Rumour: Ex-Leaker The Snitch Reckons Sony Will Announce 'Third Party Stuff' Soon

Come on PlayStation, just announce new first party games! This silence is getting out of hand.

will be after MS one, will want to see what they do

Hopefully MGS Remake.

I'd love to see Stellar Blade. Definitely the third party game I look forward to the most beside FF16

It must concern the upcoming Tokyo Jungle 2 VR!

"Third-party stuff"

Now that's what I call a leak!

Here's a leak for you.

Games will be released this year.....for PS5!!

I might have been following this industry for a while but saying Sony will announce Third Party stuff soon is a bit like saying the Earth is going to spin around it's axis and continue to orbit the ball of hydrogen and helium at the middle of our solar system.

@Futureshark I'll believe that when I see it. What's your source?

There will be many new games this year. Source Me reading Pushsquare 😄😄😄

Bring on more PC ports of VR games. Boost that PSVR2 collection to be.

Or MGS VR?

Amazing how someone can be a "leaker" with such groundbreaking information.

@ShogunRok

Usually red source, unless I'm having eggs then it must be brown.

The snitch is putting as much effort into this leak as I did in high school.

Silent Hill PT for PS5?

To be fair, having replayed both MGS and Twin Snakes recently, I am not sure how a remake would work... They will continue retcons i.e. trying to fit stuff from, let's say Peace Walker or Phantom Pain, by mentioning the events in the story or they will simply update the graphics? In any case this is an interesting discussion topic, i.e. what do we want in a MGS remake or how would we do it etc.

Anyone else hoping for Half Life: Alyx news from Valve?

N.i.c.e. more games is always word up son

@themightyant
That’s a bit of an exaggeration. AAA dev time is around 5years.

Personally I’m hoping for a big VR push and an ES competitor.

@themightyant This industry is so broken. There's a certain threshold that was crossed maybe 5 years ago where practicality went out the window and any concept of scope just vanished. IDK what will reign it back in.

@themightyant Though if we're not counting ports, like GTA5 and TES have got on more recent consoles, then Mario Kart has also skipped a generation and until BotW2, there hasn't been an original Zelda on the Switch yet, which is pretty odd.

Edit: had weird idea that GTA had skipped 2 console gens but it's only 1. Really does feel that long, though.

@themightyant
This is not going to be a 7-8 year generation. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say it’ll easily be a 10 year. You can just scrap these last 2 pandemic years when nobody could buy the thing. These machines were competitive at release, unlike last gen machines with their laptop CPU/APUs. Plus we are still waiting on UE5 to allow devs to start unlocking the potential of this gen more easily.

@themightyant A part of me hoped that would happen, but I don't see it pulling anything back. I think smaller projects like that are building a sub-industry, kind of like french film, but it doesn't really alter the course of the mainstream industry, unfortunately. IDK what can fix it. Money loss should fix it, and the market should correct once the budget and turn around time exceeds viable profits. But it seems like instead of budgeting down the industry's solution is just spend twice as much and look for a big tech sugar daddy to fund it.

We're about 10 years away from when Elon Musk makes all our video games for us and tells use we're playing them wrong.

I'm not sure GTA and TES are fair examples though. GTA was just milking a cash cow forever not because they had to because GTA6 is so hard to make, but because they could keep sucking up money without spending any. TES...Bethesda spent far too long playing with their newly acquired toy of a Fallout license and then wanting something new with Starfield for years that they just didn't get around to making a TES game. I'm sure the existence of ESO kind of set company priorities there, since they already had a tentpole game for the TES brand under the recurring revenue banner.

@Matroska MK definitely. Botw....it depends on perspective. I know it was meant for WiiU and retooled for Switch but to me I see WiiU as the machine that never got a Zelda, and Switch gets 2. They removed everything WiiU about the game to make it more suited to switch, and the final release ran terribly on WiiU. It was no longer a WiiU game at that point.

@thefourfoldroot1 I'd love to see it be a 10 year gen, but if it is I think we can then bank on a "Pro" version taht will still make it a new gen split again. Agreed though that the last gen was pretty garbage from the start though, we spent 7 years in "PS360 1.6" purgatory.

@NEStalgia
If we see a “pro” version, it will only be because they have seen people are willing to buy it, not because it will be needed. And I don’t think last gen proved that.

