The exclusives war is heating up, as Sony has revealed that it's accelerating the development and release of its first-party exclusive games on the upcoming PS5. Sony dominated during the most recent console generation, and a big part of that was due to the exclusives the company landed for its system.
PlayStation is the best-selling home console brand of all time, which was helped by the incredible success of the PS4. Sony was able to reach huge audiences, thanks to a mixture of first-party and third-party exclusives. The first-party line-up during this generation included titles like God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, and The Last of Us Part 2, while the third-party exclusives consisted of games like Bloodborne, Persona 5, and Marvel's Spider-Man. The PS4 also managed to land some big timed exclusives, like Death Stranding and Final Fantasy VII Remake, which further drew eyes to the system.
Sony is well aware that exclusives are a key component to the success of the PS5 going forward. According to Video Games Chronicle, Sony has revealed in a recent report that it will be accelerating the development and release of its upcoming PS5 exclusives. One way in which Sony intends to do this is through purchasing studios, explaining:
“SIE intends to make proactive investments to reinforce content IP, and work to raise brand value, foster communities and user engagement, while enhancing direct to consumer services that get closer to users... To reinforce content IP, SIE will accelerate the enhancement and rollout of its portfolio of exclusive PlayStation titles.”
The PS5 exclusives line-up consists of some highly-anticipated games, like Demon's Souls, Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Ratchet & Clank & Rift Apart, with the recent PS5 reveal event ending with Horizon Forbidden West. On the surface, it seems like Sony has the upper-hand on the Xbox Series X's line-up, especially now that Halo Infinite has been delayed, but Microsoft has been buying up studios like crazy in order to ensure more exclusives in the future, so the war between the next-gen systems is far from over. It seems that Sony will be following Microsoft's example and will bring in more studios to make games exclusively for the PS5.
Sony recently said that it was looking at bringing more PlayStation exclusives coming to PC in the future, but these will almost certainly be older titles whose value has diminished over time. There won't be much of a reason to purchase a PS5 if its exclusives are also on PC on day one. It seems that Sony knows the value of its exclusives and is working hard to make them the focus of the PS5. The only question now is whether it can follow up on this promise, as 2020 has taught us that plans can easily go out of the window, and no release schedule can ever truly be set in stone.
The PS5 is due to be released during the 2020 holiday season.
Source: VGC