Sony revealed players shouldn’t expect new installments for and of its first-party franchises this fiscal year.
In its latest fiscal report, Sony president Hiroki Totoki said it wouldn’t release “any new major existing franchise titles” like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 or God of War Ragnarök before April 2025.
PlayStation’s first-party games have a fairly regular release cadence. It usually puts out two major games per year, like Ragnarök and Horizon Forbidden West in 2022.
Totoki went on to say Sony will “continue to focus on producing high-quality works and live-service games.” Beyond that, “major projects” are being developed at its internal studios.
At the moment, the most immediate PlayStation 5 exclusive is Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, which has a 2025 release window.
PlayStation has needed a skip year for a while
Sony usually isn’t so forthcoming in this way about what it isn’t putting out. This frankness puts titles like Marvel’s Wolverine or Sucker Punch’s next game on deck for 2025 at the earliest.
It’s been previously reported that several PlayStation developers have felt constrained by the focus on prestige triple-A games. Budgets for these titles keep ballooning, and some of them barely break even, if at all.
At the investor call, Totoki said he met with management teams to understand where PlayStation is heading. While the games division has “great creative minds,” he feels they’re failing from a business perspective.
“There is room for improvement,” he said. “That’s to do with how to use money, the schedule of development and how to fulfill one’s accountability towards development.”
Essentially, he wants PlayStation to keep its quality without breaking the bank. It’s a known problem with triple-A development overall, but it’s unclear what the solution truly is beyond using less money to do more.