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Sony's Indie Love-in: Why their Gamescom Strategy was Legit

Amir0x

Banned

what in the world... well, good shit.

LiquidMetal14 said:
I've got Killzone and the PS4 Eye pre-ordered. The kids are going to love it and the spec of the camera is actually quite decent. 720p @60fps is a huge step up from the PS3 Eye.

I plan on getting Minecraft and a few PSN games day 1 alongside the free Plus freebies.

I got... let's see... the PS4 itself, Knack, Killzone, DriveClub, Watch Dogs and ACIV pre-ordered. Although my fiancee is buying the games with her money as a sort of few-weeks-early birthday gift (my birthday is Nov 24).
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
what in the world... well, good shit.



I got... let's see... the PS4 itself, Knack, Killzone, DriveClub, Watch Dogs and ACIV pre-ordered. Although my fiancee is buying the games with her money as a sort of few-weeks-early birthday gift (my birthday is Nov 24).

Lucky dog. I'm undecided but I will be playing Drive Club but since you are getting it I might invest in the full version at the discounted plus price but I want The Crew a little more so I don't want to over saturate myself with racers. Gonna be a good launch. Knack looks fun so I hope they have a few demos on day 1 as well.
 
To be frank, I go where the indies go. A lot of these indie games are reminiscent of oddball Sega and Sony games from the past. Experimental, artistic, and gameplay you would never see in a triple A title. Sony realized they were onto something when Journey won Game of the Year awards and titles like Super Stardust HD, Flower, Dead Nation, etc. were runaway, bonafide hits.
 
DUDE please announce a PS4 MLB game right here in this topic, I want to see it so bad :(

;)

If their past is anything to go by then you should probably expect the announcement in November. So it really isn't that long of a wait until it's unveiled. I'm really interested in seeing how much they improve their animation and lighting engine. Both of which are some of the best in the industry.
 

BakedYams

Slayer of Combofiends
PS4 ever since it was announced. Xbox One ain't gonna be bad but with how they handle their consumers and my bad experiences with the Xbox 360 and awesome one's with the PS3. It was only natural!
 

Becky

Banned
To be frank, I go where the indies go. A lot of these indie games are reminiscent of oddball Sega and Sony games from the past. Experimental, artistic, and gameplay you would never see in a triple A title. Sony realized they were onto something when Journey won Game of the Year awards and titles like Super Stardust HD, Flower, Dead Nation, etc. were runaway, bonafide hits.

So you had a 360 last gen then.
 

Superflat

Member
I'm perfectly fine with Sony's current strategy. I firmly believe that indie devs of today will be making larger games in the future, bringing new blood into our studios. I also feel that the current line up of first party titles are just right, no more, no less. I want to buy third party games too afterall, and I only have so much money I want to spend when I buy a PS4.

The huge number of indie games coming to the platform makes sure there's plenty of offerings that don't break the bank. I might have filled my quota of 60 dollar retail games, but the swaths of 10-to-20 dollar games are really tempting for me to spend some more money for those.

After what Shu said about holding off on game reveals that aren't totally ready to be shown, I hope that means Ready at Dawn's The Order is well on its way to release sometime next year.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Lucky dog. I'm undecided but I will be playing Drive Club but since you are getting it I might invest in the full version at the discounted plus price but I want The Crew a little more so I don't want to over saturate myself with racers. Gonna be a good launch. Knack looks fun so I hope they have a few demos on day 1 as well.

Plus Resogun comes free with PS+ at launch, right? So we'll all be getting that one.

I really just like the whole concept behind DriveClub and have been pretty positive about it from day one. I can't wait to start a club or join one and rule the roads :D

To be frank, I go where the indies go. A lot of these indie games are reminiscent of oddball Sega and Sony games from the past. Experimental, artistic, and gameplay you would never see in a triple A title. Sony realized they were onto something when Journey won Game of the Year awards and titles like Super Stardust HD, Flower, Dead Nation, etc. were runaway, bonafide hits.

