Sony Backs Single Player Gaming in Leaked PlayStation Documents

People play many games in the lifespan of a system. I am sure there are some who play CODs etc. exclusively but I suspect they are in the minority. We keep pitting online games and single player games against each other but the truth is there is market for both, which is heavily overlapping. In other words, variety of quality offerings sells a system and keeps people tied to an ecosystem and Sony knows that.

And this is the key reason I keep going with Playstation. The best single player experiences are to be had on their consoles and clearly this will continue.

Wreckfest is the only exception I play online with other people, and even they do my head in.

I play single player games on my own and I like it that way.

Cool cool cool.

And that's how it should be. 👍

Very happy to hear this............micro-transactions looting bullying cheaters has done online gaming no favours.......if you really crave mutiplayer invest in more game pads invite your mates round and have fun with real people keeping single and multiple players happy.........make your own leader boards. 🉑

And this is why I continue with Sony as they make and support some incredible AAA single-player blockbuster titles. I'm glad they're continuing down this route going against the "trends" as they know what their player-base wants. I've always seen Microsoft as catering more to the online COD crowd and Nintendo Switch for family/party games...

Cool, I rarely go online with the exception of playing coop games, so this is perfect for me

What the last generation has shown is that the market cannot sustain multiple online games that can bring in that revenue. If you dedicate your time to Warzone, you aren't playing Apex Legends and The Division 2 etc.

For every success story in the online space, there are far more fails. Revenue is not guaranteed.

A single player game can never reach the revenue of an online game like Fortnite or GTA V but it doesn't need to succeed in the same way.

It's not really single player versus multiplayer. People play a lot of different games. When EA says "single player is dying" what they mean is "single player costs more effort for less money." Which is probably true if the ONLY goal is to maximize profits. It's perfectly acceptable to want to make a profit AND satisfy customers outside the biggest profit generating markets. Single player games don't make as much money as subscription games, but they don't have to as long as they're still profitable, and the result is the industry has more variety for more types of people. That's a good thing.

Edit: Additionally, I think this is why PS4 was so wildly successful. Barring some outliers, 3rd parties have largely shifted towards multiplayer. Sony investing in strong single player meant that PS4 had something for everyone.

@Rudy_Manchego Spot on comment.

@finalstan Spot on IMO. I'm a single player gamer, but there's multiplayer experiences I keep downloaded throughout the gen like Gran Turismo, Monster Hunter, Street Fighter and Destiny. I would suspect most gamers are a hybrid of both. It's not like you can sink time into all these multi-player experiences lol, I'm still trying to get into FF14!

Dark/Demon souls.
Do we consider those a single player games?))

I don't have as much time to play games as I'd like nowadays, but when I do, I always tend to fire up a single player game on my PS4. This is true even when I have an active PS Plus sub (which I haven't had in over a year) and even then I kinda only play multiplayer in racing games. I fully support Sony's continued push with single-player games.

Single player never was dying, its just big publishers wanting to push games with more monetisation options and that's all. Many of the best selling games are single player and always have been and will be.

As @Rudy_Manchego says many of these online games can't be sustained, even COD has cannibalised sales of its own new game due Warzone still being immensely popular. Many of this type of gamer play very few games overall, where as single player gamers tend to play and buy many different games

@Blacksmith1985 I'd say so, the core experience is very much solo play

Sounds great to me. I rarely dabble into anything multiplayer (and even kind of groan when extensive play of MP modes is required for completion, like in The Last Of Us), so the fact Sony will continue to bet on single player/offline experiences suits me just fine.

Also pleasantly surprising to hear that's the current market tendency as well: more people gearing towards single player. Nice.

Multiplayer is not just exclusively competitive.

I’m 95% single player offline. Despite being a PS Plus subscriber. So this is good to hear Sony double down on SP. I do quite enjoy asynchronous online multiplayer. It was one of the highlights of Death Stranding for me. Dark Souls and Bloodborne also come to mind as being positive online interactions, as well as things like online comparisons for story choices like Detroit Become Human and the Telltale games have done. I’ll welcome those types of MP utilization. The competitive shooting ecosystem isn’t my thing though.

It does help that most, if not all of Sony's single player games released on PS4 were absolute bangers.

Online dabbler, single player completionist myself.

Single player games was always number 1.multplayer was a dessert but single player is lunch.it makes you full and want more.word up son

Good. I didn’t play computer games in my dark bedroom, alone, when I was a child for nothing you know!

But seriously. The only online multiplayer game I’ve ever played was Mario Kart 8 back on the Wii U about 3 years ago. It was somewhat fun, and I won quite a few races, but that’s it. I’ve never played online before or since, and it will probably stay that way.

