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Shinobi602 on the "lack" of First Party reveals by PlayStation: "I think some still haven't really grasped just how long big games take to make now"

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
First party published.

The question is what their first party developers are doing. ND just canceled Factions, so their next game is probably a couple of years away at least. Insomniac's venom is next year. Sucker Punch are developing Ghost 2 but that is probably not a 2024 game either.

Factions wasn’t the only game they were making. We know for several years that ND is working on some new IP. Factions was never a studio wide project.
 

nial

Gold Member
Stellar Blade is not first party.
Not you too, Danjin :confused:
But it is, it has XDEV JP involvement (which has people from previous Japan Studio departments), Sony producers and publishing. Not different from Bloodborne.
 
Meanwhile From Software putting out absolute classics on a yearly basis. Maybe don't make 200 hour open world games that all look and play the same?
Look, FROM is one of if not the best at timely releases for games and keeping them at high quality, but ER DLC is taking 2 years lol. ER is also, while a new IP, pretty much just Dark Souls 4 when it comes to gameplay.

Think I've said this in another thread recently but I don't understand why Sony gets so much shit for this. This is an industry wide problem. Outside of FROM and insomniac, I can't really think of any dev who produces high quality AAA games in a timely manner.
 

GHound

Gold Member
Not you too, Danjin :confused:
But it is, it has XDEV JP involvement (which has people from previous Japan Studio departments), Sony producers and publishing. Not different from Bloodborne.
Completely different from Bloodborne actually. Sony owns the Bloodborne IP, where Shift Up owns Stellar Blade.
 
I think things would improve if these developers stopped with their 100+ hour, huge open world, $500 million dollar, Hollywood style games with obligatory perfect voice acting, writing, storylines, etc. We need more games in between. Smaller games with a reasonable budget and more linear games. These indie, AA developers can make money off of Unreal 5 games that still look good and most AAA games seemingly have to sell millions just to break even.

That’s a colossal problem that generally contributes to the long development time. Yeah, I know modern gamers want huge epic adventures that have hundreds of hours of content, but are these games worth it when it’s typically to the detriment to the game and the game companies when they have to literally destroy themselves to create these games?
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Factions wasn’t the only game they were making. We know for several years that ND is working on some new IP. Factions was never a studio wide project.

If their MO is not showing games until they're a year or so away from release then there's little chance ND's new IP is releasing before late 2025 either.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Not you too, Danjin :confused:
But it is, it has XDEV JP involvement (which has people from previous Japan Studio departments), Sony producers and publishing. Not different from Bloodborne.
I would say the same about Bloodborne, FROM made that game great not Sony, same with Stellar Blade the credit goes to Shift Up more than Sony.
 
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RoboFu

One of the green rats
Yes games take long but also Sony is in charge of release schedules. They should know where gaps will be years before.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
Not you too, Danjin :confused:
But it is, it has XDEV JP involvement (which has people from previous Japan Studio departments), Sony producers and publishing. Not different from Bloodborne.

There is a distinction between a first party game and games from a first party studio.
 
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Loomy

Thinks Microaggressions are Real
It's not fine when 3rd party games are the most popular as you would need exclusives to make people play on your platform.
It's fine in the sense that studios are making games in the time that games take to make. Like I said, if a 15-20 hour AAA game takes 4-6 years to make, that's how long it takes.

Not sure what's taking longer compared to games 10 years ago. We're just playing more beautiful games but there's no difference in terms of what we're doing in those worlds nor how we're doing it. If anything, you'd expect them to develop tools to make games faster.
More beautiful takes more time. We're animating more of the character, which means it's taking longer to create the models, rig them, and animate them. We're building more complex scenes with more interactivity, that all takes time. Testing and QA takes more time. It gets to a point where you can't just throw more people at a problem.

Wouldn’t that be 2nd party then?. Idk can’t keep up sometimes. Definitely need to see what’s happening with their studios (where the fuck is ghosts 2)
Games published by Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony = First Party. Games published by anyone else = Third Party.

Do you think we see an ND game at the state of play?
No idea. Naughty Dog has been a very cautious studio when it comes to how how hard they push their people since the Uncharted 4/TLoU2 development. Those two games almost decimated them. Druckmann was the director of those two games and has been public about how he felt he failed in that regard, and now he's the co-studio head, so I'm guessing he's not going to put his people in a situation where they're going to have to kill themselves working to meet an arbitrary deadline. My guess is we see that game when it's a year out.

It's amazing that FF Rebirth was shipped in 3 years.
That one was over 4 years. Development started before Remake came out. There was an interview with Nomura, Uematsu, and Toriyama that came out around the time of Rebirth's release, and Nomura is already talking about how he just wants it to end.
 

