After the wildly successful launch of the Playstation 5, Sony is gearing up to increase its investments by a hefty amount for game development. The company revealed that it is investing an extra $180 million towards its first-party studios, doubling down on the formula that made the PS4 the world’s second best-selling console.
Sony recently announced 2 bold partnerships for PlayStation, with the first being with new studio Haven Entertainment, and another being with Firewalk Studios for a new Multiplayer game. The PlayStation brand has been criticized for the lack of well-made multiplayer experiences, an area that Xbox has been doing quite well in. Sony will be addressing the issue with high-quality multiplayer games on PS5, and the Firewalk Studios’ partnership is a good sign with veteran devs from the Call of Duty and Destiny franchises.
During the conference call, transcribed by VGC, Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki spoke at length on their plans to invest more in Sony Game and Network services after record highs during 2020. The investment is not just for internal development, as Sony has also started to partner with external studios/developers to drive engagement on PlayStation 5.
“As I just mentioned, we aim to strengthen the PlayStation platform through actions such as the recently announced partnership with Haven Entertainment, which was established by Jade Raymond, creator of the famous game Assassin’s Creed. In our additional investment of Epic Games, along with the rest of the Sony group, we will also work to enhance the social and platform capabilities of games.”
Sony’s partnership with Epic Games has been well documented, with Unreal Engine 5 first being demonstrated on the PS5 console, and characters from PlayStation exclusives making their way into Fortnite.
The PlayStation 5 is out now in India and worldwide, and while Sony has reported record-breaking sales figures, supply is still restricted thanks to a global chip shortage.