I used to have so much fun with multiplayer back in the day with my brother/dad/friends. Mario Kart, Goldeneye, Track & Field (never had as much fun as playing Track & Field with my brother and dad). I did not get any of that sense of fun with online multiplayer.

It good to see that single player games are doing well, and I hope that Sony continues to release more. I would just like to see Sony release something other than just adult 3rd person action/adventure single player game this generation. The PS3 library was the best of both worlds. Good Single player game and multi-player games.

It basically have become Playstation for single player, Xbox for multi-player, and Nintendo family/party games. As someone who enjoys everything means I'll have to buy every platform to enjoy everything gaming truly have to offer.

It does look like Microsoft have realized that they don't only have to make online games. And their recent purchases will allow some great single player content that could rival Sony.

I absolutely agree. I have multi-player games i play, but nothing beats the experience of a well designed single player experience with great gameplay, puzzles, level design, graphics and sound.

@GDBTB
Ninty may have something to say about that. Especially since Sony took to censoring everything. Certainly Sony have a good number of first party single player games released though.

@carlos82 Very good point about COD - you can't have a persistant online game and yearly iterations and not expect overlap.

@ShogunRok Thanks!

@NickTheGeek JINX!

Good. Well done Sony for noticing that no everyone wants 'live services' to be pushed down our throats.

I basically gave up online gaming towards the end of the Xbox 360 and PS3 gen. After college, it was getting harder and harder to actually get friends together online at the same time. I have played my share of online solo or with people I meet online, but it is not quite the same as some of the squads we could get together.

Eventually it sort of fizzled out for me as my gaming time has become increasingly limited. It got to the point where it simply wasn't all that fun to play online anymore.

I have always preferred single player anyway, so I am glad Sony sees the value. I don't think single player was ever dying, I just think it has been eclipsed by multiplayer as gaming in general has grown exponentially.

I've finished Last of Us 9 times. Going for 10 in single player 😁

Last gen and this gen has some of the best games I ever played! Days gone, tlou2, Ghost Of Tsushima, Uncharted 4, the Nate Drake Collection, the order 1886, Until Dawn, God of War

single player games/experiences are wonderful. new experiences, new stories, new characters to get to know and new worlds to explore. multiplayer focused games have its place but nothing is as immersive as a single player focused action - adventure/RPG/JRPG/story driven/open world game.

@Blacksmith1985 There's a PVP and PVE component, but it's largely SP in nature I think.

How much money did Sony put into the Avengers and it won't even live to see Spiderman

I dunno, I hate this idea of single player and online games being put against each other, they can definitely coexist. I play mostly single player but dabble in online. Even then, plenty Sony exclusives have online modes.

Multiplayer games bore me to death, same repetitive actions over and over ,give me a good single player experience with a world I can explore,its what games do best in my opinion.

I kind of hate how Sony and Microsoft have seemed to become so entrenched in one type of experience for the last gen. I think thats really one of the reasons the switch took off like it did, because they were able to make good games for both experiences. If you look back at the ps2, GC, and Xbox era that was one of the best ones because all 3 consoles makers had a variety of games with multi and single player on top of the third party stuff.

Its all about the single player experience for me, amazing story driven games. Nothing beats it. The day single player games die, that's the day I stop buying games. Not interested in diluted online experiences thanks.

If I want another persons in my game, I go outside to play with friends some board game.

@finalstan COD, a franchise that sells in the millions consistently year after year, is a minority now? What, is Demons Souls mainstream, then? I think you might have your numbers backwards!

@jbreez00 All systems are doing the exact same thing. Sell you hardware to try and secure digital spending and subscription services. The only reason you may think they are doing something different is because you are being misled by their advertising jargon.

Sony loves talking about single player experiences, but they really want you to buy their online subscription, it’s easy income for them. Don’t be misled by the “leaked” information.

@TG16_IS_BAE Read again, please; what I meant was that people who only play multiplayer games are in the minority, most people play some multiplayer games and some single player games. No science to back it up, just common sense. Hence, pitting them against one another as if you couldn't have both is pointless.

@finalstan I’m not talking about science, just simple numbers. When you have a game like COD that has over 2 million people online, calling it a minority is silly. Or worse, a game like Fortnite that has a player pool of 350 million...I mean if you really want to utilize common sense, look at the numbers and make a simple analysis.

@TG16_IS_BAE He's saying that people that EXCLUSIVELY play online at these games and don't play singler player aswell as these title might be in the minority.

@TG16_IS_BAE I know they all have their own online services they want you to buy, that's not what I mean though.

The moral of the story here is never trust the analysts and what looks like a trend on an investor watch list. It all speaks to knee-jerk reactions to whatever the biggest rise in a graph looks like and shows the biggest number without understanding the real market underlying that data. And trying to group the two clearly separate markets together simply because they have some overlap.