Tomi

Member
AI changed that, development should be shorter by now...

They just milking old titles with remasters and remakes, free money
 
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MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
More games with PSX(low poly), Pixel Art, retro or hand drawn graphics would be nice. The audience is there.

So many games they could be making in the span of 4 months to a year and they simply choose not to with the resources they have at their disposal.

Meanwhile Indie devs put them to shame with stellar releases. And even the ones with small dev teams that take just as long to make AAA games in between 5-8 years make unforgettable experiences like Signalis(primarily 2 people).
 
Soony you will get games. Just play xbox games in the meantime.

Happens. Xbox is able to deliver games like clockwork after buying half the industry.

Expecting same from poor soony is just unfair.
 

nial

Gold Member
Completely different from Bloodborne actually. Sony owns the Bloodborne IP, where Shift Up owns Stellar Blade.
IP ownership literally has nothing to do with the first-party matter. Especially since SIE has always produced games of IPs they don't own, and they've always been considered first-party.
I would say the same about Bloodborne, FROM made that game great not Sony, same with Stellar Blade the credit goes to Shift Up more than Sony.
And you could argue that Bloodborne would have never existed without Sony. I agree that the developer should get most of the credit, but that is without negating its status as a first-party project.
 

Saber

Member
They want graphical showcases with no substance and not being fun at all, while costs them not only alot of time but a bunch of money(soecially the motion capture stuff). "But then people complain about visuals", bitch please art direction beats any kind of stupid photorealistic graphics.
Maybe they need to refocus their priorities. Until then, I stick with East games.
 
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S0ULZB0URNE

Member
I get why people are disappointed

But calling it unacceptable made me laugh out loud
It's unacceptable compared to previous generations (as in more than one gen) output.
I would say the same about Bloodborne, FROM made that game great not Sony, same with Stellar Blade the credit goes to Shift Up more than Sony.

Bloodborne IP is owned by Sony, it is a first party game. You're confusing first party games with studios.
Correct it's Sony owned and wasn't just From who made it.

Speaking of Bloodborne...
Where is my sequel? Where is the remake?
No Demon's Souls 2?
Disappointing
 
It's fine in the sense that studios are making games in the time that games take to make. Like I said, if a 15-20 hour AAA game takes 4-6 years to make, that's how long it takes.


More beautiful takes more time. We're animating more of the character, which means it's taking longer to create the models, rig them, and animate them. We're building more complex scenes with more interactivity, that all takes time. Testing and QA takes more time. It gets to a point where you can't just throw more people at a problem.


Games published by Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony = First Party. Games published by anyone else = Third Party.


No idea. Naughty Dog has been a very cautious studio when it comes to how how hard they push their people since the Uncharted 4/TLoU2 development. Those two games almost decimated them. Druckmann was the director of those two games and has been public about how he felt he failed in that regard, and now he's the co-studio head, so I'm guessing he's not going to put his people in a situation where they're going to have to kill themselves working to meet an arbitrary deadline. My guess is we see that game when it's a year out.


That one was over 4 years. Development started before Remake came out. There was an interview with Nomura, Uematsu, and Toriyama that came out around the time of Rebirth's release, and Nomura is already talking about how he just wants it to end.
Well they had to ship the DLC first. In interviews they say shipped in 3 years.

Regardless 3 or 4 years it's still insane it was developed in that time frame.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
And you could argue that Bloodborne would have never existed without Sony. I agree that the developer should get most of the credit, but that is without negating its status as a first-party project.
My original post is about me losing interest in Sony own games made by their own Studio, not Sony fund games.
 

skit_data

Member
Can't see the problem yet really. We got some crossgen games but the PS5 versions so far have looked arguably better than many PS5 only games.

Edit: I find GT7 a prime example of this. Last gen I was playing GT6 on my PS3 still if you were to align the console releases xD
 
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nial

Gold Member
My original post is about me losing interest in Sony own games made by their own Studio, not Sony fund games.
Which is fine, but I think you weren't clear with that part and got me confused for a moment.
Mum wake up Gaf is arguing over the semantics of a first party game again
Tom Hardy GIF

It's a war, I'm never stopping.
 
Not every game needs a movie budget.
The pace they release games is disappointing and unacceptable.
This. I would have being more interested by a smaller Ratchet and Clank game than by those bloated Spider-man games. Same thing with Sucker Punch unused IPs (Sly, Infamous), instead they are in pursuit of doing a big and bland Ubisoft-like open world IP that would potentially make them more money.

