So I want to preface my comments with I understand why Sony have gone down this route with PixelOpus. They are a business and they have to make a profit and having something to show for this investment.
However, it just re-affirms to me that Sony no longer makes the games I associated them with. The games I enjoyed playing. Back in the PS One days they where company that gave us Wipeout, Gregory Horror Show, Gravity Rush, Tokyo Jungle. They where the home for so many great Japanese games, I was introduced to Enix as a company thanks to games like Valkyrie Profile. Square-soft where in their prime on Sony hardware. Konami where making great and diverse games like Ape Escape, Metal Gear Solid, Symphony of the Night.
Just as an aside, my favourite era of Square Soft was around the amazing Triumvirate of Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6 and Secret of Mana.
Anyway. I think that started to change (for me) with the release of Uncharted. With Uncharted they had a highly rated, beautiful looking and fun game. It proved very popular and rightly so (not my type of game but I now enough that it is a well made game). But the lesson to the execs was it made money. This lead to the Last of Us and the supposed "Sony Formula" (I know it is more complicated than that, but I think it is looking more and more certain that Sony are pretty much sticking to this as a core). And this is where they diversity of their games started to narrow for me. There was less emphasis on the little japanese games, there was less room for the oddball stuff and even the older big hitters where pushed to one side. With the closure of the likes of Sony Liverpool (RIP Psygnosis, I still miss your wonderful game covers and great logo) or Drive Club being shuttered as it was starting to become a great racing game (some would argue it always was).
Another aside, I don't blame Naughty Dog fo the above. The executives maybe took the wrong message from Uncharted's success. Much like the dark age of comics (ie the 90's) should not be blamed on Frank Miller or Alan Moore. Comic executives took the wrong messages from the success of The Watchmen and Batman Year One.
And now, well Sony seem to be relying on exclusivity deals with Indie companies. Stray is still an exclusive. Sifu has just started to be available on more platforms. And there are many more examples. Yet it isn't the same. Most if not all start on, or come to PC. They end up on the Switch and/or Xbox.
And I get it, Konami, Square Enix or any of the big publishers can no longer afford to go down the exclusive routes. The days are long gone when EA could ignore Nintendo (even though I get the impression they would still love to). The days are long gone when most of the big console manufacturers can no longer ignore the PC.
So for me Sony is no longer the premium brand it used to be. Yes they still make great games, they are just less and less to my taste. Everything else they have to offer I can get elsewhere. And by elsewhere I mean PC.
And so ends another massive rambling from myself. One day one of these may actually be structured in an easily understandable way...
store.steampowered.com
store now. The fact it only lasted half a year is crazy (and good).
