Sony is plunging the depths of emerging markets to bolster its content offering on PS5 and PS4, and that’s resulting in plenty of diverse content like Infinity Nikki, the open world anime dress-up game which has exploded in popularity on PlayStation’s YouTube channel. It’s one of a number of Chinese titles on the way, with Ballad of Antara, Marvel Rivals, and Where Winds Meet also featured in the format holder’s recent State of Play – and Zenless Zone Zero due out in a matter of weeks.
Christian Svensson, the organisation’s head of second-party and third-party content, is particularly pleased with all of the new titles the manufacturer has cooking from China. “So very pleased to see so many of our partners from China featured in State of Play,” he said on social media. “Ballad of Antara, Marvel Rivals, Infinity Nikki, and Where Winds Meet demonstrate the wide diversity of content coming to PlayStation from China. And there's lots more coming.”
As alluded to above, PlayStation has really been tapping into the development teams of previously overlooked territories of late, with Korea’s Shift Up developing console exclusive Stellar Blade, and its recently announced India Hero Project looking to bear fruit in the future. With the gaming industry bigger and more competitive than ever, all of this investment shows Sony is forever looking to new frontiers, which will serve it well as the generation matures.
[source x.com]
Comments 44
Well I suppose with Genshin, Honkai Star Rail, Wuthering Waves and Zenless Zone Zero any money lost from Call of Duty has easily been replaced and twofold. Can't see Microsoft getting these games either purely because of them being an American owned business.
I understand why Sony are getting these games due to the revenue from Microtransactions but I don't want them to become the norm and especially don't want to see 4/5 of them shown in one state of play ever again.
And here is a big issue with modern day gaming industry (and to be frank, a lot of other indutries) : there is no way Japanese or Western producers can continue to compete without including China, which is very eager to take on the Western market.
Hence a plethora of products, which will appear at first as palatable (or even good for some) but will utilmately ruin the industry by forcing unrealistic standards of production and lowering the overall quality of the products, while being an open door to a totalitarian regime which controls every company within its borders.
We've already seen how the way China is represented in media changed these last 5 years. Now, there can't be a discussion about it without people defending it, omitting all the atrocities committed by the government and the way all companies are tied to it. Worse, false equivalence is immediately made between Western countries and China. See what will happen in response to this comment.
5 years ago, this would have been inimaginable, as most people agreed that dealing with a totalitarian and genocidal country was not a good idea while denouncing the hyprocrisy of Western government delocalizing their production in China and nearby countries.
To be honest it's not for the 80's gamer in me. But I'm older now and if I was 16 again then maybe.
@UltimateOtaku91 It's never been a norm since Sony showed SP games like Hardcore Mecha, F.I.S.T: Forged in Shadow Torch, and Anno: Mutationem that received quite positive reviews.
And there's Lost Soul Aside and Phantom Blade Zero that looks promising but not sure if they will release this year.
Or Black Myth Wukong that will released this August and it looks amazing.
Not every games from China devs is a live service games.
I just play games that look cool and try not to think too deeply about it.
And how many of those are not f2p?
@Dalamar Out of the games mentioned in the article, all of them are f2p.
@Olmaz well said
they really want their piece of cake from the asian market. Genshin Impact and Honkai are making a lot of money and Stellar Blade was a success, the growth prospects in this continent is huge and these games will help a lot
During the recent State of Play, Ballad of Antara was one of a few games that caught my interest (Astro stole the show for me). But afterwards when it was announced it was F2P, that interest fizzled out…nope, hard out for me.
@Dalamar That's the issue for me. Two of the games that looked more promising to me in the last State of Play were from Chinese devs. But I lost pretty much all interest once I learned they were f2p.
@Olmaz My thoughts, as well. Good for you.
Great! Always interested in more games from more cultures. The few Chinese games I have played on PlayStation F.I.S.T., Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail have all been high quality. And several I’m looking forward to Black Myth Wukong, Where Winds Meet & Lost Soul Aside all look like my jam!