Also even God of War on PS4 was the right size and didn't cost a lot back then. Who decided to 5x the budget for Ragnarok, and where is the money? The game is worse.
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Dark Souls is Demon’s Souls 2, the reason is not called Demons Souls 2 because Sony own the IP and FROM wanted release their game to other systems.
Sony can have another Demon's Souls made with or without FromSoftware if they choose is my point.
Dark Souls is the spiritual predecessor not sequel.
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
Agreed. And when we do get games, they are bloated with too much content and overstay their welcome. Ghosts of Tsushima would have been better if it had half the side content and could have had a shorter story. If you want to reuse assets release a follow up a few years later with the other half of the content.
Well, I think you nailed it and I'll keep that reasoning for myself: AAA try to put two games together in a single entry in 5 years, instead of halving the content and release a new entry every three years.

They should reuse more and do less but more focused so most probably each individual part will be if much better quality.
 

Fbh

Member
Look, FROM is one of if not the best at timely releases for games and keeping them at high quality, but ER DLC is taking 2 years lol. ER is also, while a new IP, pretty much just Dark Souls 4 when it comes to gameplay.

Think I've said this in another thread recently but I don't understand why Sony gets so much shit for this. This is an industry wide problem. Outside of FROM and insomniac, I can't really think of any dev who produces high quality AAA games in a timely manner.

In between Elden Ring and the DLC they also released a whole new game in the form of Armored Core 6. And the ER DLC is likely going to have a whole game worth of content in it.
Also it's not like Sony studios are revolutionizing gameplay either. GOW Ragnarok, Spiderman 2, Ratchet, Forbidden West, etc were all the very definition of more of the same. Many of them are based on pre established fromulas too, Spiderman is clearly heavily inspired by the Arkham Games in structure, combat and stealth, Forbidden West and Ghost of Tsushima are basically Ubisoft games with slightly better combat and writing, etc.

Not sure what's taking longer compared to games 10 years ago. We're just playing more beautiful games but there's no difference in terms of what we're doing in those worlds nor how we're doing it. If anything, you'd expect them to develop tools to make games faster.

I think length is definitely a factor.
GOW3 was 10 hours long, Gow Ragnarok is 26 for the main story alone with another 15-20 worth of side content
Uncharted 2 was 10 hours long, TLOU 2 is 22 hours + another 5 or so of optional content (no multiplayer though, which Uncharted did have).
Infamous Second Son was 10 hours + 5 hours of side content, Ghost of Tsushima is 25 hours + 20 of side content.

Incidentally the only Sony studio that seems to release games at a fast and consistent pace is Insomniac and their games are on the shorter side. Ratchet was 10 hours, Miles Morales was 8-10 hours and even Spiderman 2 was on the shorter end of modern AAA games with a main story under 20 hours
 
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Banjo64

cumsessed
Everyone has grasped the situation Sony have got themselves in to regarding development costs and times.

I think people are just in disbelief that they have allowed this to happen without having an ace up their sleeve.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Sony can have another Demon's Souls made with or without FromSoftware if they choose is my point.
Dark Souls is the spiritual predecessor not sequel.
But ”sequel” to Demons Souls is essentially would just Dark Souls. That game basically took Demons Souls and improved up on it……there is no point to it.

Bloodborne would be more understandable because mechanically is different enough from Demon’s/Dark Souls.
 

Draugoth

Gold Member
Look, FROM is one of if not the best at timely releases for games and keeping them at high quality, but ER DLC is taking 2 years lol. ER is also, while a new IP, pretty much just Dark Souls 4 when it comes to gameplay.

Think I've said this in another thread recently but I don't understand why Sony gets so much shit for this. This is an industry wide problem. Outside of FROM and insomniac, I can't really think of any dev who produces high quality AAA games in a timely manner.

Shadow f Erdtree took 2 years because it's basically Elden Ring 1.5
 
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S0ULZB0URNE

Member
But ”sequel” to Demons Souls is essentially would just Dark Souls. That game basically took Demons Souls and improved up on it……there is no point to it.

Bloodborne would be more understandable because mechanically is different enough from Demon’s/Dark Souls.
Many want a Demon's Souls 2 is the point to it.
Sony doesn't own the rights to the widely popular Dark Souls series but they do own Demon's Souls so money is to be made.

Demon's Souls has a feel of its own.

A Bloodborne 2 or Demon's Souls 2 made by From and Bluepoint would be special.
 

IDappa

Member
This is litteraly a owned IP from PlayStaton. (like Death Stranding)
Games published by Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony = First Party. Games published by anyone else = Third Party.

It would not, because no one in the industry uses that term.
I have seen the term 2nd party thrown around here for years and doing a quick search online shows that it is a term used for games that are developed by 3rd party devs but funded by the publisher. Since when has this changed?. I mean isn’t it sort of in the name, 1st party implies owned ip/studio…
 
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