Over the last few years especially, PlayStation as a company has been difficult to read. Sony's video game arm has adopted a secretive strategy ever since it launched the PS5, and so any degree of insight that we get into PlayStation's inner workings is always interesting. And this is where Shawne Benson enters the equation — PlayStation's global head of third party portfolio and acquisitions.
Essentially, Benson and her team are responsible for scouting third party projects and striking exclusive deals. The division also plays a big part in providing development support for chosen projects — helping studios better utilise things like DualSense functionality and PS5 hardware.
In a new interview with Boardroom, Benson reveals that her core team is made up of just 11 people, although it "works very closely with the third party relations team". There's also a "huge group of account management team members that do the day-to-day relationship management with all the creators". All told, it sounds like a sizable workforce — which makes sense when you consider how many projects PlayStation must be keeping an eye on.
Providing further details into her typical responsibilities, Benson says: "A lot of meetings. Over the last few years, there has been a lot of travel, basically going around the world and meeting with partners in their studios, getting my hands on their games, and going to trade shows."
She continues: "In those meetings with partners, it’s not just talking about whether a game is good but does it really resonate with our PlayStation brand? Would this be a good fit for PlayStation?"
Following various playtests and additional looks at a specific game, Benson says "we put together our analysis and run our due diligence process, which is similar to what investment firms would do for a company, but we’re doing it for a game. So I mean, we’re not doing the Q&A: the quality assurance process necessarily, but we absolutely are getting looks at the game throughout the development journey."
And it's a process that clearly works, because Benson's been behind some impressive third party success stories. Her team's portfolio includes Stray, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Deathloop, Baldur's Gate 3, Final Fantasy 16, Resident Evil Village, Tetris Effect, and Sifu. It's safe to say that PlayStation knows quality when it sees it!
"For PlayStation, I think about the audience and where we are in the life cycle of the platform. we’re looking at how those games will resonate and be the best place to play, not only for our existing users but also for players that we want to reach," Benson concludes.
Do you think Sony's been getting its third party dealings right lately? Give Shawne and the team a thumbs up in the comments section below.
[source boardroom.tv]
Comments 12
The argument could be made that the third party scouting team is doing better than the first party studio management teams. There’s been quite a few really good third party exclusives and timed exclusives during a relatively quiet first party stretch.
I wish Sony would push more partnerships to embrace haptic feedback. It's so underutilized in a lot of games.
Heck Sonys own Bungie doesn't even have it implemented!
^I don’t know, I keep reading this but they already released quite a few first party titles - and we had the pandemic and all - we were just beginning to get some relevant exclusives in the ps4 era at this point.
Third party support is just amazing. And Relink and Rebirth are just around the corner too
You forgot about Eternights, F.I.S.T, The Ascent. I'm sure they worked with these teams as well. The Ascent has some of the best use of the Dualsense, it even freakin uses the controller speaker. 😄
Almost like third-party acquisitions are a stop-gap to round out the delayed first-party content. I would surmise that Sony may still be behind in exclusive content development because of the year that wasn't. Like all those first-party exclusives that went to PC during the hardware shortage, or releasing all these first parties on PS4 for longer than normal. It almost looks like what they have been doing since 2020 has been to ensure the health of the PlayStation brand for many years in the future.
@Sil_Am not sure the Ascent fits this category as it was timed exclusive to xbox for a while
@Rmg0731 I know, but don't think they'd bother with DS featusers without Sony involvement and also it has physical disc versions only on Playstation systems, but that may be because Xbox fans are kinda done with buying physical.
@Stragen8 Well Bungie is not technically a PS studio that could be it but in all I feel Bungie is more pro xbox than Sony even though Sony owns them.
I keep saying this 3rd party exclusively or timed does help the 1st party studios abit in terms of time to release a finished product also it's a way to buy them in later in years as the partnership grows.
