Cognition Dissemination: Turns Out, Sony’s Approach Isn’t So Different

Microsoft drew a heap of criticism from Extremely Online Gamer types after elaborating on their early Xbox Series X software plans at the beginning of the year (well before the Xbox Series S was revealed). Head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty confirmed that first-party titles for the system’s (or “systems’” now) first one to two years would be cross-generation games, which means they’ll be on Xbox One too.

It took no time whatsoever for this to draw complaints about the plan holding games back from achieving their full next-generation console potential, even though the logic behind them doing this was easy to figure out. There’s no way to tell whether there will be a big-enough audience on next-gen consoles early on to sustain software development, and with games only getting more expensive to produce, they need a big audience to buy them.

This means games like Halo Infinite, State of Decay 3, and the upcoming Forza Motorsport game will be on the entire Xbox family. Whether they’ll maintain this trend will depend on how games sell on XB1 over the next couple of years, but they’ll inevitably phase this out as more people adopt next-gen platforms. I wouldn’t be surprised if, for example, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is a Series X/S-exclusive title, given its spectacular presentation and how they haven’t shown it in action since December last year. It’s likely years away.

Sony, however, appeared to be taking an alternate approach with the PlayStation 5, one gamers capable of setting aside around $1000 to buy expensive new hardware and software at or near launch were pleased to see. Every Sony-published game showcased at their June event was advertised as a PS5-exclusive, games that would purportedly take advantage of the new hardware early on. This led to serious mashed potato-brained console warring on social media or message boards. In a twist of fate, this picture wasn’t completely accurate.

It was after their recent PS5 show that Sony subtly confirmed through the PlayStation Blog that a trio of exclusives will also release for PlayStation 4. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Sackboy A Big Adventure, and Horizon Forbidden West will be cross-generation titles, with free next-gen upgrades being available for anyone who purchases the games on the older console. This means everyone who saluted Ghost of Tsushima as the final Sony-published title on PS4 in July spoke too soon.

This is a little surprising because Sony skipped doing this during the transition period between PlayStation 3 and PS4, when cross-gen titles first became very common for third-party publishers. Gran Turismo 6 was the last big game Sony published on PS3, while they fully moved on to PS4 with the likes of Killzone: Shadowfall and Infamous: Second Son. This is not including remasters for games like The Last of Us Remastered and Beyond: Two Souls, both different kinds of releases — the kind they’re mimicking with Marvel’s Spider-Man now. That’s clearly not the case for Sony this time around.

PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan mentioned to the Washington Post that the PS4 will continue to be important to Sony “for three or four years.” While that will mean continued accessory and repair support, it perhaps implies that the three aforementioned titles won’t be the only cross-gen ones from Sony.

This move makes sense, though. The PS4 was a far bigger success than the PS3. The latter system ended Sony’s time as the console market leader after years of domination with the PSOne and PlayStation 2, even after its sales improved later in its lifecycle. They wanted to get away from it quickly.

Less surprising is how this has all sorts of people claiming that Sony bamboozled them by making them think the PS5 would have a dizzying array of exclusives early on, which is ridiculous. For one, there’s nothing suggesting games like Miles Morales and Horizon Forbidden West will suffer too heavily in terms of graphics due to having PS4 versions. This same audience thought both those games looked fantastic before they found out they were cross-gen, with Miles Morales receiving positive comments from just the last stream. Plenty of other games, however, will be PS5-exclusive titles, like the Demon’s Souls remake and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, both of which are two of the best-looking next-gen games shown thus far. Sony isn’t taking an approach completely identical to Microsoft’s here, but it won’t be as different as expected.

Whether Sony will maintain the cross-generation software trend will depend on how the trio of titles mentioned above sell on PS4, especially the games coming later. Chances are Miles Morales will do fine on PS4, because the number of PS5 launch purchasers won’t be close to the PS4’s install base. Sales of Sackboy A Big Adventure and most especially Horizon Forbidden West will be more interesting to watch on PS4. This will, of course, also apply to Microsoft Xbox One games that release after Halo Infinite.

This revelation about Sony titles once thought to be exclusive to PS5 is pissing off the very vocal crowd who thumbs their nose at anything cross-gen. But they aren’t as big of an audience as they like to think they are. It’s good that a significant crowd won’t need to clear out their figurative wallets to buy at least one next-gen console early to keep up with the latest software releases for the next couple of years, and can wait until a time when next-gen console lineups have developed. Even better, the current-gen games will be playable on next-gen consoles thanks to backwards compatibility and next-gen software upgrades. The only thing that could ruin this is the current-gen (soon to be last-gen) ports being given little attention by developers, especially for how they run base PS4 and Xbox One S. Hopefully that doesn’t happen on too large a scale.