Not every game in Sony’s first-party portfolio is a smash hit, but between projects like Dreams and God of War, it’s clear that the company gives its studios an unparalleled sense of freedom. Speaking at the Collision conference in Toronto yesterday, Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden touched upon this a little – explaining that it encourages a culture where teams are able to “experiment and explore” in order to “push the boundaries of gaming”.
The executive added that it’s not just risk-taking which leads to creativity, but also the composition of the teams themselves. “As we broaden the tent for our games and we welcome those from every part of the world and every background, it's important our development teams look like our fans. It's important that we have a wide range of voices if we are to exceed the expectations of our audience.” He said: “Sameness is the death of innovation and creativity.”
The suit concluded that you “cannot control how, when, or where truly creative ideas can happen” but you can “nurture” them. It’s interesting to get this kind of insight from Layden, and we’re genuinely thrilled that this is the firm’s philosophy. While we accept that PlayStation is a business first and foremost, we’ve always got the impression that it has a genuine desire to expand the scope of what interactive entertainment can be – long may that continue.
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 24
Via censorship, restricting cross-platform play and copying ideas from other companies? Strange methodology there. But it appears to work as the PS4 is essentially an unquestioned success.
Still hoping they make PS5 backwards compatible at least as far as PS3.
@heavyarms55 None of which is relevant to their 1st party studios.
Their first party studios are excellent, and the games they produce are of incredible quality.
@Heavyarms55 ps3 used a radically different processor and physical architecture, I believe, which will make backward compatibility that far not feasible.
I would say that Sony does appear to let their studios have a certain amount of Freedom to create titles they want - although as we heard with H:ZD, they also have to pitch their ideas and even convince Sony that a 'design' choice (like having a female lead) is the right choice.
What I think Sony does well is that they allow the Devs the time to polish, the time to ensure their games are 'fit' to be released with as few bugs/glitches/performance issues as possible. As good as God of War is, the actual game-play isn't exactly pushing boundaries but it was well executed, looked great and performed well. Its story was good too which stood out but the actual game structure wasn't pushing boundaries. That's not a complaint btw as I am sure people would prefer a great story and a game that is well executed and pretty much rock solid from day 1 to a game that releases with half the content and requires numerous patches for month's to try and get it to play well.
Last gen, Naughty Dog for example released a new game every couple of years and Sony have allowed them the extra time its taken to develop bigger and visually more impressive games. Its been 5yrs since Sucker Punch released a game. Instead of pressurising these Studio's to make AAA games as quickly as possible to meet deadlines, they have been content to delay and delay until the games are actually ready to release in a 'fantastic' and well polished state. All their 'big' games have been delayed at least once from their projected release window - some more than a few times. To me that shows that Sony actually care more about the quality, prepared to support their studio's - even if they need more time. Its that that stands out far more to me than any gaming boundaries being pushed.
That being said, you probably can't argue that their VR games aren't pushing boundaries but I am not in a position to question whether Sony are leading the way in VR game development or are copying other VR games that pushed the boundaries first. Not gaming in VR and not keeping up with all the VR titles (inc those for HTC Vive or Oculus Rift), I am not best placed to comment on this area of Sony gaming.
It's nice to hear him say this, but at the same time, kinda sad he has to because this should be standard procedure for any studio. Anyone should make whatever game they want. Long may it continue, indeed.
nobody does it better than PlayStation.been gaming since 1981.theres no competition.word up god of war syphon filter son
@SaikoWaifu2003 The Romans conquered the world known to them, but they had contemporaries in Asia that easily rivaled them. And honestly, they weren't totally unaware of each other, as evidence has been found to suggest limited trade did occur.
@AdamNovice The censorship rules and copied ideas totally are.
Also in general my comment was meant largely as sarcasm guys.
I like how the ones to complain about censorship have semi naked J-girls as avatars.
That’s why I like sony 1st party games, just look at naughty dog, from crash to jax & dexter to uncharted to tlou, if their owner is another publisher I’m sure naughty dogs won’t have that kind of freedom.
@Heavyarms55 Nintendo made some of the best games of all time while going much further than Sony wirh censorship. Sony are, for the most part, removing erotic scenes featuring children from Zanki Zero, and other sexual elements involving young girls in other games, and that seems to be the only censorship that bothers the detractors. Some of it is baseless, though, like the ass in DMCV.
If the censorship was, say, toning down swearing or changing brand names to fictional brands, no one would care about "muh censorship" then. They just miss their little girl panty shots but don't care when an old man's likeness is changed, as in that Yakuza game or whatever it was.
Remember, there are PS4 games with nudity, even a penis in The Order. How many Switch games have that? It's not blasè censorship of all adult content - look at stuff like RDR2. It's mainly cartoon children not showing your their panties, a là Zanki Zero (again).
@Matroska I remember the penis in The Order, that was so awesome.
@kyleforrester87 Don't call sir Gallahad a penis.
@SaikoWaifu2003 @ApostateMage oooo IT'S ON!
@SaikoWaifu2003 Relax, my dear, I'm only joshin'. Look, you're getting @kyleforrester87 all excited.
@ApostateMage
@kyleforrester87 Have a +1 heart for the Charlie gif.
@SaikoWaifu2003 No, but if I set one up would you promise to follow me?
By censoring games?
@SaikoWaifu2003 I’m on it!
@SaikoWaifu2003 I love instant karma, especially with poppadoms and a garlic naan.
Hold on, there was a penis in The Order? Was it concealed by a button prompt?
@SaikoWaifu2003 "The trouble with Twitter is that it's full of twits."
Naughtydogs Uncharted series is the best on Playstation by far.
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