Sony showed a ton of new big IP's that will be coming over the next couple of years at E3, but it will take some time for the games to hit store shelves. This has caused quite a bit of scrutiny to rise among the Sony camp, with most gamers calling for more big time AAA titles. Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida feels variety in the video game industry is essential, and finds it difficult to understand how some consumers are only interested in these types of games.
Speaking with GI International after winning the Award of Honour at Barcelona’s Gamelab conference, Yoshida said while he worries at bit regarding consumer reaction to games which aren’t shooters – like LittleBigPlanet 3 – what’s “important is the variety” being offered in the market.
“We are concerned a little bit when we work on a game like LittleBigPlanet 3, because people want those big-budget, realistic, military shooters,” he said. “I was very happy to get a very positive reaction when we announced LittleBigPlanet 3. But there were lots of cheers, a lot of affection.
“And the reaction to Nintendo’s games in general, or a game like Splatoon. If you look at the whole industry, and you consider Nintendo, I think the balance is actually better than past years.”
Yoshida feels the balance between triple-A and great indie games is important, especially original indie concepts such as Resogun whcih was offered free to PlayStation Plus members “for a long time.”
“Not every PS Plus member downloaded it, and that’s a great, great game. That’s a key question for us,” he said. “I hear complaints [about the lack of AAA games]. I do realize that some people are only interested in big-budget AAA games. I don’t really understand those people. I don’t know if they’ve tried some of the indie games and decided they’re not interested.
“Maybe they haven’t even tried. That’s a key question. Almost every week you see an indie game coming out digitally on PS4. Some of them are really, really interesting, beautiful games.
“We’re fortunate that they’re creating games on PS4, and some of them are choosing to launch their console versions on PlayStation first.”
