It's common knowledge that Sony has been knocking it out of the park this generation, with a steady stream of exclusive titles for PS4, which has been a runaway success. However, what we sometimes lack is the view from the inside. What is it that's giving Sony the edge? God of War creator and infamously outspoken developer David Jaffe gave his thoughts on the matter during a recent live stream.
In short, he says that Sony's secret is its ability to get the best out of its studios thanks to a talented management team.
"They've got that management of video games down," Says Jaffe. "It is about the teams, sure, but it's about, 'how do you manage creative teams well so you can get the best out of them'. That's the secret Sony sauce. You can get a good studio... but it's not always about the studio. It's about how you manage it."
He cites the likes of Shuhei Yoshida, Scott Rohde, Shannon Studstill, and Alan Becker as being stellar examples of good studio management. It sounds like, at least from Jaffe's perspective, Sony employs some of the best in the business to keep its teams in check, and it's hard to disagree.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 16
That’s a good point, let’s hope the management keep doing a great job then. Many developers also appreciate the freedom that Sony gives to them, just look what EA did with Insomniac when they were working on Fuse.
Management is very important, it goes without saying. Bad management has been the catalyst of many mistakes and flops in gaming's history.
Really looking forward to their upcoming exclusive lineup:
Days Gone
Ghosts of Tsushima
Dreams
Last of Us: Part 2
Death Stranding
And you know Horizon: Zero Dawn and God of War sequels are already underway (and soon to be a Spider-Man sequel), as well as Ueda's next game. I'm sure Japan Studio has other tricks up their sleeve. Persona 6 is probably under development as we speak as well.
Sony's pipeline is deep and diverse - and the creative freedom they give these teams really shows in the quality of games they release.
Mmmmmm, Secret Sony Sauce.
Well said by David, they do indeed make some incredible games.
It's a shame they didn't use some of their "secret Sony sauce" with Evolution studios. If they did we may have had a sequel to what is arguably still the best racing game on PS4. But yeah, otherwise they have been knocking it out of the park with their exclusives.
Failing companies due to incompetence start at the top.
god of PlayStation.word up son
I wonder what herbs and spices Sony uses in its secret sauce, and if it keeps the recipe locked away in a vault. After all, they made the sauce to be the boss.
If you could bottle Sony's secret sauce...
@Rudy_Manchego Sony's got their fingers in so many other businesses, I don't see why they couldn't make a success of selling condiments 😂
Sounds good....just bought god of war hopefully lives up to the hype 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@Neolit Agreed, I didn’t realize it was Jaff or the old GoWs since I breezed through and just saw the new GoW picture.
Sounds reasonable. Maybe this is why MS has barley produced any good games this generation.
@Zombie9ers and a second bloodborne......
I think this happen because sony as a company regard games as a form of art, whereas microsoft assume games are software.
Sony gave its 1st party studios freedom because to them, the most important thing is the end result of their studios hard work rather than the brand of the product, that's why sony give ND green light when ND want to make tlou instead of another uncharted. Whereas microsoft is okay when bungie and epic leaving them as long as microsoft can have their ip (halo and gears of war).
This is an interesting concept — the fact that it’s the management that is the reason for their success. It sounds like Sony is more hands-off and leaves the studios alone to express their creative freedom more. Dreams is a perfect example. The problem there is that they might be giving Media Molecule too much freedom to create this project that they are so passionate about, yet may never release, it would seem. Certainly there’s got to be a balance of letting studios do what they want, and holding their feet to the fire to produce and hit some goals in terms of progress on a project.
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