@Nei Yeah, the pandemic slowed down what was already a growing development cycle. I do think there’s been some good first party releases this generation, although about half of them have been Insomniac. And banger third party projects that turned into acquisitions, like Housemarque and BluePoint’s. If Helldivers 2 hits then Arrowhead might be next, as far as studio acquisitions of teams that Sony has worked closely with.
But I think the whole Factions ordeal has been an albatross around the neck of the whole first party. Whether legitimate or not, there’s a sense that as Naughty Dog goes, so goes all of PlayStation studios — which is not really fair. Add to that the fact that Media Molecule gave us one game in 10 years (which, for as good as Dreams was in execution, it failed commercially) and Bend spun its wheels for a little bit with a project they didn’t want to do. Just too much time spent on dead end projects, on top of a pandemic, on top of a longer development cycle (4-5 years per AAA game is now standard vs 1-2 years back in the PS3 era)
I'll give them this for assistance whether Xdev or other studios or just support for the platform in dev, in marketing in funding, in whatever of exclusivity they have done a great job for third parties for a while now so never questioned them. That and third parties filling in the year while first party are busy works, they have done a good job of that to get people to want and use their PS4/5.
I don't look at all of them but I mean I am interested in Stellar Blade still and what it comes to be eventually. They have done well no denying that.
First party don't interest me. I have been buying up retro games for my older PS consoles or other platforms or third parties on PS4, more so AA or Indies current gen or older years.
The closest first party (London I guess in this case) or second/third is Playlink titles like That's You/Hidden Agenda (those 2 so far) and getting the apps off dead Android sources. Because I'm that interested and bored why not buy up these novelty party/quiz and whatever games (like the Buzz or Singstar titles which I do somewhat have my eye on Buzz games/controllers but not that interested) nowadays and a side of PS4 no one really talks about as much as Move or EyeToy or PSVR. I liked the Playroom/Playroom VR apps showcase minigames after all and other console/peripheral gimmicks.
I bought up certain exclusive, certain no Square Enix 2022 games in 2023. Valkyrie Elysium PS4, Diofield (multiplat) PS4, Tactics Ogre (2nd remake of 2nd game in series) on PS4 (multiplat). I only get SE games on occasion but they had genres/gameplay I was interested in for once so that was good to experience. Platinumed Diofield, was a struggle, was boring at times but I enjoyed enough of it. It needs more mix ups of levels and the 2 character restriction levels. Valkyria Chronicles, Disgaea or Wargroove challenged me more and kept me engaged in level design, mechanics and obstacles/tasks to do.
Square Enix tactics games seem to do that push story and the gameplay just kind of is there (even if frequent amounts of regions and gameplay input) but is so repetitive after they teach you and expect the challenge/party layouts and spawning of enemies to be good enough, it isn't if the level design, bonuses and more kind of suck and repeat.
I can't be bothered to play them if they all end up like that. It's what's held me off of Triangle Strategy and Front Mission 1st Remake besides the prices. If Triangle Strategy is like Utawarerumono series with lots of visual novel moments and little tactics that's fine but still some grinding/tons of story only convinces so much.
Forspoken I cared for the gameplay regardless of the Sony cinematic influence on it (I replayed Order 1886 out of curiosity after all and a few trophies) and the memes of the voice acting and other things but I will get to it in the future.
I bought Balan Wonderworld I didn't care I got my Rayman 3 suit experience and I had fun with it regardless of the state it. I wanted it, I had low expectations, no dev and this and that expectations at all like everyone else.
For me it was fine on PS4 compared to Switch or PS5. I do need to go back but I did experience at least every world in that game and put a fair amount into the Chao garden like minigame in the hub world.
The Indies while I haven't experienced exclusive ones really and I may get Kena physical at some point I won't deny the scouting of such studios for support in whichever way they have has been really interesting in showcases and in getting them released what aspects behind the scenes we don't see but what we players do see. Not all titles are for me but that's totally fine.
@Stragen8 Black Ops Cold War had individual adaptive triggers for every gun. After playing that and Astro's playroom I thought every game would have great dual sense features. Unfortunately I feel like that's one of the most lacking features in most releases now
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