Yeah, and when they saw the emergent trends continue to circle indie releases and turn them into great successes. It really just changes the name of the game to have these companies so involved in the indie process.

If their past is anything to go by then you should probably expect the announcement in November. So it really isn't that long of a wait until it's unveiled. I'm really interested in seeing how much they improve their animation and lighting engine. Both of which are some of the best in the industry.

Ah, didn't know that they had a consistent reveal strategy on MLB. In that case, November is going to be amazing... although will they really reveal this November considering it will probably be drowned out by PS4 launch news?

Becky said:
So you had a 360 last gen then.

I know I did. I purchased almost every indie game that wasn't exclusive to another platform before I got a gaming level PC near the end of the gen.
 
Nice OP...

I'm still not too convinced Sony's strategy will drive them to market leadership status again though. Game developers drive the industry, but money truly directs it, and MS seems to be moving there money around very strategically. Few examples include...

-FIFA bundle for pre-orders
-likely a larger budget marketing campaign
-NFL adversting the One as the official game platform
-EA sports commercials advertising Kinect/and the XB1 TV features

I know, ppl don't like to play the evil vs. good corporation stuff, but it really seems more appropriate, at least from a gamer's perspective that PS4 or WiiU should lead the market. Shouldn't we want a focused gaming machine on top? And it just seems like MS may eventually come out on top in all this with clever marketing and endorsements.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Digging up, I found these quotes from Yoshida telling:

"We started preparing for the Gamescom press conference after we finished E3, and at that point, we had no idea what we'd be able to announce from these smaller teams," Yoshida said. "It was only a couple of weeks ago that I was informed by our third party teams that this was the lineup of games we had prepared. I was like, 'Oh! That's amazing.'"

Those titles aren't just catalog filler, though. Everyone has a chance to create a console's killer app, Yoshida said; even a small team with a handful of employees and meager budget.

"I think it's fair to say that every game has a chance once it's released and more people have a chance to play it," Yoshida said.

"Looking back, like last year, Journey got a lot of Game of the Year awards, competing against bigger titles like Call of Duty," he added. "So that tells something, that even smaller titles have similar, big impact to consumers. What we're so excited about in the indie scene is the abundance of these potential, really creative people."

Link

So this mirrors a lot of what I've been saying. Sony also believes that retail or digital, a market disruptor can come from any place... and they also believe that these developers are a potential future talent pool for Sony themselves.

Their strategy is pretty unassailable at the moment, imo.

Omnistalgic said:
And it just seems like MS may eventually come out on top in all this.

Well, currently every single indicator we have suggests the opposite, so unless everyone who has been sourced to date is wrong, at least in the first year, Microsoft is going to have to struggle to regain their reputation on the fuller market. That said, this is obviously not important... if Xbox One develops into a healthy platform and has a good place for indies, that's better for us and indie developers. :)
 

Bundy

Banned
If their past is anything to go by then you should probably expect the announcement in November. So it really isn't that long of a wait until it's unveiled. I'm really interested in seeing how much they improve their animation and lighting engine. Both of which are some of the best in the industry.
Yoshida should allow them to get a second team. Their MLB games are amazing.
But doing MLB games all the time and nothing else.... I hope they get a second team.
They've proved themselves!
 
In a world where indies are released on a gaming ecosystem that doesn't distinguish between AAA releases and indie games in the traditional sense, prices run the entire gamut. Indie games almost never cost as much as a retail game. They vary wildly in terms of content for the price you pay, but you can find things for 99 cents and you can find things for $60 and every range in between. In short, it's a range that is accommodating for the widest potential range of economic situations. But there is something else that indie games accommodate that is also music to the ears of many gamers in this community.

