It’s been almost a year since the last major PlayStation press conference, and the company’s communication has come in waves over the past few months. There’ll be periods where we get plenty of updates from the organisation; there’ll also be periods where the firm disappears into the shadows, and leaves us with very little to write about.
We’re currently in a drought, and that’s left fans scavenging for shreds of information – anything that could potentially point to meaningful news. Some have noticed that the firm has updated its social media accounts – Twitter, YouTube, and the PS Blog – with new artwork. These feature the PlayStation symbols on a dark blue background. What does it all mean?
Honestly, it’s a sign of the times that we’re even writing this at all: Sony usually flogs the space at the top of its social media accounts to marketing partners, so we’re sure as soon as the release cycle heats up, this new artwork will be swiftly replaced. There has been talk from supposed “industry insiders” that a press conference is imminent, but the same people have been saying the same thing all year.
At this point, for as much as it sucks, we need to accept we’re dealing with a new PlayStation now: the company is quiet, secretive, and only communicates when products are close to shipping. We suppose we did used to complain when organisation infamously announced games early, so we’re all kind of reaping what we sowed right now.
[source twitter.com, via blog.playstation.com, youtube.com]
Comments 29
Personally I think it's much better to announce a product near to shipping - near meaning a year or so in advance.
The days of announcing a game and it appearing 4,5 or 6 years later are long gone (unless you're name is Phil Spencer
Releasing a number of great games this year > CGI trailers for games 2+ years out.
I swear some just want Sony to hand out a big timetable of everything. But will then complain at any such delay.
Eh, i highly doubt this means there will be a big event coming up this month or even this year, especially most of Sony games slated to release at the end of this year got pushed back to 2022. And maybe most of the 25 unannounced PS exclusives in development got screwed up by COVID (i could be wrong about this).
1-2 surprises for the rest of this year would be very fine.
I prefer nothing that Logo trailers, faux exclusives and promises of games that take 6 years to make. I do prefer to know that a game is supposed to be out with twelve months or preferably less. Also, no thanks to cinematic trailers 🙄
I am finding my sports games a little tedious now; waiting for that next big single player campaign to play so excited to hear some announcements soon. Especially as Horizon's been delayed.
Considering Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut on PS5 as didn't play it before, will this fill the void?
So they are practically taking a leaf out of Nintendo’s book now. Even Nintendo does this sort of stuff
I miss the days of when I had GameFly, DUE to the fact that I was jumping from one awesome game to another. Many times I had only two or three weeks to beat a game before another great game was coming. The PS3 days were awesome.
Bioshock, GTA4, Resistance, Motorstorm, Uncharted, LBP, Infamous, Red Dead, Max Payne, TLoU, GTAV and many many more games I could list and many that I can’t remember at the moment. (Edit: Spec Ops The Line was fantastic.)
I bought Returnal day 1, bought RnC day 1, and now I wait.
I plan to get GoT’s DLC and many of the games releasing from Sept-Dec. It sucks that Oct is so loaded. It would have been nice if those games could have released spread out through June-Dec.
Not expecting anything soon but who knows. The rumor mill is out of control these days. Has everyone become an insider now? There are plenty of games to play right now.
I personally never minded them announcing what teams are working on years in advance since it always gave me something to look forward to. I think it was E3 2016 where they announced God of War, Spider-Man, showed a demo of The Last Guardian, and announced Days Gone. It was wonderful one of the best E3 presentations of all time in my opinion but people didn't like how far out most of the games were at the time.
Fast forward to today and now folks want the news now. I don't envy companies trying to find that perfect balance.
Such Is Sony's Secrecy, I Hope New PlayStation Banners Mean Impending News
FTFY
@Korgon I think the real complaint with Year of Dreams was they really didn't have much of an actual lineup at that point in time, and they unleashed that barrage that kind of painted a picture of what's coming soon, but in reality was most of what was to come over 6 years and the life of the platform. FFVIIR was probably the biggest buzz highlight of the show and it just launched a year ago.
It's not too difficult to balance, the roadmap probably shouldn't be a hype machine for content that's 5 + years away, but should be a little bit more than "TBD, TBD, nothing to announce right now, TBD." We've gone from the questionable hyping of content years away from Year of Dreams to a typical late-generation Nintendo strategy where the biggest news we have is a cornfield in a baseball game
We are all so desperate for something to be excited about in our lives. Only Sony can save us.
@itsfoz I think GoT is a fantastic game with a solid story. You’ll get some good mileage out of it as well if you’re going to do everything. I believe the platinum took me around 43 hours. You’ll also have the new expansions as well as the Legends mode.
At least there is no cyberpunk-esque bullcrap and info spamming - community will not overheat too early.
I hope that 19th of august is a real date, though.
Honestly I love that they say nothing. We literally have no idea what's going on right now. It's chaos. Anything could happen. Sooner or later they're going to say something and it'll be radical.
New banner??
