PS5's Brilliant New State of Play Breaks Records for Sony

That’s because Pragmata was the headliner 😎

I bet at least a few hundred thousand people dozed off while watching

It was an amazing State of Play, the poll that Geoff did on Twitter just shows peoples standard are way too high...

This sop feels like made by gamers, while sop before feels like made using whatever games publishers pay sony to appear in the sop.

@Frmknst What's wrong with games being multiplatform?? We ain't in 2005 anymore, nearly everyone has chosen their preferred console and won't switch because of a couple of exclusives, so yeah the statement still stands. Also you don't like anything... 🤷‍♂️

People online and in the comments still can’t seem to comprehend that gaming isn’t all about AAA and MTX filled slop fests. If you bring actual games with creativity running through them people will turn up, and this SoP is proof of that, it had a great variety of titles, pretty good pacing bar the section with Sid Shuman and besides the Yotei fake out I enjoyed it all.

Wasn't that good there was nothing virtually 1st party it was decent as a 3rd party state of play but I woudnt go celebrating if I was sony

I managed to catch up on the SOP at work last night and thought it was rather good. 👍

This one was indeed very good

Great W for sony i just hope they don't f....up and next sop instead of more of this we get live service bs for 30Min

@DonJorginho ppl online spamming L they live on their own bubble only care for 3 games GTA6,cod and Fortnite typical tourist "gamer"

@Frmknst so whats the problem with multiplatform ppl like you exclusives elitist are the real problem not multiplatform lol

A lot of people must have watched a different SoP from me. Loads of great games shown here, I know not everyone plays all genres of games and art is subjective and all that but to call it bad. 🤔

The whole first party narrative is so old. It’s been established for years how Sony is going to do these events, it’s not going to suddenly change. Sony are publishing 4 games in the next 4 months, and have 2 games with 2026 release dates(on top of Marvel Tokon) and they chose not to show any of them. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but that’s just how it is, and there was no reason to expect anything different.

Yeah, I get it, it was really exciting when Xbox had that show in 2023 where they showed Fable, Clockwork Revolution and Perfect Dark etc. But what is the actual point of that in the long run? If you were expecting some kind of long term roadmap then you were just setting yourself up for dissapointment.

@Frmknst "wrf is amazing about 99% multiplatform titles?"

So PS owners can't get excited for multiplatform titles that looks fun to play anymore?

Last time i check Playstation is a console with strong history where 3rd party / multiplatform titles did well. Games like GTA, FIFA, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, DMC, MGS, Mega Man, Castlevania etc are well received and beloved by many PS fans.

"brillant" is, at least, a risky statement.

acceptable if sony promises a showcase in the next months, but with almost NO CONTENT from first party devs... for me, it was shameful and alarming.

@Dan12836666 like some said ps5 games are ps5 games plus Sony has a strong 3rd party since well ever so take your dumb elitism elsewhere

It was fine, 7 out of 10 (add an extra mark if you like 2D beat 'em ups). The reaction shows how bad previous presentations were, rather than how good this one was.

first party > exclusives. i just want sonys first party output to be better regardless of if its multi platform or not

There are a number of regular commenters on here who seemingly can't accept that other people like things they don't like and demand that they explain themselves. It's okay to not like something, but let others enjoy it in peace. The world is already miserable enough, if people want to find joy in games, let them. I simply don't see the point of such relentless negativity.

That's what happens when you drop a banger of a show.

@Mattock1987 Probably better giving up the hobby then, it was a brilliant SoP and not even one promo of a japanese family all sharing one couch playing a game together, result 😃👍

I see the trolls are out already, must be hard typing with all those tears.

@UltimateOtaku91 ???

All this polarization is so tiring and I think PushSquare triggers it by calling everything Sony does “brilliant”. Read the room. There’s a middle ground here and in this article on viewing numbers there’s no need at all for opinions.

For me this doesn’t work at all. It gives me the feeling PS is not entirely independent which makes me distrust the actual reviews.

Not bad for a supposedly "terrible" state of play eh

That is impressive, in a vacuum. But when compared to other presentations it’s actually really bad. I mean the last Nintendo Indie World presentation got that many views and those are of much lower profile. This isn’t evidence of them getting better it’s evidence of how much of a failure they’ve been.

@Oram77 No, they are not.
I know that people will bring "showcase vs. state of play argument," but if shows like E3 2016 is A (which is basically gold standard currently), they how on Earth you can give this show anything better than B?

