PS6 Needs More From PS Studios

As a multi-platform gamer I think it’s a bit disingenuous of Sony to come out and say that they welcome competition. Especially when in the last few years they’ve done their best to actually stifle competition by signing up third-party exclusives such as the Final Fantasy games. Which are in fact only just now heading to Xbox. I love what PlayStation Studios do and the games that they create. However, sometimes I get the feeling that they can do no wrong and Xbox and Nintendo are somewhat inferior. I think this generation has indeed shown that this isn’t the case with Nintendo actually now becoming a lot more direct competition.

Sony even came out and spoke about how you cannot get a good experience on a big screen with a Nintendo Switch 2. Totally missing the actual point of the experiences that Nintendo themselves so uniquely provide. That’s the frustrating part about Sony when they actually do speak these days.

It really isn’t as great a look as when they had some of the best PS4 people back in the day. It seems like they are so far from the reality of what the fans want. I have no doubt that PlayStation Studios is working incredibly hard to get PlayStation back on the single-player front.

However, Sony’s dream to continue to chase the live-service train makes sense only because of the amount of opportunistic wealth it could provide but it does have a slight whiff of arrogance to it. Whether we like it or not they’re always going to try and chase that.

However, they went far too all-in this generation with it and ultimately with that they’ve only failed in optics with their fans. With everything else, they’re actually breaking record after record in terms of user engagement on PSN and how the PS5 is performing in game sales. Just recently, PS5 overtook PS4 players.

It only took five years. But in that, it just sums it up how far and away Sony has been off it this generation with most of their hardcore fans. Sometimes it’s completely okay to admit that this generation has been a disappointment. However, this cannot be a longstanding theme where the consumer continues to support that.

If we all want the PS6 to come out firing then there are going to have to be things that change. That means reflecting on what the PS5 didn’t live up to.

Ultimately, when I hear Sony speak. I do not get the impression that they actually realize that. It’s going to be really interesting how they sell people on the PS6 when that time comes and how it differs and how people ultimately respond to it. They did get one thing right though, they do need Xbox and Nintendo for competition. If they didn’t have them, I think it would be a major issue just because they’d have nobody to learn from when they do get it wrong.

That’s not saying that Nintendo or Xbox cannot ever get it wrong. They do, and have, but even though I am excited for the PS6 and all that it’s going to bring. Sony really has to show what’s been missing this generation and that mean providing more showcases for the die-hards or at least competing to the same level as Xbox for hype.

It’s probably been one of the weirdest generations going. To a point, these consoles were launched during a pandemic and studios are only really recovering from that. Also, at the same time though, the expectations from fans next time out are going to be much higher just because of how mismanaged this generation has been to those that feel that PlayStation Studios haven’t brought much to it.

It’s all subjective, of course. But only time will tell if PlayStation can strike the right balance moving forward into what’s going to be very interesting times for the gaming industry.

The demand to see more of PlayStation Studios is always going to be there and the PS6 could be a generation where we start to see the wheel turning more with that. It’s what most fans want more of. Even though, we have to take into consideration that of long development times. We just haven’t seen enough and even the most die-hard PlayStation fans would agree with that.