Nostalgia is all the rage nowadays, but things are a little different when it comes to video games. Developers have the opportunity to bring back games and make them a whole different experience than the original. Given the current popularity of remakes and remasters, everyone is always wondering what’s coming back. For many, there has been a clamoring for the return of several classic PlayStation franchises such as Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, and others but they haven’t seen the light of day…yet. In a new interview with Famitsu, PlayStation Co-CEO Herman Hulst talked about the company’s willingness and desire to do just that.
“Our extensive IP portfolio is an important asset for PlayStation, and as part of our efforts to strengthen our portfolio, we continually explore opportunities to leverage our legacy IP as well as develop new franchises.”
Hulst says that PlayStation wants to offer a broad range of experiences from its first-party studios as well as working with external developers. ” Our aim is to publish games from the world’s best creators, both internal and external, and we have had a lot of success by working closely with external development studios.”
“Creativity and great games come from everywhere. We develop content within PlayStation Studios, but we also actively collaborate with external development studios,” Hulst explains.
“It is important to have a wide variety of games in our portfolio that can be enjoyed by all types of players. To provide fresh joy and experiences to PlayStation players, we are constantly reviewing the contents of our portfolio and considering expanding the genres that are in demand and introducing new types of games.”
One of the biggest successes this year was Astro Bot from Team Asobi which ended up as Game of the Year at this year’s Game Awards.
According to Hulst, Astro Bot sold 1.5 million copies in its first nine weeks, early 40% of those sales coming from players who were either purchasing a PlayStation game for the first time, or for the first time in two years.
“We are thrilled that it has been so well received by the gaming community, with a Metacritic score of 94 and a wide range of players who are truly enjoying the game,” Hulst said.
“It has also contributed significantly to the expansion of the community, with a higher percentage of younger players and families purchasing the game compared to other titles.”
Talking about the future, Hulst says that PlayStation will “continue to focus on developing live service titles along with the story-driven single-player titles that our players want.”
“We are learning a lot as we establish the ability to develop high-quality live service titles within SIE,” Hulst said. “Helldivers 2 attracted many players through continuous content provision, and achieved results that support the potential of live service titles.”
PlayStation is also focusing on its efforts on mobile as well with the recent announcement of Destiny: Rising.
“In mobile games, we want to develop PlayStation IP in a way that maximizes synergy with the console,” Hulst said. “To that end, we will first focus on collaborations with external development studios.”