Will Sony’s attitude change post-acquisition? (Picture: Sony)
A reader has some suggestions about how Sony should respond to the Activision Blizzard acquisition and get people excited about PS5 again.
So it’s all but confirmed that Microsoft has won its battle to buy Activision Blizzard and nothing is going to be quite the same in gaming again. I know some people try to downplay this, because they don’t want to deal with the fact that things are going to change, but you don’t pay $69 billion for the world’s biggest third party publisher and not expect a bit of a upheaval.
Nintendo won’t care but obviously all eyes are on Sony. They weren’t the ones opposing Microsoft in court, but they might as well have been given what was said and who it was affecting. Sony obviously understands the danger that Microsoft now poses to them and have given their all to try and block the deal. But now that they’ve failed what do they do next?
A lot of fans are calling for a new showcase and new game announcements and I agree that would be the crowd-pleasing option. I really can’t see it though. How is it going to look if they make it obvious they were keeping all this back until the acquisition question was settled? I’m not even sure that is what they’ve been doing. They’ve been acting so odd this year that I just can’t work them out at all.
What I would do, if I was in charge, is set up a regular schedule of mini-showcases from now till Christmas. Make them 10 minutes or so and focus on a different game or topic each time. Announce new titles – whatever the reason for keeping them secret they must have several they haven’t revealed yet – but also give updates on PS Plus (especially Premium) and PlayStation VR2.
I have no idea how people that bought either of those two things are feeling right now but I bet they’re not happy. Astro Bot: Rescue Mission 2 has to happen straight away, at the very least, and I can’t begin to imagine why it hasn’t been talked about yet.
Then they have to start showing us these live service games that they keep going on about. They must know that many people are not excited about them, and resent the money and effort being spent on them, so for heaven’s sake just show them and try to convince people that they’re worth getting excited about. Who knows, maybe they’re actually good, but we’ve no way of knowing until they actually show them.
These aren’t exactly radical ideas and yet I feel they need to be spelt out. Especially as there are a number of things I think I can reliably say nobody wants to hear about. For a start, no PS5 Pro talk. No one has the money and there’s no need for it given how few exclusives there’s been so far. I say this because I have a horrible feeling it’s going to be one of the first things they do open up about.
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And no going on about that stupid Project Q handheld. No one cares and no one has the money. They’re definitely going to have a showcase on that because it’s out soon but, really… I can’t think of anything less important at the moment. At this rate they’re going to have more new hardware announced than new games, especially if the PS5 Slim rumours are accurate.
Sony need to get a grip of themselves and they need to do it now. If they’re still floundering about, acting all secretive in another three months’ time people are going to be thinking very differently about what new console they want for Christmas. And if it’s not a PlayStation 5 then Sony has only got themselves to blame.
By reader Archie
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A reader has some suggestions about how Sony should respond to the Activision Blizzard acquisition and get people excited about PS5 again.