CONFIRMED:Horizon Forbidden West shadow drop imminent!!
@NEStalgia
I see what your saying but FF7R is from a different E3 than the one I was talking about. It also had a situation where development was restarted from scratch after development started out of house.
The E3 I referenced in my comment had almost everything out within 3 years pretty much and yet people were still unhappy it took that long to come out.
There are examples of what your saying. Elder Scrolls 6 and the Next Mass Effect being the first ones that come to mind for me. Those two bother me a bit more because in those cases the team is already working on something else that is scheduled to release 1st. (Starfield for Bethesda, Dragon Age 4 for Bioware) That sort of thing annoys me but like something that's two years out? That doesn't bother me as much personally.
It isn't secrecy, they just don't have anything to announce. It like you expect them to magically develop five AAA games a years. We're early adopters, we always have to wait a bit in order to get the first round of truly new, next gen exclusive titles.
@Korgon Ahh, yeah, I thought I was thinking of the same one you were. The one I was talking about was the one they called Year of Dreams, the big super-huge stadium show right after PS4 launch. It was amazing, probably the best E3 show of all time from any company, but also borrowed the future to sell the present quite a bit which is what left most future E3's looking pretty flat. It's also the one that had the awkward money begging from a mega publisher for a Kickstarter game (Shenmue 3) but it can be forgiven because the rest of the show was so fantastic.
I can't remember which one the one you were talking about was, was that the indoor theater that opened with the GoW orchestra, or the outdoor one that covered Moss, VR, Gravity Rush (as a drive-by reference) and covered Days Gone at least twice?
Keep in mind that Sony's lack of communication does not just extend to us, the game-buyers. It also extends to game developers as well. Remember, when Sony was going to shut down the Vita's storefront they did not bother to tell ANYONE about it. People who were still working on Vita games received the news at the exact same time as the rest of us, even after Sony had given them dev kits and did not let on in any way that they were planning to close the store.
Also, general reminder that they STILL have not confirmed the Horizon Forbidden West delay nearly two full weeks since it was rumored. They haven't denied the rumor, nor acknowledged it in any way. There is no reason whatsoever why they should not just confirm it if it's true, and yet... that's apparently just how averse they are to sharing information with us.
@NEStalgia
The GoW orchestra one is the one I'm thinking of. Days Gone was at that one too. And Gravity Rush 2 was always done dirty sadly at E3😔.
I don't mind the lack of news all that much - I think I prefer it to breathless updates for something that's still more than a year away. As soon as they confirm a studio is working on, say, Horizon Forbidden West, then every single announcement they have to pre-announce whether there will be a H:FW update, just to manage expectations. It's nuts. I can see why they go dark.
But it sucks when they go dark to the developers, too, as someone pointed out they did with the Vita store.
@itsfoz Ghosts of Tsushima has a great single player campaign with an interesting story, and some great game play. You can completely ignore the multiplayer if you want, or you can play it without touching the single player - it's really a standalone thing (despite multiple reminders in the SP world that it exists, in the form of access points near bases).
If you like, say, Assassin's Creed or Horizon Zero Dawn or the new God of War, you should find some things to like here. Horse riding, some shooting with arrows, and a lot of sword fighting (with an interesting combat system that rewards paying attention over button-smashing, without a punishing level of difficulty) dominate, as well as a half dozen memorable characters.
I'm considering picking up the new version for the new content, but I'll probably wait for a sale, as it seems spendy for the PS5 upgrade on top of what I paid previously. But if you haven't played it yet, it should be well worth it.
Another benefit of announcing games closer to release is that they don't feel the pressure to rush to meet a date. This enables them to deliver completed games, and, crucially, it allows them to avoid crunch.
All well worth the price of games media angst.
@Korgon sigh GR2 and Days Gone is a sad tale. They ignored GR2, and plugged Days Gone twice in one E3, and then the post-show, and then plugged it again at the following E3, and it still underperformed. Which was easily predictable considering it's the second, less hyped zombie apocalypse first party game. I think at that time they were reeeeeallly into chasing the Walking Dead phenomenon. I still have a new-in-box OLED Vita Walking Dead edition..... because tying Playstation to 3 different zombie apocalypses is totally fine....
I personally like to hear what’s being worked on but can’t get excited any more about software release dates as I stopped buying things at launch years ago. Prefer to wait until reviews are out and then prices drop. Until then I’m just working through a huge backlog of games that are years old.
The exception is hardware. PS5 was day one, as will be PSVR, I’m still like an impatient kid for that stuff and jump on the hype train as soon as possible, lol.
Is this fans or website news writers?
I am not constantly awaiting news. They drop when they do.
There will be some adjustment from covid as well. Go play some games. Go write articles based on that. Write some articles of games you'd like to see sequals of.
We know the current PS leader only puts his foot in his mouth, so it's not surprising they don't want him talking.
@redd214 Im behind a full generation. 🤪
So many PS4 titles i still need to finish.
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