors.

Let's see how many games The Initiative has released since they were grounded in 2018... Oh wait, it's 0. But they have totally showed their progress on Perfect Dark, right? Oh no, they didn't. Ok ok, they are a new studio, they get a pass.

Ok, 343 released Halo Infinite last year... Oh no, it was delayed. Maybe it didn't get enough dev time, I mean, 7 years since Halo 5 are really not a lot of time.

Hey but at least we get a yearly Forza game. Forza 7 was just released....in 2017. Wait what? It's 2021 already?

Regarding delays... Well MS strategy is pretty good in this regard. Don't release games, so there is nothing to delay! Win!

Let's talk about Nintendo. BotW released the same period as Horizon you mentioned. Both will have a sequel, with Horizon maybe releasing earlier... with the difference that Guerrilla developed a next-gen version of their sequel in the (almost) same time.

The last new Mario game was Odyssey, at launch.

I could continue with others examples, like Rockstar or Rocksteady, but I think I made my point.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
Dude what are you talking about?

Most Sony's studios released just a single game during entire generation, like it or not that's a fact, and if anything, games will take even longer to make as the time goes. Sony doesn't attend any of the big events because their ganes are far from having anything to show, just because they started new projects 2-3 years ago doesn't mean yesterday there will be full blown-out gameplay.

PS. And again, what does MS has to do with Sony's development management and schedlues? It's all on Ryan and Hulst. I see you're desperately trying to derail the topic and drive a console war, but sorry I'll pass, stick to the topic which is solely about Sony.
 

arvfab

Banned
Most Sony's studios released just a single game during entire generation, like it or not that's a fact, and if anything, games will take even longer to make as the time goes. Sony doesn't attend any of the big events because their ganes are far from having anything to show, just because they started new projects 2-3 years ago doesn't mean yesterday there will be full blown-out gameplay.

PS. And again, what does MS has to do with Sony's development management and schedlues? It's all on Ryan and Hulst. I see you're desperately trying to derail the topic and drive a console war, but sorry I'll pass, stick to the topic which is solely about Sony.

But it was you who started it with comparisons with other devs....

Keep in mind it's Sony we're taking about, the company whose studios have twice the dev time than others

...and I gave you examples for other devs dismissing what you said. So you either back your bullshit up, or stop spreading lies.

Sony had 2 bigger events last year and this year isn't over to say "they don't attend big events". All of this while delivering game after game. Others attend them, and have to rely on indies because they have nothing to show and haven't released anything for a while.
 

Yoboman

Member
I dont think that is what Sony is doing but the Game Awards are getting big enough now that any publisher would be dumb to not have it as a consideration for their marketing cycle
 

JORMBO

Darkness no more
We have seen Horizon. I think their other projects are further out so they haven’t bothered to show much (or anything) from them yet. We might get some new footage of something shown at the game awards just because it is at the end of the year and they want to show something for 2022.
 

yurinka

Member
I think they will continue spreading their small announcements and updates in monthly State of Plays and PlayStation Blog posts. Regarding the bigger ones, I think some of them will be included in these State of Plays or will be saved for a PlayStation Experience whenever they want to celebrate it (probably in December).

They skipped E3 and didn't give a fuck about it, so will skip Game Awards too. Sony doesn't need to pay a shit ton of money to put their trailers there, their youtube channel already has an insane reach and it's free.

In any case, even if they are breaking gaming history records, their console gets sold out in minutes. So have 0 reasons to rise the hype now. It's better for them to save the hype bullets for later, once the console becomes more available.
 
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Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
If Sony said they were doing a PSX event that was guaranteed to have some unannounced surprises.
Its viewership would trump the game awards viewership easily.

So no they aint holding out to make big announcements at the game awards........when they want to make a big announcement theyll just say "hey guys we have a big announcement on tuesday you better tune in"
And everyone will tune in.
 

Calverz

Member
Sony has pretty much made clear by now, that they don`t care about any 3rd party events anymore.

They just announce their stuff on their own events which are being held whenever they actually have stuff to show.
Imho that is the right strategy. We all know what happens if you have "forced shows" despite not having to show anything ...see last E3.
Nintendo??
 

Calverz

Member
Agreed.
It's just the supply constraints of the XSX that makes it feel it's flying of the shelves.
Also nothing out on Xbox and nothing that interesting in sights, everything is so far far away

On other hand I'm on summer vacay so don't have time to play all PS games that are out.
DkBX1rA.png


OT: I think there are few big ones that Sony is holding back, also they know people want to see some game play not only CGI.
So not at all sure what we are going to see at PSX.
Lmao halo infinite, forza horizon 5 beats anything sony have planned for xmas. Only gt7 can save ps5 this fall.
 
This has just become depressing.

Sony has no big show for the E3/Summer season. Just deal with it.

Horizon 2 was their big thing and this State of Play was dessert.
 