I agree that variable pricing is great and really needed right now, but Sony did distinguish indie and the big games, indie games got it's own tab on psn store, although imo, at this point, indie label is more like marketing label. maybe the word indie has become marketable buzzword that sony create a separate section on psn store dedicating to indie so people can find indie games easier, even though pretty much all the games under 'indie' label are also in the 'psn games' label.

one thing I was wondering though, do you think price for indie games will go up? if you look at some of the production value some of these indie games have, they are really good, sometimes even better than low budget retail games that still sold for $60. I think games like Rime, if it was announced for retail, people would accept if it cost $50-$60. after all, the game look like ICO, and ICO is a full priced retail games at it's time and it's not like ICO is a long game, probably not that different with Rime length wise. but now that it's been revealed as digital download game, I think most of us expect Rime to cost under $20

now who really cares if the game is sold for cheap, it's great for us. but I've been thinking that games price need to be more varied, more mid tier pricing between $15 digital download game and $60 retail game. we need the $30-$40 games. Sony is aware of this and already pricing some of their PS3 games in that price, Sly is $40 and it works well for them, now upcoming Puppeteer are also sold at $40. so we have the typically $60 big retail games sold for $40, now what about the other end of the spectrum, how about $30 digital downloadable game that is bigger and longer or with better presentation that normal.

you mention that today's indie studio could be tomorrow's AAA studio, I was hoping the same thing, if indie games make a hit game, expand and make bigger game, at some point the price probably have to go up too. are we ready for $30 'indie' games?
 

jackb2424

Banned
I completely agree with the OP. I feel like what Sony did with the PS3 is show that their 1st party studios are the best when it comes to showcasing versatility and console capabilities. Now with the PS4 on the horizon it is such a brilliant move to keep the big guns for later. When ever they ND or SSM reveal their new projects, and we know that they are coming, it will be a spectacular showing. I know ND and SSM aren't just sitting around sitting on their hands. While those guys get their projects ready Indies will fill that void of gaming drought that hit so many time this gen. I certainly don't need every game made to be a AAA balls to the wall blockbuster. Imagine if we only got movies like Transformers but no Shawshank Redemption.
 

Victrix

*beard*
That comment from Yoshida re: Journey vs CoD

... sometimes I wonder if upper management is blind to the impact of anything but sales. I don't weigh two titles against each other on anything other than their own merits. I don't care what the budget was, I don't care how big or small the dev team was, I only care if the game was good, and that tends to be almost completely independant of the budget thrown at a game.

Developer tends to matter a hell of a lot more than budget. Really good developers have made really good games for a long time, whether they are (or were) big or small. Does the success of Halo or the hype for Destiny make me forget the story teller from the black company pc edition Myth? Not so much.

I've spent time playing tiny little indie games or completely free games side by side with the biggest games of the year, and sometimes its gameplay concepts from those games that stick with me more than the super polished focus tested on rails 8 hour hollywood experience.

Magic happens when really good developers get really big budgets, but while the magnitude and intensity of the experience might change, the quality level typically does not.

Anyway. Just a thought, execs beholden to shareholders usually can't share their actual opinions on stuff, but its annoying that this seems like some sort of a revelation at all. It's not, shouldn't be, and hasn't ever really been so.

The genesis of many games that now top the sales charts are rooted in the dna of past games, many of which were smaller, low or no budget titles that may not have had any mindshare at all when they came out. From that perspective, it seems like completely common sense that encouraging the growth of a game catalog that requires a pittance of investment from their end for potentially massive rewards.

You only need a handful of breakout indie titles creating a sensation to justify a sea of smaller titles.

edit: Let me boil that down to a one liner. New IP and indie development is the R&D cost of healthy and sustainable game development. Sequels will keep the shareholders happy, but done too much for long and you kill the golden goose from customer fatigue or indifference. Very few series are evergreen Madden franchises. From that perspective encouraging and supporting an ecosystem of experimentation doesn't seem like a breakthrough, it seems like bedrock level business planning.
 

Amir0x

Banned
I agree that variable pricing is great and really needed right now, but Sony did distinguish indie and the big games, indie games got it's own tab on psn store, although imo, at this point, indie label is more like marketing label. maybe the word indie has become marketable buzzword that sony create a separate section on psn store dedicating to indie so people can find indie games easier, even though pretty much all the games under 'indie' label are also in the 'psn games' label.