@Olmaz Not liking China’s political regime is one thing but I fail to see how this will “utilmately ruin the industry by forcing unrealistic standards of production and lowering the overall quality of the products.” Seems like a lot of fear mongering scuttlebutt to me. Dare I say even perhaps rather racist.
Hmm... i dunno how i feel about that.
I don't like supporting authoritarian regimes. I may very well skip on those.
@themightyant thanks for making my point
Ah, no, no thanks...
I believe their games will have micro transactions on it.
Chinese peoples love handphone games with f2p and micro transactions on it.
It's a cancer in gaming industry.
I said NO for micro transactions and I will NOT support games with micro transactions on it.
Well I'm glad they are tapping into China because I find Chinese mythology and folklore interesting.
I'm definitely interested in Daba - Land of the water scar, Phantom blade zero, Lost soul aside and of course Black myth wukong.
@PuppetMaster They really lucked out that the initials spelled "Fist"
@Andee Ok?
Yeah I don't do f2p, hard pass for me
@themightyant yeah, he said something you disagree with, he must be racist. How very 21st century of you. Nice try.
@tangyzesty Not quite. He tarred all of China with the same brush, using a lot of the usual anti-Chinese rhetoric, if that’s not racist then I don’t know what is.
@Olmaz Of course saying “Worse, false equivalence is immediately made between Western countries and China. See what will happen in response to this comment.” does not give you freedom from criticism or prove any point. Besides I haven’t made any false equivalencies like you said, not do I see any on this post.
I just think it’s not fair, or right, to condemn the creative worth of an entire country based on that country’s political ideologies.
@themightyant
"Dare I say[...]racist"
😂
Yeah, real diverse…
4 out of those 5 games are gacha/f2p. It’s so depressing
Remember when our Playstations, Dual Shocks, and other sundries used to say "Made in Japan" on them before it said "Made in China" like everything else? If we're down to the point where video games are a commodity to have manufactured in China....why are we even here?
It's not the existence of studios in China that's the problem, it's the huge pivot to focusing on promoting buying dedicated consoles for glorified phone games as an apparent solution to the existential crisis facing the console business model. Why are we pushing Chinese studios? They're great at F2P revenue generation. Why are we pushing F2P revenue generation? Because money, the future console model is phones.
This isn't even a push to get into the Chinese market to take more market growth. These games are made essentially for export and siphoning foreign money, at a time where in China the government is cracking down on people spending time playing video games to combat the (honestly accurate) perception that games are designed to siphon people's time and keep them hooked (especially.....most games made in China.... Plus Ubisoft.)
@Olmaz I'm pretty sure that some components in the ps5 are manufactured in China. Better sell your ps5 as you don't want to be supporting a totalitarian regime.
@Anti-Matter "Handphone"??? WTF is a handphone???
Lots of trash mobile games ahead!!! I heart micro transactions!!!
Love to see it. Sony has always welcomed more diverse titles and ideas on its platforms, and thats always been one of the attractions to their platforms.
I'm particularly liking a lot of what Im seeing from Chinese and Korean devs, which I find very palatable.
Whatever you like, it would be weird to not want a variety of choices....
@Northern_munkey I'm pretty sure his tv, mobile, shoes, bags, and many stuff or device in his house has "made in china" label. So he needs to throw out a lot of his stuff into the garbage bin if he doesn't want to support China lol.
@themightyant Fair enough.
My point is this : Chinese companies have always had this approach : insert yourself into a new market with good enough products to attract first buyers and investors, then flood the market with at best mediocre products coming from questionable means of production. All this while being under the strict surveillance and direction of the Chinese government.
I don't see this as a good thing.
Apparently, you seem to think I'm wrong (even racist?!) in thinking this way. Would you care to develop your counter argument?
Yeah, the diversity is great and all, but the real reason Sony is tapping into those markets is simply because labor cost is way cheaper. Which is totally fine, but let's not pretend.
@PuppetMaster I love it when the keyboard activists start piping up about the evil Chinese regime blah,blah,blah but fail to realise that Chinese tech is all over their house and probably where they work too. If they really are so against anything that the Chinese regime has its fingers in they would be living an extremely spartan life.