Sony themselves had plenty of way better shows. Not to mention Xbox showcases which were just excellent in last 2 years. Basically, Xbox had more first-party content in their auxiliary show (Developer_Direct) then Sony had during this State of Play. In showcase last year, they had 12 first-party games, not including expansions.

Basically, people are primarily watching PlayStation presentations for new first-party content. And there isn't much first-party content there. So people are not happy. And "cherry on top" was announcement of announcement of Ghost of Yotei lol. I don't understand why Sony just couldn't wait for July and include Ghost of Yotei presentation into one coherent State of Play.

You can't train your audience on first-party story-driven content and then just not show content like that. And if you don't have that content ready, then just wait lol. Nintendo was also criticized for Switch 2 direct because of lack of new first-party reveals.

@Darude84 Exactly, if they had written an article about how it was 'Sony's best show in years' then that would have been fair enough. Instead they choose to state as fact that it was an unerringly, earth-shatteringly, unbelievable behemoth of a show that changes the face of video games as we know it. All that does is antagonise people and encourage them to go completely the other way and claim it was utterly awful and signals the end of Sony as we know it.

In reality of course the State of Play sits well between these extremes. Yes I know that is how the internet works but there is no need to fan the flames like this writer does.

@Frmknst it was STATE OF PLAY not PlayStation Showcase.

Show was good, solid 8/10.

Lots of interesting games. A few not so.

People seem to be mistaking what was good about it for Sony. It was the fact that they actually got a state of play right - the tempo was good, most seemed to be releasing within 12months.

Could they have shown more first party stuff? Sure, but that’s not how Sony operate anymore, we didn’t even see Astro bot till what 3-4months before release?

@Mattock1987 if they did, they hate gaming (which based on the Internet, most gamers do) . Although there was arguably no "massive" announcement there was a variety of games shown off and many of them looked fantastic

I really enjoyed it for what it was, there were a few for me and a lot that weren’t but I’m sure that’s the case for everyone. With all the first party gaas games cancelled was anyone expecting a slew of new first party games? Insomniac have been ruined by their leak and I don’t expect anything from them for a while

@Godot25 This is how I look at things.

1) Is it a game I'm interested in? Y/N
2) Can I play it on my chosen platform? Y/N
3) Does it actually affect me if it's not a 1st party game? Y/N

Simple, right? I must point out, you clearly weren't a fan of the show case (which is totally fine) but then you score it a B, so am I to believe a B is a bad score now?

Edit: Just to add my two GOTYs are Expedition 33 and KCD2, which have no affiliation to any platform, so it really doesn't bother me if the Sony logo is there or not.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Yeah I would agree with that. The focus, tempo and tone of the State of Play were the main positives for me, not whether or not there were big announcement (although it had a few). Even people whose tastes don't completely align with what was shown (and we all like different things) should be able to recognize that they got those things right.

But of course, you get the usual voices who only care about AAA exclusives or first-party games and call everything else meaningless trash.

@Titntin Best rated shows are always those who have exciting first-party content. That is the case with Nintendo, that is the case with Sony and also with Xbox. That's why PlayStation's E3 2016 is such a treat. Because they showed God of War, Horizon, Days Gone, Detroit Become Human all in one show. That's why last year's Xbox Showcase was praised. You can say it's "dumb," but it's just true.

"Why even watch it if you dont care for anything other than 1st party, it was clearly stated they would be showing games from their publishing partners?"

That's on Sony. When they had "Showcase" and "State of Play," people were able to manage their expectations. They knew, that Showcase is big show for first-party content. But Sony forgot to make Showcases and started folding first-party content into State of Play format. So people are obviously expecting first-party content in State of Play. And when they are not getting one, they are disappointed. It's not rocket science lol.

Exciting first-party announcements are "creme de la creme" of first-party shows. Pretending like this wasn't a case in the past is revisionism of history. That's why every single Xbox show from 2016-2020 (outside of 2018) sucked so hard. Because while they shown great announcements, they always lacked first-party content.

But it's honestly hilarious that "fist-party doesn't matter" opinions started forming in exactly same time, when Sony started to have less and less first-party content in their shows. To that I will say that best part of 2021 PlayStation Showcase were last 10 minutes when they showed Wolverine, Gran Turismo 7, Spider-Man 2 and God of War Ragnarok. And those 10 minutes are the reason why 2021 PS Showcase is best PS show in last 5 years.