I thought the PS4 store was going to be different in that regard? I know Microsoft's is...

one thing I was wondering though, do you think price for indie games will go up? if you look at some of the production value some of these indie games have, they are really good, sometimes even better than low budget retail games that still sold for $60. I think games like Rime, if it was announced for retail, people would accept if it cost $50-$60. after all, the game look like ICO, and ICO is a full priced retail games at it's time and it's not like ICO is a long game, probably not that different with Rime length wise. but now that it's been revealed as digital download game, I think most of us expect Rime to cost under $20

I mean, indie games have never really had a single set price, so of course I don't see any reason why some indie game couldn't be $29.99 and be a perfectly legit offering. I hope there are those titles and every type of title from here to $60. Payday 2 is $39.99, right? Although I guess that's not really indie... but it does show there is room for every type of price range, if the offering is right.
 

Raymo

Member

I still don't understand how this happened. Microsoft announces Minecraft on Xbox One at E3, leading everyone to believe it is another timed exclusive type situation. Except it isn't coming out til 2014 and Sony now announces Minecraft as a PS4 LAUNCH title. That's nuts and a huge slip up by MS to allow Sony to beat them to launch.
 

Bundy

Banned
I still don't understand how this happened. Microsoft announces Minecraft on Xbox One at E3, leading everyone to believe it is another timed exclusive type situation. Except it isn't coming out til 2014 and Sony now announces Minecraft as a PS4 LAUNCH title. That's nuts and a huge slip up by MS to allow Sony to beat them to launch.
Maybe they just had a deal with MS for the Xbox 360. The (timed exclusive) deal with MS expired and SONY made a new deal with them :p Who knows?!
 
I thought the PS4 store was going to be different in that regard? I know Microsoft's is...



I mean, indie games have never really had a single set price, so of course I don't see any reason why some indie game couldn't be $29.99 and be a perfectly legit offering. I hope there are those titles and every type of title from here to $60. Payday 2 is $39.99, right? Although I guess that's not really indie... but it does show there is room for every type of price range, if the offering is right.

I think the indie label thing is just for marketing though, I dont think there's a difference policy wise between payday 2 and spelunky. Looks like something that can easily be removed in the future without impacting indie games.

I don't know if we're ready to accept $30 indie games though, probably gonna be backlash involved. I guess they have to do it step by step, digital indie games used to sell at $10 if I remember right, now $15 is almost the standard.
 
I still don't understand how this happened. Microsoft announces Minecraft on Xbox One at E3, leading everyone to believe it is another timed exclusive type situation. Except it isn't coming out til 2014 and Sony now announces Minecraft as a PS4 LAUNCH title. That's nuts and a huge slip up by MS to allow Sony to beat them to launch.

Isn't there rumor during e3 that ms paid third party to not mention or shown miltiplatform game on ps4? Everyone assumd it's one of the big publisher like ea, capcom, etc. Maybe it's actually minecraft.
 

Bundy

Banned
Isn't there rumor during e3 that ms paid third party to not mention or shown miltiplatform game on ps4? Everyone assumd it's one of the big publisher like ea, capcom, etc. Maybe it's actually minecraft.
Well, they have a $$$ deal with EA.
That's the reason why you don't see any EA people on the latest PS4/SONY conferences.
 

aly

Member
When sony understands why this is indie love and theirs is not will be a good world to live =3

What are we suppose to be looking at here?

Anyway I love their strategy. Some of the reactions after gamescom were disappointing to read. I've had way more fun with those smaller titles than some big AAA games these past few years. Not to mention Sony's first party studies have shown time and time again that they know what they're doing.
 
What are we suppose to be looking at here?

Anyway I love their strategy. Some of the reactions after gamescom were disappointing to read. I've had way more fun with those smaller titles than some big AAA games these past few years. Not to mention Sony's first party studies have shown time and time again that they know what they're doing.