Last gen they did for a number of reasons: beginning with the tech being way behind PC, where most games are developed; plus MS screwed to pooch and wanted to lose the “least powerful console” tag. It’s doubtful Sony would have spent money on a pro model last gen if MS weren’t. This time round it doesn’t feel needed.

If a pro is released I’ll just skip it again. I’m not buying two console models per gen. Especially when uptake likely won’t be large enough for devs to make use of it. Well, not now stock issues are sorted anyway.

@themightyant
Indeed. Time will tell. I don’t think MS will be in a rush to get any hardware out beyond the obligatory “slim” redesigns. Same for Sony.

As for customers - I’ve had a PS5 since release and I don’t feel like I’ve used it yet. I also have PSVR2 in feb to get my teeth into. Even as a relatively “hardcore” gamer, I’d be happy for the gen to actively be supported for the next 8 years. More casual gamers would too if they’ve only just been able to get a console.

We shall see I guess.

"Third party stuff"
Much surprise, very WOW

@themightyant
Yeah, the hype about ray tracing came a bit early for these platforms. Other than that though I’m good. In fact, I even think some more bespoke artistic lighting can look better without the need for those resources.

Sure, in 8 years top end PCs will be able to outcompete these consoles of course - in some respects they already can, obviously - for a large outlay, but I’d never spend that kind of money. For a new VR headset perhaps as that tech is progressing rapidly, but for a bit more res and 120fps at diminishing returns…I just can’t see anything in traditional gaming that would make me think I was missing out for the next 8 years.

@themightyant @thefourfoldroot1 Phil Spencer already did say the next gen wont likely happen for "at least 7 years" which we were already 1.5 years into this gen at that point, so he's thinking 8.5 year minimum. 10 isn't far fetched. Especially since consoles weren't available for 2 years and the new gen games really haven't even started releasing yet, with most of the dev for THIS gen being 5+ years out before launch. I definitely think there's a chance this is a legit 10 year generation before the next hardware gen. Tech doesn't change fast enough for the old cycles to apply, and games don't release fast enough for them to, either. Honestly even as far as tech, I don't see a PS6 launching in 5 years looking terribly different from the PS5 in terms of performance. There's just not as much need anymore.

But what I CAN see them both doing is milking the enthusiasts that want more performance, like in PC, and selling a "Pro" model as a GPU upgrade to get more 4k/60 out of it, which, honestly, with what the current hardware can do, is probably all that will really need to be upgraded in that time rather than a "new" gen (does Jim still believe in generations at all anyway? Best as I can tell he believes in last generation ) Meme or not, "generations" is kind of a nod to the old tech cycle and Moore's Law, and just doesn't hold as practical or necessary today. 5 year old tech used to be so ancient it's barely recognizable. Today 5 year old tech.....basically is much like new tech with just a bit less performance. If the only change between now and 5 years from now is a need for better GPUs to squeeze out 4k with HDR at 60? All it needs is a Pro to sell enthusiasts, not a new gen.

Heck, if they sell a $500-600 video card upgrade in 5 years, it'll still look a lot cheaper than a PC (what's a 4090 up to, $1400? )

Also, after the nightmare of the hardware launch of 2 years and no inventory, I'm not sure EITHER of them want to do a launch like that again any time soon. Or ever, if they can do the incremental upgrade thing like phones that we've speculated about since forever. (I.E. there's no PS6, there's just PS5 (2034 ver. gen 2.) I think both have to kind of rethink what gen launches look like because I don't think either wants to deal with 2020-202X again. We'll witness it again with Nintendo and that will be another mess.

@themightyant Honestly, to me, "AA" is all that matters and all that ever mattered. "AAA" is pure garbage 90% of the time that is so obsessed with production values it forgets it's supposed to be an entertaining game. I'd argue that Elden, sweeping most Goty's is purely AA. It's ginormous, but not over ambitious on production values. FF became a mess when it became "AAA", etc. Heck on a PS site you'd think it'd be the most about AAA given Sony studios pedigree, but two of the most raved about things here are Returnal and Stray, two indie games with Sony money added to boost production values (Housemarque was still indie when the game released), so even in the PS-verse the effect has hit home.

I'm not sure AAA as a concept is even sustainable as a business, and probably just needs to dial it back across the board. Either that or it all has to go MMO recurring payment open world bland. My only real hope is that the cycle resets, the AAA's go bust (or Microsoft owns them all, has 343 manage them and they make one bad game every 25 years so we don't have to bother), and in that time all the indies end up becoming "big studios" that make quality AA games. I think we ARE kind of seeing it happen but we're not quite at that point yet.