@Jrs1 the games were underwhelming, no big surprises.

@Mattock1987 Fair enough, for me it was like "glad some of these are 2026, i couldnt find time to play most of these this year" 😃

I didn’t watch. In fact I’ve never watched. I feel like when people watch things like this they get themselves worked up about a lot of games they don’t care about. They’ll show 6-7 games and if you only like 1 then you’ll complain about how bad the show was. So I wait till after, then check out the games from it that sound interesting to me.

At least the summer game fest to go and xbox showcase now to

@Godot25

Basically, people are primarily watching PlayStation presentations for new first-party content.

Fake narrative, Sony have always marketed themselves as having the best third party support, and being the best console to play third party games—All the way back to the inception of the brand with the PS1. The big first party AAA games is very much a recent development started by Naughty Dog and kicked into top gear in the second half of the PS4 generation. The people that buy those games still represent a minority of game owners though.

Sony do it this way because they cultivate strong relationships with third parties above all else. That’s why they had a 50 minute show in which they completely eschewed advertising their own games, 4 of which have release dates in the next 4 months.

Those games still exist, and you’ll still get to play them in the same timeframe. Showing games 5 years before a release date might excite you but it doesn’t fundamentally alter how you will(and when you will) consume that product.

@Godot25

That's why last year's Xbox Showcase was praised. You can say it's "dumb," but it's just true.

This is why the narrative is meaningless. Last year’s June show Sony revealed the game that would be the GOTY and MS showed 4 first party games that likely won’t make it out within 2 years of the show.

Sony released the GOTY last year(and 2 more that made the top 10 for most individual GOTY wins) and have 2 serious GOTY potential contenders coming in the next few months. MS released one minor GOTY contender level game(finished 6th place overall with 12 wins) last year and this year Doom probably just fell under the cut for top 10.

The shows are a meaningless representation of the actual quality being released.

@ChrisDeku Poll on Twitter by Geoff Keighley speaks for itself
A: 24,2%
B: 26,8%
C: 20,9%
D: 28,1%

Meanwhile PS Showcase 2021 which had almost exact same length but had way more first-party content
A: 52,6%
B: 30,2%
C: 10,9%
D: 6,2%

So much for "fake narratives" lol
Look. It's okay to say "I personally thought that this show was great." But to claim that general audience don't have expectations they are clearly have is just dumb.

This State of Play was okay. Nothing more, nothing less. Sony did way better shows in the past and probably will do way better shows in future. So I absolutely can't go higher then B, maybe even C. And general audience agrees.

@ChrisDeku MS showed 12 first-party games last year. From which they already released 8 (again, not counting expansions). Sprinkling some stuff that is further away when you already have stacked release cadence is not a bad thing in slightest.

It's not like everything they showed is releasing in 5 years lol. From "not released" games there are Fable, GoW E-Day, State of Decay 3 and Perfect Dark. All of those games (outside PD) will be out this or next year.

What was brilliant about it? It was good but not brilliant and most of the good games were third party. Nowhere near as good as last year's Xbox show that showed fable, new gears, doom, Indiana Jones, perfect dark, state of decay 3 aswell as third party Claire obscure, assassins creed shadows, metal gear etc

Ironically enough, this was the most "japanese" SoP we had in a while.

Also, given the fact the green side is fuming I guess Sony really understood the assignment.

N.i.c.e. I enjoy the state of play especially for nioh 3.word up son

@Godot25 How many of the 70m PS5 owners voted in that poll? Twitter polls don’t represent random samples and only represent the opinion of a very specific group. If you did a poll on this website you’d find that no one likes CoD, LoL, Counter-Strike 2, Fortnite etc.

How many of those 8 MS games were actually high quality games? Does it include the yearly CoD update and a bunch of really niche and/or low budget games like Flight Sim, Ara: history retold, South of Midnight etc.?

Game counting is only the new favourite pastime of the Xbox fanboy because MS bought lots of games and release a lot of games. There are mobile game companies that release 20 games a year. Game counting says nothing of quality.

@Titntin Trying to pretend the current success of the PS5 and Sony is still the same as it was for the PS1 launch is just silly. The brand undoubtedly started on the back of 3rd party, but they didn't keep that position and curb stomp Xbox out of the hardware market off just 3rd party content. No, they did it last gen off 1st party, while their strong 3rd party support drove the point home.