I love their strategy, assault cactus, hell divers, and galak z is now some of my most wanted ps4 game
 

Bundy

Banned
I love their strategy, assault cactus, hell divers, and galak z is now some of my most wanted ps4 game

Don't forget "Hohokum".
Destructoid's Jordan Devore called Hohokum the "most relaxing game" of E3

ibsU4xBUiOhaCd.gif

Neogaf Link
 
Excellent topic, Amir0x. You and a lot of others in this topic have really hit the nail on the head as to why indies are a good thing for both the PS4 and the industry as a whole. Aside from the whole "we support used games" announcement at E3, seeing all of those indie games on stage was easily my favorite moment from Sony's conference. Doing stuff like that at both E3 and Gamescom really shows that Sony does care about these devs, imo. I can't wait to play The Witness, Octodad, and all the other crazy games on my PS4. :)
 

Darknight

Member
All great replies from Amirox, Y2Kev and Famousmoretimer.

Logic apparently doesnt apply to some people and will keep downplaying the new influx of game software due to indie devs. Apparently those arent "real" games and only AAA big hollywood type game count, even if they are shit games from your standard publisher....

Great OP Amirox. Lots of great info and great discussion can be had from this!
 

Amir0x

Banned
I still don't understand how this happened. Microsoft announces Minecraft on Xbox One at E3, leading everyone to believe it is another timed exclusive type situation. Except it isn't coming out til 2014 and Sony now announces Minecraft as a PS4 LAUNCH title. That's nuts and a huge slip up by MS to allow Sony to beat them to launch.

I can't believe I missed that news. That is really bizarre. Would love to hear the behind the scenes story if there is one.

I wonder if Minecraft will be under 20? I hope it's a little discounted or at last cross buy.

It's $20 in physical release form on 360, right? Don't see why it would not at least match or be under that price.

Excellent topic, Amir0x. You and a lot of others in this topic have really hit the nail on the head as to why indies are a good thing for both the PS4 and the industry as a whole. Aside from the whole "we support used games" announcement at E3, seeing all of those indie games on stage was easily my favorite moment from Sony's conference. Doing stuff like that at both E3 and Gamescom really shows that Sony does care about these devs, imo. I can't wait to play The Witness, Octodad, and all the other crazy games on my PS4. :)

Yup. It has what has got me more and more engaged in the PS4 as a system, because I think if we had just a few indie games here and there and the games we currently have announced in terms of their first party AAA titles, I'd be a bit more reserved in my anticipation.
 

Shig

Strap on your hooker ...
There's one big reason they're cultivating a big indie push right out the gate that seems to have been completely glossed over here: PS4 is going to be rolling out the PS+ service with its cycle of free games from day one. There's no delayed rollout where they can pick and pull from a catalog of titles whose sales have largely fallen off, like PS3 and Vita had when PS+ rolled out on those platforms. They have to pick games to give away gratis in a period where everything's new and nothing's "run its course." Clearly, putting up full retail games for free quickly stands to cut the legs off their sales something fierce... and in a launch window, the risk of burning a significant portion of early adopters on the whole idea of buying new games right away is super-high when there's relatively few retail games out there to pick from, any game you pick is going to be something a fair number of owners of the system will have just bought.

This danger is exacerbated by PS+ being a service that a much, much larger portion of the console's audience will have due to being tied to multiplayer play. Sony needs to put a good foot forward in their selections to let the audience who had been ignoring PS+ know that, hey, it's a great program worth paying for... But they essentially have to do it without any reliance on full retail titles for at least a good half-year to a year. There's the odd half-step like DriveClub+, but that genre's content drip is a fit for piecemeal delivery system, one that many other genres wouldn't translate nearly as easily to. Low-priced indies are really the only clear avenue they have to feature that won't result in them taking the piss out of a full retail title. The more they hoard for launch window, the lesser the collective moan of "but I already BOUGHT that!" when they reveal each month's PS+ freebies.
 