I'll ignore Falcom at the moment. I think they're more "A" than "AA"

I think GTA6 would have been out 5 years ago, but there just was no incentive, they had, literally, the #1 selling game for the past 10 years without spending a single penny to make a new one. Why invest in R&D when you can just claim royalties forever?

people keep saying show their 1st party stuff. i'd rather they keep working on the games instead of worry about making a trailer or a slice demo to show off. and most of these games won't be ready till 2024/2025 anyways. don't people like surprises any more? not every thing needs to be leaked.

@Milt

I'm getting mad too

Can we get an AAA JRPG that is not Final Fantasy? I mean with the same production value, not stuff where a whole town probably has the same polygon count as Tifa’s face in VII remake

@Feena I think the problem with that is "AAA JRPG" that's not FF is kind of like asking for a watery desert or a dry ocean. It's the AAA spending that cripples FF by making it have to be mainstream and appealing enough to everyone so that it ends up being for no one. If it needs to spend that kind of money it needs to pull in the sales volume, which means it needs to be watered down to be for the masses, but really pretty.

Though the bigger question is, is FF actually a JRPG at all in the AAA era? With 13 they specifically said it wasn't meant to be an RPG at all but a "new kind of game", 15 was...whatever that was. 16 looks like it's an action game not an RPG, and on defining what is FF, YoshiP said something about story and highest quality production etc.....at no point was anything about RPG his tentpole for what FF is.

I'm not sure there is such a thing as an AAA JRPG at all, including FF.

I’m sure some third party VR announcements are on the way. Seems way too easy to guess honestly. It’s so vague it’s hard for it to be wrong.

@NEStalgia What’s a JRPG then? Does have to be turned based? Because FF is still RPGs, they are also Japanese and styled as Japanese games.

@Jaz007 No, not turn based. After all, Tales, Star Ocean, Ys, etc are not turn based and are very clear JRPGs.

I think there are some things we could specifically say are "JRPG" or "WRPG", defining, a lot about story/character driven vs freedom, etc, but I think we could back the conversation up and simplify it, forget J vs W and just go with "what's an RPG" and specifically what separates an RPG from an action adventure.

Is it just level up and stats? Well HzD and GoW have that, but they're definitely not RPGs. Is it about having a party to control? Elder Scrolls doesn't but that's clearly an RPG.

I think the "role playing" part is key. It's about living in the world and playing a role in the world beyond being on rails. Take HzD, sure you spend time in town, you pick up quests, but you're just passing through, you're not living in that town, kind of setting up shop in that area and living in that area as events unfold around it for any period of time. In actual RPGs you do that. FF15 actually DID have you do that but it was also.....inconsistent ,I did like it for what it was because it was more RPG than what 13 was (where they specifically said it was NOT an RPG.) Assassin's Creed (modern) DOES have you do that in its towns....and it classifies itself as an RPG now. I think it's less about the systems and more about how the game has you approach and live within its world and civilizations. If we go through the ages that's the most common theme of all RPGs. FF7, DQ, Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls, Deus Ex, Octopath, Diablo, Wizardry, Yakuza, MonHun, and it's the lack of that that makes some games (like FF13) lose their RPG aspect. If you don't have a progression pattern that has you kind of "park" in one location as an operating hub for a period of time until that location feels like "home" by the time you pack up and move onto a next location, that's when a game starts not feeling like an RPG. We'll see how 16 turns out. 15 did return slightly to that but in an inconsistent fever dream sort of way. I get the sense 16 is going on rails, but we don't know for sure yet.

I would hardly call this a “leak”. We all know that sony hasn’t done third party announcements in a while, and they are soon to do so. A leak would be a specific info about that announcement that would’ve been a surprise had it not leaked

@NEStalgia I agree with the first part of your post and it might be difficult to make a profitable new AAA JRPG (still, Sony could probably do this) but FF is absolutely a JRPG, aesthetically and mechanically we’re really narrowing the scope and reducing the genre to outdated ideas if we’d consider it not a JRPG. It’s the poster boy of the genre and it’s simply pushing the boundaries of the genre like it should do.

TL; DR we're living in a world where people unironically treat "leaking" entertainment announcements as a career to have and retire from.

