upnorthsox
Veteran
Funny, the parallels between The Order and Heavenly Sword's releases are stunning.
Is Sony losing its publishing moxie?
- Thread starter Shifty Geezer
- Start date
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
I think part of the disappointment with Heavenly Sword was the insane amount of hype that Sony and Ninja Theory were giving the game. They were setting it up as the best combat game ever. It wasn't, but it was ok.
Its not easy either. Plus, I doubt if Sony is going that route anyway. Infamous and TO aren't your typical dudebrah games and while Sony has KZ. That game alone doesn't hold up well when MS is delivering Halo:MCC and TF, which were games that more fit the dudebrah mold.
I actually had to look that up. This language is slipping away from me.
You not the only one. I too had to look it up within the last month as someone attached the term to Nolan North.
Prophecy2k
Veteran
Huh? I'm really not seeing the difference between then and now:
Heavenly Sword - fairly standard GOW-alike (GOW already existed and was a much better game)
RFoM - standard shooter
Motorstorm - standard offroad racer
R&C - standard platformer from a series rooted in the previous gen
Folklore - the only game with any originality
My point was that if these games were the current lineup for the PS4 you'd be saying the exact same thing, and this thread would still exist.
My other point is that look further just Sony for a second and see that noone is making anything but standard fair sequels at the moment. It's obvious why in my mind.
However look forward and see what Sony has coming for the PS4 and you see games like TTC, RimE, bloodbourne and Wild that are every bit as creative risky and mould-breaking as the games Sony used to make.
I'm really not seeing this more conservative Sony between last gen and this, considering the part of the generational cycle we're in.
If you'd argued between now and the PS1/PS2 days, then sure. But then game pudgets have gone up by an order of magnitude since then. And so you very much need to look at their non-retail d/l portfolio to see that that is where they are taking those kinds of creative risks.
You can check the numbers. Something available on PC means next to nothing in the console market.
"This is ridicilous!" Most useless post lately?
If you think Sony cant shutdown SCE you are in denial. Its been documented to have been discussed before
Some of these games were very very fun though.
Although I wouldnt exactly say that Motorstorm was a standard offroad racer. It was actually very different compared to the other offroad racers we have played. It was a mayhem of all types of vehicles battling in mud and dirt in the most inhospitable rocky environments. The environments brunched to countless of routes. For me it was the SSX of off road.
I wouldnt say that R&C was just a standard platformer either. Its whole charm was in the amount of crazy weapons and numerous ways you could extinguish your enemies. The only problem was, we have already tasted this on the PS2 and the game didnt upgrade much from its PS2 predecessors.
Heavenly Sword could have been a dream come true if it was faithful to its original trailer. We thought that we were going to get buttersmooth epic hyper interactive battles against hordes of convincing AI enemies. Instead we got very short confined gameplay that didnt exactly play as smoothly. It was indeed very standard.
At E3 2005 Sony brought up lots of nostalgia and hope that the PS3 would be as revolutionary as the PS1.Each trailer made me pee from excitement. But they didnt meet our expectations.
Most games felt rushed
The only games that met the expectations I had back then were the Uncharted series, GoW3 and Killzone 2. But some of these games came a little too late too.
Even third pary devs failed to meet our expectations. Final Fantasy 13 and MGS4 also failed to become the legendary games they once were
How much I miss those old days.
It had excellent in game story and characterisation. Ignore the gameplay - the experience was well received by its fans.
Yes.
Offroad racers aren't standard. And even then, it was a very open off-road racer, more like a karting game than a rally game.
Yes.
So 2 of 5 were standard fair IMO. 2 of 6 counting LAIR (can't remember what else was around).
Possibly true, but that's where Sony have maybe shifted and become more risk averse than they used to be, and more like everyone else.
Maybe.
Well, it's only half the question being asked. Has Sony's moxie dropped since PS1? If yes, there's another question 'why?'
Perhaps it is inevitable. Perhaps it's not the big budget uber-hyped games we should be looking at?Sony could of course shut down whatever they want. It just wouldn't be a great idea. And yes, stating that TF sold more systems than all of Sony's exclusives combined is a ridiculous statement, especially since TF sales were so below expectations that EA never even released them officially.
We don't need this sort of comments on this forum.
Prophecy2k
Veteran
It's not a very well thought out proposal. And in the thread proposing this the idea was pretty much universally laughed at. From both a gamer and industry/commercial perspective it just makes no sense.
Prophecy2k
Veteran
By the way, what's a moxie?
Is "standard" supposed to imply something negative? Motorstorm was a great arcade racer series and Heavenly Sword was one of my favorite games last gen. I guess I don't like experimental art school game projects. Can someone give me an example of a non-standard game?
