Sony Admits That First-Party Lineup Is “A Little Sparse”

Sony Computer Entertainment president and global CEO, Andrew House, has said that the company will be placing a greater emphasis on securing third-party support. The main reason for this focus is because of his admission that the first-party lineup is somewhat lacking.

“We are working very hard to continue very strong support from third-party pubs and devs,” explained House. “Our first-party lineup is a little sparse this year, so I think this places even greater emphasis on getting good third-party support.”

This won’t necessarily translate to third-party exclusives for the console, House has previously said that the company has been trying to persuade multiplatform developers to include exclusive content for the PS4 version of their game, or take advantage of the features that the console has over the competition, such as SharePlay. House admitted that although third-party exclusives are “few and far between” and are becoming “increasingly difficult to secure”, they were able to announce Street Fighter 5 as being a “complete exclusive for PlayStation 4”.

Are you disappointed with the current state of the PS4 lineup for the remainder of 2015? I was certainly expecting some announcements of big releases in the run up to Christmas, especially as the Xbox One lineup looks stronger in comparison.

Source: Games Industry

41 Comments

  1. I was expecting a good e3 with this year being as it is so far and losing uncharted. Maybe he’s preparing us to have an underwhelming showing. And I just bought a ps4 too.

    • First party lineup might not be strong this year but there are a lot of very exciting third party things coming up, and a few nice things to get from last year. It’s actually quite a good time to get a PS4, almost makes me wish I’d waited.

      • I’ve waited and i’m still waiting, till after E3 at least. I regretted jumping in so early with the PS3. It’s killing me though :)

  2. I dont think going after exclusive content for third party games will in any way make up for a poor first party game line up.

  3. I think they’ve done pretty well,Killzone,

    • oops- let me try that again..
      They’ve done pretty well with Killzone,Knack, Infamous, Driveclub ,The Order, Bloodborne just to name the bigger ones so far. Plenty to look forward to with No Man’s Sky, Tomorrow Children, Uncharted, Rime, Ratchet & Clank and more on the way.
      I think this E3 we should see this generation start to come into it’s own as developers become more au fait with the hardware.

      • No Man’s Sky, Ratchet & Clank, Rime, The Tomorrow Children and Bloodborne aren’t actually from first party Sony owned developers.

      • D’oh! Got carried away with my anticipation for those games :)

      • resorting to insults are we ? what i said was right. the SCEE CEO himself admits they habve very little first party games yet you think you know more than the SCEE CEO. go sit on a turd like a good little man.

      • Did you even read the article?
        If you had done, you would have realised that the article invites members to give their opinion on the current state of the PS4 line-up – to which i responded quite fairly with my opinion, listing a number of PS4 exclusives which i have enjoyed and more that i’m looking forward to.

        Also, i have no interest in sitting on you.

      • you silly little man.

    • YOU THINK ? Sony and the CEO admit its been sparse for exclusives yet you know more than them and making excuses for a faceless corporation that don’t care you even exist. fanboys smh.

      • And you are the definition of constipation of the brain and diarrhoea of the mouth.

      • Carry on like that and i suspect you won’t be welcome here much longer. Calm down

  4. That’s a bit of an understatement. One of the reasons I bought a PS3 back in 2009 was because there were more and more great/unique PS exclusives coming to the console. Now it seems in reverse, and X1 has got the better selection, at least for my personal tastes.

    That said there will be GT7 and I think Guerrilla Games have a new exclusive coming, but I think we’re looking at late 2016/2017 for those by the looks of it.

    Multiplatform games are fine of course, but the exclusives have always made the console what it is, and given it the edge over buying something else. No end of resolution arguments or crappy 1 hour ‘exclusive content’ will ever deter me from wanting a unique exclusive game.

    • Which games catch your eye on X1?

      • The main ones are Halo Masterchief collection + Halo 5 (big Halo fan), Forza Horizon 2, Ori and the Blind Forrest, and Sunset Overdrive.

        Not too bothered about Forza 6 unless it turns out to be wildly different from past games. Forza 2 was fantastic, but everything after that was a bit meh.

        I’m certainly interested in a few others like Crackdown and Quantum Break, but I’ll wait and see about those.

  5. It’s a bit ridiculous considering how many first-party (and second-party) studios they’ve got. Will everything release next year then, and we’ll have to wait another two years for more?

    • I know what you mean, last year we thought 2015 was going to be huge (it is, but not for PS exclusives), now with GoW not getting revealed last E3, UC4 being pushed back to next year, it is looking sparse.

      Walked past GAME today and they have mock-up Star Wars Battlefront official PS4 bundles, so I think we know what this years Destiny will be for PS.

