Towards the middle portion of the seventh generation, Sony regained their footing in the platform race against the Xbox 360 by placing greater focus on big time exclusives. Games like Heavy Rain, the Uncharted series, and The Last of Us achieved high critical acclaim and sold millions, pushing the appeal of the PlayStation 3. Doubling down on those exclusives throughout the life of the PlayStation 4 paid big dividends, as 2018's God of War from Santa Monica Studios took home Game of the Year honors. Sony's narrative-driven games have become a formula for success and their Hollywood-style presentation of their exclusives has been a staple that defines them.

Internally, it seems the message is Sony wants to go even further with their brand and place greater emphasis on the western style titles they're known for. However, this creative direction has seemed to cause unrest within the company and their priorities on high-end game development leaves little attention for some of the smaller projects from Sony's in-house studios and development teams. 

As reported by Jason Schreier for Bloomberg, Sony's internal team, Visual Arts Service Group, were often tasked with providing tail-end production and finishing work on games like Spider-Man and Uncharted, jobs like motion capture, cinematics, and scanning. They were slated to work on a remake of The Last of Us (it's puzzling, but it will sell because of its name) for the PS5, but Sony neglected the team and took them off the project, handing the reigns to original creator Naughty Dog. Visual Service Arts largely disbanded as a result. This news also follows the reports that Bend Studio's hopes of a follow-up to 2019's Days Gone. Commercially, it was successful, but critical reception was lukewarm, with aggregated scores across websites sitting around a 6.5 or a 7. While Days Gone is optimized to run on the PlayStation 5 with much better performance, it fell out out of the cycle of titles that Sony pushed and marketed. This is an indicator that the PlayStation brand places a lot of emphasis on those high reviewer scores and buzz, and if any of their releases don't garner that post-release enthusiasm, it's likely to not be a part of future plans. Sony wants big hits. Remember when The Order: 1886 was supposed to be the beginning of a franchise? Until middling reviews of what was a pretty average game put an indefinite end to those talks.

The Japanese conglomerate owns about a dozen studios across the world as part of its PlayStation Studios label", Schreier reported, "but in recent years it has prioritized games made by its most successful developers. Studios such as Santa Monica, California-based Naughty Dog and Amsterdam-based Guerrilla Games spend tens of millions of dollars to make games with the expectation that the investments will pay off exponentially. And they usually do."

Sony's aim throughout the life of the PlayStation 5 is to gear it towards "hardcore" gamers, a statement they made in 2019. I feel that's loosely translated to more western market, and their blockbuster Hollywood-style titles that place great emphasis on stories and cinematic presentation. Back in February, SIE Japan, producers of Knack, The Last Guardian, and Shadow of the Colossus, was shuttering down and absorbing its talent in efforts to streamline production. And last week, Sony reorganized development offices that wear responsible for titles like Gravity Rush and Everybody's Golf, critically acclaimed releases, but not quite big sellers. Bloomberg reports the company no longer wants to produce titles that are only successful in Japan.

The PlayStation will definitely sustain success from its high-end, commercially successful releases. Those titles, however, are pretty far in between each other. Within those gaps, a console's library is generally fleshed out with various mid-level, but solid games that makes a platform unique. It feels rather disingenuous and close-minded of Sony to declare games from studios that showcase diversity aren't necessary. There's very strange decisions going on behind the scenes, and while it's not going to tank the PlayStation 5 (it's selling very well), these are moves that run the risk of alienating an audience, and it might come back to bite them.

SOURCE: Bloomberg, Jason Schreier