On May 16th, 2006, PlayStation learned a very important lesson: popularity can’t save you from your failures. As the gaming giant unveiled the massively expensive PS3, the gaming audience turned against them en masse.
In an interview with Japanese economics outlet Toyo Keizai, father of PlayStation—and current Cyber AI CEO—Ken Kutaragi claimed that fans should want to “work more hours to buy one”. He said: “We want people to feel that they want it, irrespective of anything else.”
As console prices continue to skyrocket due to the resource-sucking AI companies decimating the tech landscape, the upcoming PS6 will likely cost over $1,000. That would essentially be the price of a launch-day PS3 accounting for inflation today, although there is a chance that the next-gen console could cost even more by the time it releases.
The reality of the situation is that consoles need now, more than ever, to prove their worth. The PlayStation 2 did so with the ever-important DVD drive. The PlayStation 3 eventually proved itself with price cuts, free online multiplayer, a blu-ray drive, and a frequent output of first-party games. The PlayStation 4 proved itself on even more first-party games, VR support, and a screw-up from Microsoft.
How then has the PlayStation 5 proved itself? Well, it really hasn’t. Since its 2020 launch, the PS5 has largely rested on the coattails of last generation’s win. First-party games have flatlined. As the entire PlayStation Studios umbrella is pushed towards live-service, very few have released, and those that have are undoubtedly flops. In fact, the one live-service success PlayStation bought, Destiny 2, has been squandered and abandoned mere years after its purchase.
What about VR support? Well, that’s not great, either. The PSVR, while primitive, saw strong first-party support and heavy third-party support. PSVR 2, on the other hand, hasn’t received a single-first party game since launch day, and third party support isn’t doing great either. In fact, PlayStation has instead opted to make the headset a PC device instead to give the headset some worth.
The popularity of the PlayStation 5 comes, largely, from the aforementioned screw-up from Microsoft. Alongside the trade-in scandal of the Xbox One reveal, Microsoft flubbed the generation in the same way PlayStation is now. During the Xbox One generation, despite a decent start, the console simply didn’t have the games. It relied too much on repeats of past IPs; games were announced and cancelled; they lacked the big-budget single-player games. In some ways, Xbox is still flubbing in the exact same way.
In 2005, as the PS3 reveal left jaws agape and bellies laughing, the gaming audience realised the cockiness of Sony. However, largely due to the company’s Japanese heritage, “Cocky Sony” suffered for its humiliation and actively sought to turn the generation around. It apologised to its users, invested in quality software, and eventually won the generation. Unfortunately, this generation, PlayStation is still winning in its eyes, and that means no apologies are needed.
So far, the PS5 generation has been “Cocky Sony” at its worst, unwilling to change its own direction despite the fact that fans don’t want what they’re offering. Live-service games are failing? Greenlight more live-service games. Players want disc-based games? Remove the option to buy discs altogether. More exclusive games? Shut down studios and cancel projects.
This is without mentioning some of the anti-consumer bull that Sony is also pushing onto customers. The PS5 generation has been hit with regional servicing issues for Sony’s PC users, and dynamic pricing on the PlayStation Store serves to nickel and dime the platform’s best customers for even more money with no benefit to the user.
Today, the day of publication, Sony made a move that showed its true hand this generation by cancelling Hideo Kojima’s upcoming game Physint. Little is known about Kojima’s upcoming stealth game, only that it is a spiritual successor to Metal Gear Solid. The game, which is in early development alongside OD, will not be funded and published by Xbox, which leads to the question in the headline of this article: is PlayStation stupid?
While Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding games aren’t the best-selling titles around, Kojima’s works have been fundamental to the PlayStation brand. Metal Gear Solid is not a first-party title, but it is a foundational text for the history of PlayStation. Kojima himself has been a part of PlayStation’s legacy since the beginning, and the hardcore fans of Sony’s gaming consoles rest easy knowing that Kojima’s works belong on the console.
There is a possibility that Physint might not sell gangbusters, but pulling out of the project is a clear sign that PlayStation simply doesn’t actually care about its legacy anymore. While PlayStation focuses on quick remakes and live-service games which ‘might make a metric tonne of money if we can just pull it off one time, please’, the company has lost sight of what once made PlayStation great, and what made it great just five or so years ago.
There’s been a sense that gamers are simply unwilling to move away from their existing libraries to other consoles. This has led to the PS4 generation being labelled the “most important’ generation for gaming with an expectation that no one will leave the platform that they bought digital games from. To that, I say: Sony has no idea how far the pettiness of gamers can and will go.
The truth is that PlayStation doesn’t actually care about what it’s users want anymore. PlayStation believes it needs oneFortnite of its own, and that’s all it wants. Sure, you can have a Naughty Dog game once a generation, take a couple of Marvel games from Insomniac, but don’t you dare ask for anything more.