There's big fan bases for both Sony's 1st party content and their 3rd party curating, and altrying to play down one in favour of the other is just dumb. Both were and are critical to many fans of the brand, and those who are hungry for more first party Sony content are well within their rights to feel frustrated at this point, just as many Xbox fans were frustrated during the Xbox One generation/Early Xbox Series Gen at how few 1st party games they were putting out.

Tl;Dr, Sony have built their house on two pillars, 1st party and 3rd party and they're only consistently delivering on one of those right now

@Lysterao There is no doubt that first-party games have become more important over a time, peaking during the PS4 era. You are correct that people shouldn't be downplaying one in favour of the other, both are part of the overall catalogue.

Having said that, most of these replies that are downplaying the importance of first-party games come in response to posts that mostly boil down to "no first-party games = crap State of Play". It would be hard to deny that those posts weren't massively downplaying the importance of third-party support in the first place.

one of if not the best state of play ever hit after hit the people complaining are either xbox fans or they are just trolling ..

Most people saying this SOP was rubbish are just trolls

I am starting to think those events are not for me anymore, they are targeting a niche audience and i am not in that range. There are just few games being released that i am very enthusiastic about.

@BloodyBlact Just out of curiosity, could you name the games, you are interested in?

@Godot25 "Basically, people are primarily watching PlayStation presentations for new first-party content"

No. Basically people are primarily watching PS presentations to see what exciting and fun games that gonna release on the platform.

People was hype when Crash Team Racing remake and MK 11, both games are multiplats btw, was showed for the 1st time at SoP march 2019.

People was hype too when MGS 3 Delta, RE 3 & 4 remake, RE 8, Tekken 8, SF 6, DW Origins, Star Ocean 6, Soul Reaver remaster, and more multiplat games was shown for the first time at SoP.

So this narrative about people watch SoP only for 1st party games are just, sorry to say, utter bollocks. Millions of PS fans loves 3rd party games, exclusives or not, since the birth of PS.

And people who seems like they only care about Sony 1st party games, i bet 70-80% of them doesn't even buy the non-AAA ones like Tokyo Jungle, Afrika, Puppeteer, Forbidden Siren, Folklore, Genji, The Last Guy, Rain, The Last Guardian, Arc the Lad etc just because those games doesn't get 9 or 10/10 scores.

@Oram77 announced Silent Hill F, Ghost of Yotei and Pragmata(?).
Unannounced FF9 and RE9. If ever.
The last game i played and enjoyed is Expedition 33.

I still don't understand the utter obsession with first-party games. I chose PlayStation because the vast majority of what I want to play is there; Sony exclusives are nice bonuses.

@BloodyBlact So you have the same taste in games as me, yet you didn't like the event (which is fine of course), Nioh 3 and 007 will be day 1 purchases. I saw your comment on the article and yes every time I see Square Enix logo I have a mini heart attack 👀

@CielloArc what does this mean? I haven’t seen anything like that.

Glad it got lots of views, but nothing shown piqued my interest really. And still a concerning lack of news from first party studios; I’m guessing it’ll be awhile before they turn the ship away from the iceberg that is the whole live service fiasco.

@Dan12836666 unfortunately opinions that add 0 to the conversation like yours is pretty hard to agree or accept because what ur saying in today gaming sphere is completely worthless get out of your Bubble and accept the reality that multiplatform is the way to make money and to make everyone happy because we can play every game on every platform thats the future is pretty sad that ur stuck in past

"Brilliant" is a ridiculous overstatement. It's also hilarious how many people here will scream about how wonderful Sony are for their first party exclusives, and then claim how first party exclusives aren't important in a show like this.

Where are the games Sony???

@SMJ Maybe those are different people?

@ButterySmooth30FPS No they're not. Unfortunately.

It was okay/above average. Btw, Sony did nothing better than these two streams since the beginning of this gen:

PS5 reveal broadcasts. They were perfect. Pacing, new stuff, hype, surprises. They both had everything. Too bad we are not getting anything close to these two for five years is INSANE!

Breaks my heart that so many people don't even remember Bloodstained.

The best Metroidvania in years will receive a sequel, and most people don't care.

Lmfao what in the dystopia world are we talking about. This isn't YouTube metrics here. Are we really suggesting that because it was the most viewed it was the most successful? In the largest data poll we have to go on the reception was largely divided equally among those that though it a good showcase and those that thought otherwise.