Coiote

Member
Great post, couldn't agree more, made me even want to contribute with some personal testimony(as a player, not a dev).

This current generation was the first in which I managed to own all the consoles(Ps360, Wii, Ds, PSP and a decent pc), something I may never want to repeat again. I love gaming, but it was inhumanly impossible to have the time to play on all the systems decently. For this reason, I made my mind I would only buy the best reviewed games, the dreadful AAA. It didn't take long for me to grow bored with them, as they were mostly just reskins of a already popular game. In the end, I was so tired that I thought I was growing too old to play games.

This changed when I started to pay more attention to the little donwloadable gems that started to break the bank on steam, live and psn. I loved them and it's the solely reason I still play games now. They even lessen my fatigue with AAA games. The only reason I managed to finish and enjoy a linear shootbang like Bioshock Infinite was because I was playing less games in this vein and more indie titles, desaturating me of that kind of experience.

I can't for the life of me understand how can someone criticize Sony's Indie Focus, specially when it's so common to see the very same people say how tired they are of the annualized AAA offerings.

With the right pricing and regular sales(something we are already seeing on vita), I can see these games doing increasingly well on PS4. What worries me though is that they are the final nail in the coffin for AA games. Remember that full priced and short single player only Platinum game you love so much? Well, it will bomb even harder on next gen, because these short priced downloadable will destroy the Its value proposition even more. Boxed AA releases will need some sort of variable pricing to survive next gen. Hell, they already need it in this gen.
 

Muzy72

Banned
Is it weird that I don't buy AAA games and only care for more, for lack of a better word, creative titles?

I loved the games Sony showed off at their press conference. The conference itself was boring as fuck as most Sony conferences are, but the games were fantastic. Love the indie focus.
 
But again, that really isn't true. Both platform holders are constrained in what their first party studios can deliver in the first 6 or 12 months. MS is filling teh gap by funding Ryse, DR3, Titanfall, Sunset Overdrive, Quantum Break etc. That's an expensive strategy that Sony can't/won't match. Instead they're rolling out the We Luv Indies "strategy". I'm skeptical that it will sell a lot of consoles.

Don't get me wrong, I think Sony has a massive upper hand right now. But their "indie strategy" is not the reason for it.

Absolute drivel. Most of those games are second party titles, an area where Sony have always done well, so you can cross those off your ridiculous "too expensive" list.

That leaves DR3, a third party exclusive, and Titanfall, a third party timed exclusive. Do you really think Sony couldn't afford to moneyhat Capcom and/or EA if they wanted to? Come on. The far more likely reason is that Sony simply sees those deals as a waste of money, as those series are never going to stay exclusive anyway. Their money is better spent on first or second party games that will actually stay exclusive.

When sony understands why this is indie love and theirs is not will be a good world to live =3

I honestly thought you were being sarcastic until I had a look through your post history and saw this.

Anyway, fantastic OP, Amir0x. I really enjoyed reading through it and completely agree on all points.
 
They also announced PS4 Twitch integration and almost everyone thought that would be a XB1 exclusive too. So they not only announced new games, but they also took two things from MS that were considered console exclusive lol

But I think the reason the XB1 version is delayed is, because it is the "Xbox One Edition". Probably some exclusive nonsense (bigger maps apparently).
 

meta4

Junior Member
If anyone thinks MS can overcome Sony on the AAA front based on what has been shown they are delusional. Sony has far too many AAA studios currently for MS to even come close. A single ND teaser alone will generate more hype than any of the MS owned games so far. Infact what is even worse is games like Sunset Overdrive is an IP owned by IG that can become miultiplat. Titanfall will become multiplat etc..

Honestly I am disappointed at all the MS exclusives shown so far. They showed their hand and I am not hyped so far based on the trailers. Infamous seems so much better than any of the MS owned IP's shown so far.
 
So I guess I was the only one who was totally pissed off after Sony conference to the point where i cancelled pre-order for my PS4 (and it was just after e3 preorder so i was getting it on release day) ?

