Indie games may take a bit of a backseat on the PlayStation 5 at launch as Sony has recently stated that the company will invest in marketing for bigger AAA games, new features like 8K and focus on ‘serious gamers’.
The comments were reportedly made by Sony Chief Executive Officer Kenichiro Yoshida at a strategy meeting according to The Wall Street Journal.
According to Yoshida, instead of prioritizing indie developers, Sony will instead prioritize marketing for AAA content - games like Death Stranding and The Last of Us Part 2 - which will likely be key for the company to maintain its momentum after outselling Microsoft’s Xbox One two-to-one over the last five years.
That plan makes a lot of sense considering how much of a role platform-exclusive games play when picking out a new console. But it could be seen as a slight against the indie development community that has given Sony games like Resogun, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice and The Witness.
Regardless, placing more of a focus on big-budget exclusives is a strategy that has worked for Sony in the past and, while counter-intuitive at first, could actually drive more developers to the PS5 if that’s where the largest player base is.
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What’s on the Horizon for Sony’s next console?
While indie games aren't a big priority for Sony when it comes to marketing the console, next-gen features like 8K support and the upgraded solid state drive most certainly are, so expect to hear them mentioned frequently before launch.
Speaking of launch, WSJ’s sources say to expect 2020 release date for the next-gen console and say that Sony is keeping an eye on what Google is doing with its Stadia game-streaming service, which could be a threat in the short- to medium term.
Sony has said recently that it plans on upgrading its PlayStation Now service to compete with Stadia, and has signed a deal with Microsoft to help develop its Azure platform for that very purpose.
All that being said, we're still waiting on Sony to officially name the console and reveal it to the world - something we were hoping might happen at this year's E3, but didn't happen. We now predict Sony will introduce the system later this year or early in 2020 instead.
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