Sony has spent a lot of money on establishing exclusivity deals with third-party publishers and developers over the course of its history. But with the PS5 in particular, it feels like the company is making a clear effort to pad out its console's release schedule, while key PlayStation Studios beaver away in the background.
It's been an especially prevalent tactic over the last 12 months or so. We've had heavy-hitting third-party projects like Final Fantasy 16, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Rise of the Ronin, and Stellar Blade all being promoted as if they're Sony's own, with the platform holder going as far to act as publisher for the latter two titles.
But has Sony's third-party approach actually worked, in the eyes of PlayStation players? We asked the Push Square community this very question in a Talking Point from last week — and now, based on 1,167 votes, the results are in.
22% of readers think that the recent third-party games "have been great", and a further 19% said that they've "mostly filled the gap". But the most popular response was "kind of", with 35% of the community telling us that they'd "like more first-party games".
Still, the results are pretty positive overall. Only 12% said that third-party titles "just aren't the same", and 13% said that they don't make up for first-party releases "in the least".