Most viewed does not mean success. It's like the whole players versus sales logic all over again.

On Sony's YouTube channel alone, Concord's cinematic reveal trailer had 664k views, it's gameplay reveal 1.2 m views. The deep dive even more...

@AdamNovice DS2 will eventually be on Xbox. GoY will mean that it's an entire year since the last first party exclusive. Sony has always been (rightly so) lauded for its exclusive games. Their output recently has been piss poor.

@AdamNovice They haven't released a first party exclusive since Astro Bot. And by September it will be a full 12 months. As a fellow PlayStation fan, don't you think they should be doing better than that?

@SMJ well I suppose if Sony just brought a load of devs who were about to release games and then call it first party output (which is exactly what’s happened with Microsoft) it’s kind of cheating. lol

@PlatinumMikey Oh don't start that argument. Sony bought every studio that makes their games.

And Microsoft buying a huge publisher doesn't stop Sony releasing games does it? I didn't mention Xbox once but to defend Sony's pitiful output you've decided to bring them into the mix as if there's a cause and effect between the two.

@SMJ it’s a fact though isn’t it lmao. MS brought Bethesda just as they were going to publish starfield and doom multi platform 😂. Suddenly MS are gods at first party output. You seem to skirt around the facts

@PlatinumMikey Yes it's a fact that Microsoft bought Bethesda. They also bought ABK.

Sony bought Bungie.

Everyone knows these things! They weren't secret acquisitions! 😂

I'm not skirting any facts. You however won't talk about the fact that Sony's output has been awful.

@SMJ Sonys output has been unrivalled for literally decades wtf 😆 have you only recently got into gaming by anychance? you’re mad if you think there’s been no PS5 exclusives bro 👊

@PlatinumMikey I specifically said that Sony's output has been incredible up to now. I have been gaming longer than you and on this site longer than you.

You're still avoiding the exact point I made. Sony's output has objectively been terrible over the last 12 months. Why are you defending that?

And stop trying to get into a silly fanboy argument "bro".

@PlatinumMikey PS5 has the least amount of exclusives in PlayStation history. Console has had maybe 10 exclusives after 5 years and all are ported

@SMJ they’ve just taken a year off Christ on a bike get a grip 😂😂been gaming since 1989 but whatever bro. You just come on this site to moan I don’t know why you bother. And I’ve been using PS a lot longer than account states trust me bro

@Shad361 what utter rubbish 😂😂

@PlatinumMikey Okay bro. Whatever you need to tell yourself bro.

They've taken a year off. 😂😂😴

@PlatinumMikey @Shad361 You laugh things off without actually saying anything of substance.

@PlatinumMikey Prove me wrong bro.

@PlatinumMikey 😂 Wow! Calling me an incel! Very clever and funny bro! You win bro!

@SMJ And honestly even considering Astro Bot, there output has been beyond horrible. PS5 gen has been pretty rough for them, and the showcases being rather plain and full of 3rd party magnifies the issue. They seem to be coasting a little and relying on other publishers... As a PS fan I like Sony but I can acknowledge that there is an issue big time. Maybe it was the live service pivot and then pivot back when it didn't pan out.

@SDog_84 I adore all of my PlayStation consoles but this generation has been so underwhelming. Agreed, the live service plan has a lot to answer for!

I hope anyone hating on that State of Play are redirecting their criticisms to Sony and not to the devs of the games showcased. It's not their fault that Sony had no other first-party exclusives to show off. If they weren't so dead set on chasing that live-servuce trend we would've definitly had at least one or two new first-party games announced.

For me, I thought it was overall fine. Was it amazing? Probably not, but I do appreciate them giving more focus to japanese devs for once. Plus, unlike Summer Game Fest, at least it got straight to the point, and with no BS gacha game ads.

For me, the best three consoles of all time are the PS1, PS2 and SNES. What works so well for them is it the massive amount of third party non-exclusive games. Games like LttP, Mario World and Super Metroid are all time greats but it wouldn't matter for much if it wasn't for the massive amount of other games that were also on PC or the MD.

Look at the PS1, what do you think mastered more to its success? Gran Turismo and Wipeout or GTA, Tony Hawk, FFVII, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, etc? Also most games end up being multiplatform sooner or later anyway, like FFVI on the SNES was a huge deal but it's since been on just about everything.