For the past decade we've heard endlessly of the death of single player gaming, the cost of development versus return compared to multiplayer games. EA's infamous "single player games aren't sustainable" "People don't enjoy linear games", etc.

And now it looks like we have this single player renaissance with both Sony's presentation here, and recent comments from MS's Phil Spencer that he wants to see more first party single player games, and more single player experiences on Game Pass, precisely because a bunch of big time consuming GaaS/online games take time and value from other games on the service, and that they never actually tried to be a "GaaS/multiplayer" games company, they just kind of evolved that way with the studios they had wanting to do that.

So now the two big players are doubling down on single player, and Nintendo seems to be done their brief dabble with online games and returning to what they've always done best with single player outside Smash/Splatoon.

And thus all the and wringing over online games being the future of gaming was futile worrying that didn't bear out and was another knee-jerk response to the graphs. Right up there with "consoles are dead, mobile is the future."

As a single player and story-coop player, I'd say it's about darned time! That was far too long a dalliance with believing single player is dead.

@Blacksmith1985 I certainly do.

@Katsuhono Ok, there’s no way to determine that number, so it’s not worth bothering with. But oh right common sense yes, seems to involve a lot of assumption bullox...

Oh I do love a single player session. Gaming to chillax! Ain't no bro gonna rush me or wind me up. My time, my space, my pace.

@Pikki. Definitely haha.cool word up son

@thefourfoldroot "Everything" The only games they have ever cared to censor are those fan service games like DOA Extreme.

@Nepp67
Do, you mean “the only games they have ever cared to censor are the games I think deserve to be censored”?

Great news! Can't stand online multiplayer games. I don't mind online components, but the day they stop making single player games in favor of online multiplayer is the day I quit gaming and fill my time with other hobbies.

I am 99% flying solo on my PS5 😁

@Slippship "The Last Ninja on C64, Blue Max on Atari 800xl,"
Damn, those are some call backs! I rocked both on the C64 though. LOVED Blue Max back in the day.

I only play co-op games
Because evertime i play a co-op game with a diffrent person I get to enjoy a new experience from a new perspective

Co-op games get new life evey time you play them

single player games are disposable.
You play them
after you finish a single player game it becomes useless, it sits on a shelf with its only hope that someone else will play it

Yep, I'm a solo gamer. Gaming is a form of escape for me. Although my goto game for between other games is No Mans Sky which has a light MP aspect to it.

@TG16_IS_BAE Whether they want me to buy an online subscription or not, I'm still getting plenty of great single-player exclusives from Sony. I'm still getting the goods regardless of how you want to phrase or say what they're goal is.

@Rudy_Manchego
Additionally, Sony get 30% of all the money made by Fortnite, GTA Online, Warzone, and so on. They have no need to take a risk on the shaky live service business model when they make a lot of money from their partners. They themselves make stellar exclusives to differentiate themselves from the competition - all successful products need to differentiate themselves somehow in order to succeed, and Sony's current path is high-quality exclusives.

I'll take a single player game with great storytelling and characters over multiplayer games, any day.

@Rudy_Manchego You are right with a BP with I don't have time too play something else online and I want too play some offline games too. I'm barely have enough time too make a dent in my BL with Modern Warfare.

@thefourfoldroot Nice way of putting words in my mouth.

@Nepp67
You will notice my post was phrased as a question. This was specifically to avoid putting words in your mouth.

I cannot see any other possible implication of your statement unless you are totally incapable of understanding context. I wouldn’t want to insult you in such a way, so asked for further clarification.

I did briefly consider you could simply be being unbelievably pedantic over the word “everything”, in which case let me clarify to make the obvious even more so - I meant that Sony censor everything they feel is in any way controversial (so they wouldn’t censor a racing game for example).

Feel free to simply say I’m wrong and you don’t think games with fanservice should continue to be censored by Sony. In which case a simple “no” to my question would have been enough.

@Flaming_Kaiser Exactly - it also takes time to get into a MP game and develop your skills and levels etc.

@KippDynamite Good point - Sony benefit from anyone else who succeeds without the risk. Why would they need to?

This is great news and I’m super happy 😊 this is my kind of gaming

Leave the multiplayer for the multiplatform developers, exclusives should be single player almost all the way...I do want a new Killzone though, problem is first party can't compete with the popularity and word of mouth of games that are on every system

This is why the decision to go with PS5 as my primary console was an easy one. PS4 had by far the best singleplayer experiences of any platform and as long as that continues, I'll be a customer.

Sony's focus on Single-Player Story-Driven Experiences helps distinguish their platform from their competitors, and differentiates themselves from Third-Party Developers that just want to deliver another uninspired Multiplayer Game because it's cheaper, uses less resources, requires little-to-no effort or creativity, it comes down to sheer laziness more than anything.

I don't understand the people that think single player games are dying.