Sony’s great strength throughout the PS4 era has been its first-party exclusives: God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us Part II, Persona 5, Spider-Man.
It sounds like the company aims to continue that winning strategy with a renewed focus on first-party titles in the PlayStation 5 generation.
Sony’s Plans for the PlayStation 5
As reported by VGC, the company recently published a written report about how it plans to handle the PS5’s games portfolio.
Amid increasingly intense competition from free-to-play games, online multiplayer titles, PC and mobile markets, and so on, PlayStation knows its greatest asset is its original IP — stuff like Uncharted, Horizon, or Insomniac’s recent games.
“SIE intends to make proactive investments to reinforce content IP, and work to raise brand value, foster communities and user engagement, while enhancing direct-to-consumer services that get closer to users,” Sony reportedly wrote.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see Sony leveraging its PlayStation Now service to a greater degree, especially given the success Microsoft has had with its own Game Pass platform.
“To reinforce content IP,” the company said, “SIE will accelerate the enhancement and rollout of its portfolio of exclusive PlayStation titles.”
More Studio Acquisitions?
The report also says that Sony is open to acquiring more studios for its SIE Worldwide Studios umbrella.
In fall of last year, the company purchased Spider-Man developer Insomniac, and Microsoft has been aggressive about acquiring developers for its own first-party portfolio heading into next gen.
PC and VR Support
“SIE plans to provide content for a variety of game genres and formats,” the company said, “and make advances in unique and immersive interactive experiences such as VR.”
In recent years, PlayStation has continued to support the PS VR headset — which is said to work well with the new PlayStation 5 hardware — and even port some of its games to PC.
The PlayStation 5 is set to launch in late 2020.