The PlayStation 6 is on a lot of gamers’ minds right now, including mine. In many ways, it feels like the PS5 has just begun to find a bit of a groove, which makes the impending PlayStation 6 announcement feel way too soon. However, it’s already been six years. It’s baffling to think about, but Sony’s next-gen console is on the way, whether gamers are ready or not. Looming questions regarding price and whether the console will have disc support or not have gamers questioning even buying the console, but a recent statement from an ex-Naughty Dog dev has reminded me why the PS6 will still likely sell, regardless of price or potential digital-only design.
Even when game and console prices go up, gamers will still line up for new releases simply because of the studios that bring such amazing worlds to life. Of course, everyone’s budget is different, so this doesn’t count for every fan. However, when it comes to studios like Naughty Dog that have become an essential piece of a massive company’s DNA, the developers are the key players in getting console sales rolling. Naughty Dog games are synonymous with the PlayStation brand, and Sony is banking on that to sell PS6 consoles when the time comes.
Sony-Exclusive Studios Like Naughty Dog Will Be the Actual Driving Force Behind PS6 Sales
Former Naughty Dog VFX artist Matt Radford recently spoke with Kiwi Talkz about why Naughty Dog is such a special studio, and he had some fascinating insight into why the developer has gained such a solid reputation. The main reason Radford gave is that Naughty Dog isn’t necessarily motivated by profit. This sounds counterproductive for a game studio, but Radford explained further why that is the case.
My understanding is really that Naughty Dog exists to sell Sony hardware… The reason Naughty Dog is so wonderful is that they aren’t as profit-driven as other companies, because they exist to be a flagship to sell the hardware. Sony makes their money on the hardware, and I think it’s working.
That’s a fascinating bit of info, and it honestly makes a lot of sense. It’s no secret that Naughty Dog and Sony are deeply entangled, but the latter leaning on the former to be one of the main marketing tools to drive console sales shows a wild level of confidence in the studio. After games like Uncharted and The Last of Us, the confidence is definitely warranted, but it’s also risky.
If game sales or console sales suffer, Naughty Dog and Sony pay the price. However, the three decades worth of successful games has clearly put Sony in a comfortable position. Between Naughty Dog and Santa Monica Studio, betting on these developers to deliver games that make people want to buy new hardware seems like a given. Even if the price of the PS6 turns out to be eye-watering, Sony needs to rely on exclusive first-party developers to entice gamers with projects that look too good to miss out on.
Sony’s Impending PS6 Era Needs to Be Defined by Exclusivity
Sony has tried to make the PS5 generation a live-service golden era, but that experiment has failed. Instead of producing an abundance of new games, Sony’s live-service goals have caused multiple games and studios to shut down, with further upcoming live-service projects like Horizon Hunters Gathering reportedly rethinking the model and rebooting development. The hard truth is that this live-service push has made the PS5 era feel incredibly barren compared to past generations, and the PS6 needs to make up for that in a massive way.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Easy (120s)Medium (90s)Hard (60s)
The good news is that the upcoming God of War Laufey release from Santa Monica Studio and Naughty Dog’s next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, are hopefully going to get the PlayStation identity back on track. Both studios are some of Sony’s best-performing first-party developers, so if the PS6 is truly around the corner like some are expecting, then God of War Laufey and Intergalactic could be the one-two punch that sets the stage for Sony’s next-gen console to be all about what the company has done well for years: giving gamers amazing single-player narrative-driven games.
The PlayStation vs. Xbox Debate Will Flare Up Again
Frankly, both PlayStation and Xbox have been in major slumps, but in completely different ways. New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has been walking back a lot of decisions that got the company into this situation in the first place, especially when it comes to exclusivity, at least for the most part. Instead of completely foregoing exclusivity, Xbox is going to work on a case-by-case basis with which games remain Xbox exclusive and which ones get ported to competing platforms.
Between the PS6 and the Xbox Helix, it’s going to be fascinating to see which method works the most to sell consoles. Expensive price tags are basically an inevitability at this point, so the real selling point is going to be which console has the best games that make forking over the cash more worth it in the long run. If Sony can set aside the live-service ambitions and put even more emphasis on studios like Naughty Dog and Santa Monica Studio, then it’s very likely that a lot of gamers will overlook whatever controversial features the PS6 has.
