Today, Sony has revealed a new brand for its first-party titles. The brand, PlayStation Studios, will launch alongside the PlayStation 5 later this year and has been created to help consumers be more aware of games that were developed by one of Sony’s Worldwide Studios. Speaking to gamesindustry.biz, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment Eric Lempel said: “It’s something we’ve thought about for a while, and especially as we move towards the next-generation we really want to back our games in an even bigger way. We’ve done everything in terms of massive robust marketing campaigns, and this is an even better way to bring together these games, united, in an easy way for fans to understand what they’re getting into.”
PlayStation decided to create this new brand as a way for those who may not be aware that certain games such as The Last of Us Part II, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and more were developed by one of Sony’s studios. “We’ve never had any problem getting people to play these games. They’re usually critically acclaimed, award-winning franchises that are games of the year, but for the average consumer it’s not always clear what games come directly from our Worldwide Studios. And to your point, they’ve come to understand in many cases that these are really robust, innovative, single-player experiences. Of course, there’s a variety of other games that don’t fit into that mold, but nevertheless we wanted to make sure people know that these are the games coming from our Worldwide Studios.”
PlayStation 4 games will also have this brand later in the year when it releases. So while the next two big PlayStation exclusives are a few months away, you will not see the PlayStation Studios brand. It will come to these games and other future titles coming to other platforms.
The brand will not be limited to the beginning of games either. As Lempel explains, it will be everywhere. “You’ve seen the animated asset that will exist primarily during the beginning of our titles, but the brand will exist in a lot of different places. There are different, shorter animations that will exist in trailers… It will exist in advertising. It will be in any other creative assets, such as the game packaging and the game discs themselves. We think this is a good way to let consumers know that, if they see it, then the quality games they’ve come to expect from us are here. And this brand will exist for well-known existing franchises, as well as brand new franchises that we have yet to explore.”