Indies are cool but i don't need to buy PS4 to play them - nearly everything annouced is coming to PSV/PS3 and/or PC.
AAA third party games are cool but I'm going to get them on my PC and trust me i won't have to settle for BF4 to run at 720p to get 60 fps.
So yeah for me not even a single trailer from Naughty Dog/Santa Monica/someone else was huge disapointment.

Why bother buying day 1 edition when it will be blood bath if i can wait untill slow parts of 2014 and get it when retailers start to compete for sales since there's no interesting content on start ?
 
So I guess I was the only one who was totally pissed off after Sony conference to the point where i cancelled pre-order for my PS4 (and it was just after e3 preorder so i was getting it on release day) ?

Indies are cool but i don't need to buy PS4 to play them - nearly everything annouced is coming to PSV/PS3 and/or PC.
AAA third party games are cool but I'm going to get them on my PC and trust me i won't have to settle for BF4 to run at 720p to get 60 fps.
So yeah for me not even a single trailer from Naughty Dog/Santa Monica/someone else was huge disapointment.

Why bother buying day 1 edition when it will be blood bath if i can wait untill slow parts of 2014 and get it when retailers start to compete for sales since there's no interesting content on start ?


EmptySpace believes that just because a game has an AAA budget does not automatically mean it is going to be good or great.

He also thinks the overwhelmingly majority of the 80+ million target audience of the PS4 do not game on PCs, therefore most (if not all) of the indies and multiplats will be first-time experiences for dozens of millions of people.
 
I honestly thought you were being sarcastic until I had a look through your post history and saw this.

Anyway, fantastic OP, Amir0x. I really enjoyed reading through it and completely agree on all points.

I am happy that there are lots of indies coming to the vita and ps3... but I am not feeling the way Sony (and microsoft) is "embracing" indies.

First, they are shown like some kind of special group of games to atract hipsters, and not actual games like every other

And second, look at this list, they don't want TRUE INDIES, they want proven indies that sell =P
Starbound, Fez, Rogue Legacy, Minecraft, Hotline Miami 2, Binding of Isaac... it is VERY EASY to acept those indies to your console.

Holy crap!
 

Amir0x

Banned
I honestly thought you were being sarcastic until I had a look through your post history and saw this.

Anyway, fantastic OP, Amir0x. I really enjoyed reading through it and completely agree on all points.

Thanks on the compliment Liquid. Seriously though, holy DAMN @ him being serious then. I can't even... like, what? They're only supporting the indie game hipsters like? I genuinely don't even know how to respond. Maybe I should be glad he didn't expand on his point, although I genuinely encourage him to share and perhaps add to the idea so we could discuss it. I can only imagine it's due to ignorance one arrives at such a conclusion.

Paz's remarkable story is one of dozens of such testimonials I've read since PS4 has been announced about how Sony is doing everything but pay off indie developer's homes to encourage them to make games on the platform. I'm not sure how they can not be considered welcoming. Sure, Nintendo is also welcoming to indies - not trying to take that away from them, and I mentioned it a few times in this topic - but... completing his thought and following him down that road I cannot.

They also announced PS4 Twitch integration and almost everyone thought that would be a XB1 exclusive too. So they not only announced new games, but they also took two things from MS that were considered console exclusive lol

But I think the reason the XB1 version is delayed is, because it is the "Xbox One Edition". Probably some exclusive nonsense (bigger maps apparently).

I'm glad they got Twitch because the refrain from some groups after E3 was "sure Sony has the superior integrated game recording functionality, but you have to upload it to an inferior place like UStream!"

So I guess I was the only one who was totally pissed off after Sony conference to the point where i cancelled pre-order for my PS4 (and it was just after e3 preorder so i was getting it on release day) ?

