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Sony has convinced about 20 million people that the PlayStation 3 is worth the price of admission. As the console enters 2009 behind Microsoft and Nintendo in the hardware race, the former leader needs to coax millions more to jump into the PlayStation fray—and this year it just might have the software lineup to do it.
It’s the first-party exclusives that distinguish Sony from its rivals. PS3 has entertained strong software in the past, but this year the strength of the company’s Worldwide Studios lineup runs deeper than before.
“I think we had a very good lineup in 2008, especially for the holidays, but in 2009, it’s an absolutely amazing lineup,” reckons Scott Rohde, Sony Computer Entertainment America’s VP of product development. “It’s one of the best lineups that we’ve ever put out in a single calendar year, so it’s very, very exciting.”
Before anyone repeats the tired line, “This is the Year of the PS3,” the announced exclusive first-party games should be examined.
This year, Sony kicked off its software drive with February’s chart-topping Killzone 2 from internal studio Guerilla Games. MLB 09 just launched in March, garnering critical praise for yet another season. And there’s more: The military-themed online game MAG comes from Zipper Interactive, the studio behind the acclaimed SOCOM series. Infamous is Sucker Punch’s next game—a gritty, original superhero action title from the same people that created the excellent Sly Cooper platformer series.
There are also the exclusive Sony-published games from external developers: The visually stunning Heavy Rain, published by Sony and developed by Quantic Dream, the house behind Indigo Prophecy (a.k.a. Fahrenheit in other parts of the world), and Level-5’s anticipated role-player, White Knight Chronicles. A new Ratchet and Clank from Insomniac Games is also on the cards, although not officially announced.
While all of these games are commercially attractive in their own right, the real heavy hitters will be Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and God of War III, two sequels, most likely to be M-rated, from internal studios Naughty Dog and Sony Santa Monica, respectively.
Rohde says that there’s more to come this year: “There are several titles that are in the works that we have yet to announce.”
Fruits of labor
This plethora of promising first-party software comes over two years after the 2006 launch of Sony’s premium-priced console. Developers have been working to come to grips with the exotic innards of the capable console, and only now will we be seeing the results of months of development experience emerge in meaningful volume.
“It’s one of those things where we’re seeing the fruits of all those initial investments. They’re all just starting to hit and stack up for 2009,” says Rohde. “It’s like developing for any platform, or perhaps even a little bit more for PS3. We’re just now starting to see the fruits of that labor, whereas maybe last year and the year before we were just scratching the surface of what the machine could do. Now developers are seasoned; they understand how to develop on the PS3.”
While Sony is responsible for mass market “casual” hits like Buzz! and SingStar, as well as the astounding and widely-appealing LittleBigPlanet, some of the biggest releases that garner the hefty marketing and development dollars in 2009 are aimed at the core gamer, who is most concerned with high-def graphics, high-fi sound and more mature themes.
“Obviously, with the PS3 specifically, we cater to the core and, for lack of a better way of saying it, that’s kind of an easy audience to appeal to. If we build our shooters and our racers and our big titles like Uncharted 2 and Infamous, those are the blockbuster titles that cater to the core. We have big investments in [that group].”
With new casual, mass-market games likely due this year and more content coming to PlayStation Network, Sony’s games will cover a healthy amount of genres. Rohde says SCEA doesn’t necessarily sit around and concern itself with creating games in specific, defined genres in an attempt to appeal to all kinds of gamers. “I think what we try to do is come up with original concepts, and even twists on some existing genres, like what we’re doing with MAG for later this year. Really, we just try to come out with a nice stable of new IP that, in some cases, perhaps even busts those genres wide open.”