AmuroChan

Member
No, Sony is not going to do any big announcements at other shows. That's the whole reason why they opted out of E3. So they can do their own show and not have to share the coverage.
 

SaucyJack

Member
Most Sony's studios released just a single game during entire generation, like it or not that's a fact, and if anything, games will take even longer to make as the time goes. Sony doesn't attend any of the big events because their ganes are far from having anything to show, just because they started new projects 2-3 years ago doesn't mean yesterday there will be full blown-out gameplay.

PS. And again, what does MS has to do with Sony's development management and schedlues? It's all on Ryan and Hulst. I see you're desperately trying to derail the topic and drive a console war, but sorry I'll pass, stick to the topic which is solely about Sony.

Well that’s just objectively false 🤣

Naughty Dog (4) - Uncharted 4, Uncharted Lost Legacy, TLOU 2, TLOU remastered
Guerilla Games (2) - Killzone Shadowfall, Horizon Zero Dawn
Polyphony (1) - GT Sport
Sucker Punch (3) - Infamous Second Son, Infamous First Light, Ghost of Tsushima
San Diego (12) - MLB 14 to 21, Kill Strain*, Guns Up*, Drawn to Death*, Starblood Arena*
Santa Monica (2) - God of War, God of War 3 remastered
London Studio (4) - SingStar Ultimate Party, SingStar Celebration, VR Worlds, Blood & Truth
Bend (1) - Days Gone
Media Molecule (3) - Tearaway Unfolded, LBP3*, Dreams
PixelOpus (2) - Concrete Genie, Entwined
Japan Studios (15) - Knack, Knack 2, Last Guardian, Shadow of the Colossus, Bloodborne*, and a bunch of remasters.

* - collaborations

Polyphony and Bend were the only studios to produce a single game. Polyphony averaged 3 games per gen for PS1-3 so that was clearly unusual for them, whilst Bend were repurposed from Vita.
 

CamHostage

Member
There is no substitute to a big Sony show.

Everything that will be worthy will be shown at Sony events. This doesn't mean that there won't be stuff at other events, but the god tier of gaming stuff from Naughty Dog, Santa Monica etc. will be at dedicated big Playstation events.

I'm with you that those shows were cool, and when Sony goes big, it's monumental even if you're not a PlayStation gamer. (MS can do that too, and Nintendo dropped the original megaton, but there does seem to always be a heavy buzz for Sony events in particular.)

Fact is, though, Sony is in the business of selling games, not of hosting showcase events.

The way to market product changed (and changed even further when COVID,) and Sony has learned where to put its efforts for the new era of product marketing. The way of blowing thing out in June and then not talking to customers again until December is just not how it's done for most companies. Some companies still tried to make a splash during of the E3 timeframe this year, and maybe the show will return next year in a healthier form with new ideas, but things had already been in total flux before COVID, (Sony had already pulled out of E3 the year before, and Nintendo had been doing its Direct streams for ages, with the games actually at E3 being just a party for a couple key titles,) and we're seeing a real incarnation of the new way, not just a lull in game announcements for a rather tame E3/summer event cycle.

maxresdefault.jpg


So, the reality is rather straightforward. Sony have X amount of games in various states of production in their studios, they have a whole year to market each one of them if they need public exposure at this point (as opposed to before where a company would announce an entire year's worth of product at E3 or TGS,) and they're on a different marketing cycle than the get-big-quick approach MS has in building up Game Pass. They have no contracts for big shows (unless they actually throw PSX,) no obligations to have a big marketing moment, so when they're ready to make announcements, they can just turn on the PS Blog and make news within a week. Meanwhile, COVID pushed all of its products back 3-6 months (and that's a generous use of an excuse, given that some of the next-gen products would have slipped anyway, but you can go back and see the targets for Ratchet and Returnal and Horizon then look at where they landed and see how everything shifted on the game board,) so even their Holiday 2021 plans are unconfirmed (Horizon is racing to the finish line, otherwise all we know they'll have is Deathloop and some of the Director's Cuts, otherwise it would have also been GT7 and supposedly God of War Ragnarok.) That's not a great place for them to be (if Horizon doesn't finish, PS might finish 2021 fairly dry against MS's two big titles, but then again MS spent the whole year dry so it's just more of the weirdest console cycle ever...), but the console is still moving just fine and there's still eager interest in the platform and they have remasters and several big names still on the radar. They have product, and it is moving. When they need to reinvigorate the market, they could see what's ready and start to generate some heat by putting a show together, but it's not like before where the actual development cycle of products was impacted by planning for E3; now, the game maker gets to set all the terms, and being only on video makes it easier to put together a bubblegum-and-ducttape demo of whatever's working without worrying about embarrassing the team with a code failure. If a project isn't ready for a play demo, see if you can cut together a new trailer, kids go nuts for every one of those. When Sony can daisy-chain a number of big games together for a big showcase, that can have an additive effect for all of those games (remember when Bugsnax had a moment?) as well as elevating desire for the console, so that's one strategy Sony can take, but it's no longer the only tactical approach.