      • Exactly. Sony has had very well filled lineups for each year the last few with perhaps the exception of last year. And we expected 2015 to be a really strong one now that we’re a couple years into the new systems and things were stabilising.

        Last E3 it felt like everything was 2015, and now we’re in 2015 it’s all been pushed back to 2016. Thankfully Microsoft has a fairly solid lineup for the fall to keep me busy while I wait. But some surprises for the second half would be awesome.

  6. This could be in TuffCub’s ‘News that is not news’! Be interesting to see some stats re: games for PS3 vs PS4 18 months in from launch…

  7. There were so many exclusives on Ps3 compared to other consoles. They were quite varied too which made it even better. But looking back, at the start the ps3 didn’t get properly going until mgs came out in 08 and then lbp later that year.

    I think it’s still a little early to jump on the bandwagon of giving them stick. They have many franchises and development studios probs working on numerous game.

    However, it is something that needs addressing by next year.

  8. The difference between Sony’s release schedule and Microsoft’s is that Sony releases games throughout the entire year (we’ve already had The Order and Bloodborne this year, with God of War III Remastered coming in July, and Until Dawn in August), whereas Microsoft tends to focus on the couple of months before Christmas. Therefore, everyone always says Microsoft has the better pre-Christmas lineup, even though they released nothing earlier in the year. From a personal perspective, I definitely prefer Sony’s strategy to Microsoft’s.

    • Last year they could blame having to work with difficult hardware and HD. Now though?

      I guess having to live up to expectations for what is a “next-gen” game is the challenge.

  9. Quite happy, with both consoles, having PS exclusives the first part of the year and a slew of Xbox exclusives in the ‘holidays’ aka Christmastime.

    Also it’s interesting, if a first party game has to be developed by a platform holder owned studio to be called so, The Order: 1866 is not first party, Ready at Dawn is privately owned. A good example of 2nd party methinks?

    I just hope the third party agreements don’t mean exlcusive/timed dlc, because it would put me off the game if I was 50-50 about getting it, and it’s disrespectful to those who only have one console.

  10. Yeah, it’s all a bit average so far. There have been some good first party games this gen but nothing I’ll remember in 5-10 years time (on either console).

    It don’t think it helps that so many games have been delayed recently (Uncharted in particular was a blow). Sure, I want them to make sure the game actually works before they release it (Ubisoft) but it does feel like all of Sony’s first party studios only found out about the PS4 at E3 with the rest of us.

    What the PS4 needs are some new IP’s like Uncharted/LBP/inFamous/Resistance. New ideas. Not just sequels, reboots and HD remasters. It’s like no one takes risks anymore unless it’s an indie game.

    Microsoft have a marginally stronger lineup this year but what are they going to do after Halo 5? Buy even more ‘previously third party’ sequels? Halo 5 DLC until Halo 6 comes out? Props for Sunset OD though, that was a great game.

    • Problem was, Sony devs were still making PS3 games as late as 2013 (The last of us, Beyond 2 souls, Gran Turismo 7)

      We could have had the new IP (‘Horizon’) from Guerilla by now but they stopped development to make KZ:SF as it’d be easier to launch a familiar game on a new system.

      Quantic Dream seem to only make new, original games.

      Naughty Dog have said (last year) that they are in the early stages of a completely new IP, not UC or TLOU, but ‘as big’ as those two.

      I don’t know what Sucker Punch are doing, it’d be cool if they also made something new.

      And then there’s Santa Monica. Is it a new GoW, or something else?

      Still plenty of fresh ideas, but not the most that there’s ever been.

      • Santa Monica just need to make Warhawk for the PS4. Thats it. Just |warhawk. In HD with 128 players. AWESOME.

      • I support this.

    • Gears of War will be next years big shooter for xbox.

      • There’s both the new Gears and the anniversary remake of the first. I wonder if they’ll both be out next year or if they’ll get Anniversary out in November/December.

      • I think the remake will be this year as a stopgap to the next proper entry next year.

      • They only started work on the new gears last year. I always raise my eyebrows when people think it will release 2016.

        Two year dev time when they’re starting from scratch (brand new studio).

        Late 2017, at the earliest.

    • Microsoft has two studios working on Forza, I think we can expect heavy DLC presence for 6 and maybe a new game by Playground (although I’d bet on 2017 for that), Black Tusk with Gears and new IP in the works, Quantum Break, and a new Rare game. Oh, and let’s not forget Scalebound by Platinum and the new Crackdown by Cloudgine.

      As for Halo, next year will be about Halo 5 DLC, but there’s also certainly plans for a Reach remaster and a port of Spartan Strike (though that could be this year).

      • Crackdown yes, hopefully we see more of that at E3, I think it has great potential.

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