You reduce all games down to a core genre.
Gears of War, Uncharted - standard TPS
Halo - standard space marine FPS
etc, etc.
You reduce all games down to a core genre.
Gears of War, Uncharted - standard TPS
Halo - standard space marine FPS
etc, etc.
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
There is a thread devoted to this very subject. There was a vote. It didn't go well
By the way, what's a moxie?
It's a small dog.
Sigfried1977
Legend
I'm just really wondering why this absolute shift from numerous, relatively affordable games to the all-or-nothing mega budget games occured in the first place. Is it because shareholders cannot get off unless any single game shifts 10 million units? Are they jealously crying themselves to sleep every night thinking about GTA and Call of Duty? So when Tomb Raider didn't quite bring in the mega bucks Square Enix was hoping for, didn't anyone ever question whether all the ludicrously expensive cut-scenes and set-pieces that nobody really asked for were that great of an idea to begin with? What's so outrageous about the idea of selling fewer units of games that were made in a fiscally responsible manner?
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
How is it an absolute shift when Sony are still making smaller titles? It absolutely isn't an absolute shift
You have a point there. Sony does allow creative freedom to its studios. But most of these games appear to have been PS Store low budget games. Beautiful and original. But not the big games they once were.Well, it's only half the question being asked. Has Sony's moxie dropped since PS1? If yes, there's another question 'why?'
I think Sony was luckier back in the PS1 and PS2 days. The install base was so large that probabilities of selling enough units to make a profit were higher for its games. Risk was smaller obviously.
But there is also the big shift of interest towards shoot em ups. I am trying to understand what made that big shift and I suspect that it started with the original XBOX.
The following statement is of course based on my personal preferences which may or may not have been common with the majority of console gamers.
I was always attracted to consoles due to the larger variety of original games. PC ports may have appeared but they werent the main experience. Console games played differently than PC games in general. We later saw the PC experience becoming more prevalent in consoles, and I think that this started on the original XBOX.
It was the closer we could get to the PC experience on a console. FPS shooters were its stronger element. Games that converted the PC controls to the gamepad were more prevalent than on the PS2. It was getting the best versions of PC ports and PC style of gameplay (i.e one analogue stick for directional movement->simulating keyboard, and independent camera movement on the other stick-> simulating the mouse. Usually on traditional console games the camera followed some rules such as adjusting itself behind the character or certain placement in the environment).
When the XBOX360 was released I was astonished that a huge amount of games were third person PC shooters (or shooters that played like PC shooters), first person shooters, and racing games with a realistic approach. It was a lot different than what I was used to experience at a console's launch. Halo and Gears defined the 360.
It felt a lot different than PS1, Saturn, N64, PS2, GC, Dreamcast launches. Whereas these consoles offered console experiences, the 360 felt like the medium that brought the PC experience closer to the console audience. And this is where I believe tastes begun to shift. There was no competition for a year so it was already setting new paradigms in the console experience. From that time on we saw the PS3 struggling with original IPs and pure console experiences.
Sigfried1977
Legend
I'm not just talking about Sony here, and there really is very little middleground between microbudget indie games and all the giant, studio jeopardizing blockbusters anymore.
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
If you're not just talking about Sony your statement about an absolute shift is still on shaky ground. Just take a look at Steam and you'll find games are almost all price points, from über cheap indies at £5 and below, up through £10 and Walking Dead and The Wolf Within price ranges, up into the £30, £40 and GTA V ranges. Even on consoles there are middle ground titles like Ground Zeros and Transistor.
In the PS1 and PS2 days, Sony was mostly competing against Japanese devs who kind of dominated console development.
Around the turn of the century, you have major western devs in the midst of shifting from PC to consoles. Along with online play and other online features becoming standard on console last gen, those two events shifted the whole landscape of the console market.
Consoles became more PC like and more westernized. Sony seemed to realize this shift a bit early as it heavily invested in western studios starting near the release of the PS2. SuckerPunch, SanDiego Studios and SantaMonica Studios were all bought by Sony around 2000 and 2001, while the Foster City Studio was opened by Sony in 1998 with the express purpose of overseeing western third party devs working on first party titles.
Around the turn of the century, you have major western devs in the midst of shifting from PC to consoles. Along with online play and other online features becoming standard on console last gen, those two events shifted the whole landscape of the console market.
Consoles became more PC like and more westernized. Sony seemed to realize this shift a bit early as it heavily invested in western studios starting near the release of the PS2. SuckerPunch, SanDiego Studios and SantaMonica Studios were all bought by Sony around 2000 and 2001, while the Foster City Studio was opened by Sony in 1998 with the express purpose of overseeing western third party devs working on first party titles.
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