Indies are cool but i don't need to buy PS4 to play them - nearly everything annouced is coming to PSV/PS3 and/or PC.
AAA third party games are cool but I'm going to get them on my PC and trust me i won't have to settle for BF4 to run at 720p to get 60 fps.
So yeah for me not even a single trailer from Naughty Dog/Santa Monica/someone else was huge disapointment.

Why bother buying day 1 edition when it will be blood bath if i can wait untill slow parts of 2014 and get it when retailers start to compete for sales since there's no interesting content on start ?

Your actual rationale is perfectly sound. You want to see Naughty Dog and SSM's game, or Sony Bend's game, or any of the other huge AAA titles in development, because those types of exclusives provide a good reason to buy PS4 over anything else.

However, while you're true that most of everything from the indies is multiplatform - the same as most of all retail games are multiplatform - there were a substantial number of exclusives that were announced for PS4 that came from smaller developers.

Rime, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Resogun and Shadow of the Beast are legit exclusives, Rime and Shadow have a far more significant budget than most indie games anyway and are almost AAA games in their own right.

Now you can say those don't interest you as well, and that's cool. I get it, in such a scenario then it only makes sense to wait to 2014. Hell, I'd argue that for you even if they did show a trailer for Naughty Dog's game or Sony Santa Monica's game, it would still make sense to wait to 2014 for most everybody.

But I think of your comment's tone sort of suggested that Sony did not announce any major games or exclusives, and that of course is not true. We have increased the stable of exclusive only-on-PS4 games by 4 this Gamescom at least.

My argument in this topic is not only why highlighting the indie games was smart for gamers and those smaller developers, but also why maintaining this plan remains strategically brilliant. In all regards, Sony has played it like a maestro - they are playing to all their strengths, calculating for the strengths of their enemies and adjusting accordingly. They want their trump cards so that at any moment they can reveal big bang up titles when they need to. Considering there will be 20 exclusives on PS4 from Sony WWS in that first year, and most of them remain unannounced, you're only going to be waiting a few weeks (TGS) for some more announcements, probably find out about another exclusive or two (I know, I know... if it's an indie exclusive it doesn't count ;)), and then we'll see the trickle. Drip. Drip.

And then for your tastes, the VGAs are obviously going to do the ticket. That'll likely be where they show Naughty Dog's game at the very least. Then you can pick up your PS4 in 2014.

EmptySpace believes that just because a game has an AAA budget does not automatically mean it is going to be good or great.

He also thinks the overwhelmingly majority of the 80+ million target audience of the PS4 do not game on PCs, therefore most (if not all) of the indies and multiplats will be first-time experiences for dozens of millions of people.

heh, "because Stone Cold says so"? ;)
 
Rime, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Resogun and Shadow of the Beast are legit exclusives, Rime and Shadow have a far more significant budget than most indie games anyway and are almost AAA games in their own right.

I find them interesting - but not exactly worth 400 euro spending.

Plus only Resogun is launch window of those IIRC ?
 

Amir0x

Banned
I find them interesting - but not exactly worth 400 euro spending.

Well sure, everyone's taste is different. Thus my point about idiosyncratic ideas for idiosyncratic tastes in my OP. My point for listing those games was to show Sony did reveal some big games and exclusives at Gamescom; in this case, it just wasn't apparently the ones you wanted. That said, would you not at least agree that it makes no sense strategically to reveal even MORE exclusives at Gamescom, when they already revealed 4, and any such exclusives would not be out until 2014 anyway?

For you, and most people, I'd say waiting at least 6 months after any console comes out is the smartest course to decide if a system is going to be for you. And I retain that recommendation for you :)

Plus only Resogun is launch window of those IIRC ?

Well yeah only Resogun is launch window (actually I think that's straight up launch day if I'm not incorrect - and PS+ subscribers get it for free. Damn PS+ is so rad), but in that case if you're only looking at games in that launch window, Naughty Dog and SSM's project were never going to make that timeframe even if they showed trailers. Those are Sony's flagship studios, they want to make sure their first PS4 games are mindblowers. Giving them the proper time to develop their projects is only the best for us.
 
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