@Feena We'll see what 16 does. FF13 absolutely was not an RPG, J or otherwise, and the devs specifically said it was not an RPG and they weren't trying to make an RPG. Right from there depending on entry we're to the point that Assassins Creed is an RPG and Final Fantasy isn't....

14 is an MMORPG.

15....was.....kind of? A (J?)RPG again. It was kind of confused if it was an RPG, an open world action adventure, or a linear action adventure. It was all of them at different points. But 15 was development hell and they're clearly backing away from everything that happened with 15.

I can't tell if 16 is going to pretend to be an RPG, or if it's going to be an RPG about as much as God of War is an "RPG" a.k.a. a narrative action-adventure with RPG-lite stats. The fact that YoshiP's tentpoles of what makes FF involved no features that even relate to its genre, indicates that FF is not necessarily intended to be an RPG at this point. It's more of a presentation and thematic standard to them more than it is an RPG. Which is consistent with the past few entries. It seems like after Sakaguchi left they really stopped making RPGs.

It's hard to call it the poster boy of the genre when it's the ONLY series taking the turns it takes, and the RPG genre, both J, and W has continued chugging along true to its genre, with Yakuza/LaD joining the pack in embracing the genre tropes closer and departing from its prior distance, and even pure action/linear action adventure series creeping closer into RPG territory like GoW, and especially Horizon and GoT that blur the line between RPG and action adventure, I'd say moreso than FF has been doing at some points.

My personal sense is that Square has been basically trying for 15 years to tell us the RPG genre is dead and linear action is the future, right at the point that Sega, Ubisoft, and Sony start jumping more INTO the genre, and Microsoft becomes the consolidated home of most W-RPGs.

If 16 goes true RPG then maybe FF is back. If 16 is a Platinum-style lone hero action game on guided rails as it looks like it might be, then I think FF is kind of a weird stylish genre-less blob that's whatever they feel like making as long as it's stylish.

@NEStalgia I disagree and most of all there is nothing wrong with being action based when the series has always been changing, with ATB being the first step towards a more active engagement of the player. I also like turn based systems very much but it’s not that whatever is not turn based is not a JRPG (hello Ys, Tales of series…). That’s very narrow! I’d take FFVII remake blend of combat and turns as a very interesting, engaging and relevant take of the evolution of the genre that doesn’t look backwards.

What you are referring to in FF13 was about the progression and in the interview the programmers actually said they wanted to make it like a first person shooter in terms of progression and it was widely misinterpreted. At the same time I could say something like Persona picks up a lot of its slow, linear progression and lack of exploration from visual novels but I would not ever say it is not a JRPG. They are all on a spectrum and thankfully they bring different flavors on the table.

I just would like to see similar production values to FF more often. Mistwalker’s Lost Odyssey was brilliant, and it took a very different approach from the contemporary and still absolutely brilliant FFXII…

@Feena I already said above in an earlier reply to Jaz that action based isn't the difference, citing Tales and Ys, etc, and for that matter Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, etc, so we're in agreement there. I don't think talking FF needs to separate J and W RPG really, because it's not about FF being J or W, it's about it being "not RPG" of any sort.

For FF13, I don't think there's much misinterpretation of Kitase's statement: "We didn't really intend to work within with the RPG template. We wanted to create a new game, even a new genre. The way we look at it, there's isn't a certain format that we have to keep to and build a game around. Rather, it goes the other way around. We create a game and, depending on what works or doesn't work within that game, it ends up reflecting different staple elements." I.E. they didn't sit down to make an RPG, they made a game they wanted to make, and it is what it is. The end result is not an RPG and they didn't intend it to be.

Another opinion from someone that would know more, the writing director for SWOTOR at Bioware: "You don't make any choices, you don't create a character, you don't live your character, I don't know what those are - adventure games maybe? But they're not RPGs."

Consider for a moment we have more decisions made over Aloy's character and spend more time living in her shoes in her world and interacting with/changing it than Lightning. HzD is not technically an RPG, yet it's straddles the line much much closer than FFXIII does.

I won't disagree that XV tried to go much harder toward being an RPG, and succeeded in some areas and lost itself in others.

And that's why we'll see what we'll see for XVI. Maybe it continues being an RPG, with character decisions, choices that affect the world (yes even JRPGs do even if you're funneled to them) and time to live in the shoes of your character in the world with a sense of place. The infor that's dropped so far makes it look much more like a linear on rails action adventure more like a big GoW or Uncharted than like an RPG, but, the pre release info could be misleading.

Snitches get stitches.