As far as we know, Sony is running low on games to announce or showcase. As far as we know. They've got Horizon, they've got GT7, they've got God of War, and that's all we know for sure by name, then also the Deviation / Firewalk / Haven projects. Many of their studios either have recently released or will be releasing games soon, so unless they are like Insomniac with multiple projects all going at once (which would be unusual, even if rumors say many are multitasking,) it's unlikely we'll hear from them again so soon. Maybe they're spent? Maybe not? As far as we know, we don't know, and unless the business takes a downturn and they need to take some kind of action that would include marketing, it's in the company's better interest that consumers not know too much. We're a fickle and demanding bunch, and we take shit that's totally made up and hold it against the company when they actually do make a public appearance. (Nintendo would have been better off just releasing Switch OLED with no announcement and having consumers pick it up like an Apple product, instead they're getting flamed for months for "4K" and "DLSS" and other Pro Model ideas that didn't come from Nintendo.) As far as we know, there could be something in August, or there isn't, and there could be TLoU2 Factions/Bloodborne Remastered/Sunset Overdrive PS5/Spiderman 2/Pixelopus Spidey/Silent Hills/MGS Remake/Guerrilla Project #2 ready to be unveiled any day now, or there isn't

What is known is that Sony has at least four games to market going into the back half of the year: Deathloop, Horizon Forbidden West (unless tragedy strikes,) and the Director's Cut packages of Ghost of Tsushima & Death Stranding. Plus, they have to keep the console selling. That's job one. If they also market their 2022/202X slate, that's a bonus, but showing God of War in whatever state of development it's in won't stop Halo Infinite from selling a lot of copies and Xboxes, so better to show it when it will have the most impact for itself and the platform, and that goes for most Sony titles. Job one, first.
 
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Bkdk

Member
Sony is out of ideas. People are starting to get tired of those naughty dog type linear story games. Now they have to go the route of huge open world and non linear story games, those games cost way more money to make and it’s starting to become extremely hard to compete with Microsoft in the long run. Not to mention cloud enhanced physics, AI and AR will be a crucial feature for aaa games soon. They are nowhere near ready for that compared to MS. They will be acquired by one of the big tech companies to stay relevant after a few years.
 

//DEVIL//

Member
Sony is out of ideas. People are starting to get tired of those naughty dog type linear story games. Now they have to go the route of huge open world and non linear story games, those games cost way more money to make and it’s starting to become extremely hard to compete with Microsoft in the long run. Not to mention cloud enhanced physics, AI and AR will be a crucial feature for aaa games soon. They are nowhere near ready for that compared to MS. They will be acquired by one of the big tech companies to stay relevant after a few years.
You know ... I thought there is nothing sadder than the OP or the fanboys in general trying to grasp for any hope becsuse they have their heads inside a company X’s ass .

reminds me of the sad days Nintendo fanboys were hoping for any news from Nintendo back in the ign boards...


Then I read your post....
Dear god .....
 
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//DEVIL//

Member
You can beat it blue for Infinite Jank all I care.

There is only one Horizon game this fall worth being exited for.
Horizon Zero Dawn Landscape GIF by PlayStation
Yeah no . Not interested in a fat bitch that wear diapers and woke.
Horizon 5 is more fun than this will ever be even though it was “ don’t want to cuss “ weird of you to even compare both games and they are not even same genre.

and what he said is right , Halo alone will probably sell more than any other game sony releases this year and probably next.
 
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Warablo

Member
Is Halo Infinite?
I really don't care if it does or not. Not very hyped for it, but will play it with my friends because they want it. I am sorta hyped for Horizon 5 though.

Horizon Forbidden West on the other hand, looking forward to those underwater sections and story. Even though the gameplay preview left me unimpressed.
 
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Shmunter

Member
Sony is out of ideas. People are starting to get tired of those naughty dog type linear story games. Now they have to go the route of huge open world and non linear story games, those games cost way more money to make and it’s starting to become extremely hard to compete with Microsoft in the long run. Not to mention cloud enhanced physics, AI and AR will be a crucial feature for aaa games soon. They are nowhere near ready for that compared to MS. They will be acquired by one of the big tech companies to stay relevant after a few years.
This should be the asterisk foot note to “Xbox Series X|S Powering Your Hopes & Dreams”*. 🤪
 
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Horizon Forbidden West on the other hand, looking forward to those underwater sections and story. Even though the gameplay preview left me unimpressed.

Agreed on gameplay. Should have shown some open world section instead of scripted gameplay.

Also, cinematic camera cuts in middle of an intense fight? So distracting.
 
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