Removed - inappropriate
@Zenos while I agree that seeing more and more parts of the world elevate their quality of life is a great thing, seeing countries that openly reject modern basic values like Human Rights getting more and more powerful is frightening to me.
Do you think a new multi-polar world order would make these principles more valued?
@Zenos what exactly doesn't bother you?
They all look the same to me
Cuddling up to the CCP and pappa XI the pooh for all that sweet sweet Yuan 😅.
Not that I'm interested in any of the games mentioned anyway
@Olmaz You are partly right that China will often join a market with cheaper alternatives but that doesn’t stop other options succeeding and having a good market share. Nor does it prevent China also making higher end products too
If we look at something like fashion there are cheaper Chinese brands / stores like Shein but that hasn’t stopped mid to high end brand in the west having success and a decent market share, just not all of it. Competition is good. And frankly I’d rather pay a Chinese brand/retailer less directly than pay someone like Nike who use cheap Chinese labour and then force a ludicrous markup to keep their brand ‘premium’. That doesn’t benefit the consumer at all. And don’t get me started on things like LVMH or Balenciaga.
Similarly for technology, take phones for example, we have Xiaomi but that hasn’t wiped out Apple or Samsung.
Ultimately competition is good and choice is good for the consumer. I can only see more games, from a more diverse range of developers as a good thing for us the consumer.
EDIT: As for games specifically most of the output from China making it to the west seems to be high quality and high budget, not the cheap fare described e.g. Genshin Impact (over $700 million spent on development and counting), Black Myth Wukong, Where Winds Meet, Honkai Star Rail, Lost Soul Aside, F.I.S.T. Etc.
"You are partly right that China will often join a market with cheaper alternatives but that doesn’t stop other options succeeding and having a good market share."
The fact that you gave Shein and the clothing market as an example shows that you underestimate the impact of Chinese companies when they invest in a market.
see : https://www.businessinsider.com/clothing-brands-stores-youll-see-less-of-in-the-future-2020-7
and :
https://www.statista.com/chart/32182/biggest-online-fashion-stores-in-the-us/
As for the Chinese high quality products, as I said, it's always the strategy of presenting a few good to very good products so the customers open up to the idea of a Chinese brand, then, when the doors are open, let the cheap product flood the market.
And as for the hypocrisy of dealing with Western companies using cheap Chinese labor, I agree it shouldn't exist, but I still prefer dealing with them knowing I "may" have a chance to influence my own country's politics enough to reduce it (and at least part of the process is more respectful of Human Rights), than to finance directly a Chinese company tied to its government.
Edit: I'm genuinely curious - is there any country for which you'd consider a boycott (or at very least strict commercial and diplomatic restrictions) a good idea?
@Olmaz Is there any country I boycott? No, not really by country, it depends more on the individual company. For example I won't currently support Russia state owned businesses like Gazprom, but i'd happily support a smaller family run Russian business even if yes indirectly that might help support Russia, just a little bit. (though that's more a hypothetical, in all likelihood I would choose another option)
Similarly I might not like the Israeli governments approach in Gaza but I buy Israeli products, just as I would support Palestinian businesses despite their current leaders Hamas being a militant terrorist organisation.
I guess my point is I don't define companies by their country of origin, their country's politics and I won't tar them all by the same brush. Behind all those governments are just people, like you and I, trying to make a living.
"I guess my point is I don't define companies by their country of origin, their country's politics and I won't tar them all by the same brush."
But what about countries where you can't have a company without being constantly scrutinized and control by government, making you a voluntary or involuntary accessory to that government's crimes? China is just like that. Russia is close to it. Israel is not, companies can be openly opposed to their government there.
"Behind all those governments are just people, like you and I, trying to make a living"
I'm sorry but some people in all three governments you've cited are openly and actively organizing genocides, massacres, mass surveillance and other crimes. This is not "trying to make a living". I come from a country that fell from democracy to autocracy in the span of 10-ish years, and I can tell you that autoritarian/totalitarian government are filled with people happy to participate in all these horrors, and the country where these governments thrive are filled with people gladly profiting from such crimes. Your way of handwaving this away is very very close to the "I was just following orders" justification...
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