The brilliant Astro Bot released last year to universal acclaim, and it seems its success has validated Sony's decision to branch out into the family game space.
Speaking in a recent earnings call, Sony head Hiroki Totoki talks about the game, specifically its multiple award wins at The Game Awards.
"At The Game Awards 2024, our first-party title Astro Bot won four categories, including Game of the Year and Best Family Game – the most of any title," he said.
"In addition, the live service game Helldivers 2, which was released in February last year, won Best Ongoing Game and Best Multiplayer Game awards. The fact that titles in genres we are planning to expand in the future, including titles for families and live service games, have received these awards is a major stride towards building a broad title portfolio."
So, not only is Sony continuing to expand into live service and online multiplayer titles, it's looking to grow its family-friendly offerings as well, with Astro Bot being a prime example.
It's exciting, because Sony has a good history of all-ages franchises. While Astro is fantastic in its own right, it's preceded by series such as Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, LocoRoco, PaRappa the Rapper, LittleBigPlanet, and Ratchet & Clank.
At PS5's launch was Sackboy: A Big Adventure, an offshoot from Media Molecule's fan favourite franchise, while Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart came a little later.
Astro Bot is definitely Sony's biggest success story among its family-friendly PS5 titles, though, racking up lots of awards (including Push Square's 2024 Game of the Year) and selling very strongly.
We're definitely down with Sony broadening its reach with games like this, but what do you think? Would you like to see more family games from PS Studios? Tell us in the comments section below.
[source videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 43
I think one of the most obvious self-inflicted shotgun blasts to SIE was letting Media Molecule waste 10 years on Dreams instead of making more family friendly titles. Them and ASOBI can easily do it.
It's great that Sony has realised that family games can do just as well as more "adukt" titles. My whole family loved Astro bot and are looking forward to further titles in the series
I thing it is a good decision that will benefit every player.
Wish there was something of this approach revealed at SOP. My son’s favorite moment at SOP was the Ape Escape cameo. Lol
Stellar Blade is still one of the best family titles out there
Don't give me hope like this for a new Jak and Daxter.
huffs on Sly Cooper hopium
@FreasurePlanten I think Jak is over. I can see Sly and Ratchet continuing.
Ape Escape Remake or Reboot would be fantastic.
If I was Sony, I would really try and make Astro Bot their Mascot of the brand (for the younger audience at least)
@FreasurePlanten video game god said that naughty dog "outgrew fun", so don't hold your breath.
Definitely Astro bot was great, easily recouped money and will add more over time. It also be very important if games like these can help attract new/young gamers into gaming overall as well as pull them away from the forever live service games
Astro karting
They do plenty of family games my grandma loves bloodborne.
@breakneck I disagree. The largest segment in terms of players in ALL of gaming is UGC (user generated content) from Minecraft to Roblox (which has 350-400 million monthly players) there are more users on each of those games each month than all PlayStation and Xbox monthly users combined.
Sony were sensibly trying to enter this segment with Dreams but they failed to:
1) Figure out how to monetise it
2) Hook a large enough player base, especially young players
3) Make it bigger than just PlayStation. One of the reasons they are so huge and successful is you can play them on everything from a mobile phone to a high end PC.
Sony are sensible to want to expand into many segments they don't have a large foothold like Family, UGC etc.
@Dalamar My hope is that another studio would pick the series up. Like Sanzaru Games did for Sly. Of course that could easily turn out badly, but I think a Jak game by current Naughty Dog would be even worse.
Keep asrto going... My son really really got into gaming now because he plays Astro bot so much. Now he wants to play so much more like monster Hunter and crash bandicoot
It's nice that Sony acknowledge Astro Bot success and will continue the franchise as well try to put more effort for family friendly games. They own plenty of platformers to choose from Sly Cooper, J&D, Ape Escape, Knack, Jumping Flash, Sackboy, R&C, LBP, Tearaway, and Puppeteer. Or, they could make a new one as well.
But..i wish Totoki look at other Sony dormant IP as well like Alundra, Wild Arms, Forbidden Siren, Legend of Dragoon, Syphon Filter, etc that cater more at adult gamers.
@themightyant Yeah Dreams in a fantastic idea, well executed, poorly supported.
I think Sony thought this would be where the family friendly content was made, their own Roblox as it were. And it probably could have been. But firstly they charged full price for it, so there was an immediate paywall to both making and playing the content that rivals don't have. Then there was no way for creators to monetise their creations or take them to audiences elsewhere (at least not at the start, there may be now?).
I think it worked fine in the LBP series because the creator felt like a secondary aspect, you were buying a full video game that then let you make more of it. But Dreams was sold the other way around, you were buying a game making engine...and hoping there was decent content being made by others.
Anyway I'm glad to see Astro Bot have this impact. I miss the variety Sony used to have.
Not into family-friendly fare myself, which is probably why I don’t click with Nintendo… but happy for those who are into this kinda thing.
@breakneck Ratchet was on that leaked timeline of games from Insomniac, right? I don't doubt they want to keep making them.
Yeah, I’d love to see more family games. Astro Bot sequels, karting games, Sackboy, Sly, Jak, Ratchet, bring it on!
@Oram77 Not only for kids 😅 I love that little guy!
@themightyant On point as always! Sad they had to shutdown Dreams, as it was great, but you’re right they just didn’t have a clue how to monetize it. Definitely should have been ported to PC
I would love to see the return of littlebigplanet, sly cooper, or ape escape!
@breakneck Dreams was great the shotgun blast was them not providing continued support and a PC port of the game to keep it going. If any of you haven't tried Dreams and want a really great collect a thon platformer, try Trips Voyage in Dreams its so good in fact the creator was hired at the studio that makes Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Also if they want something that could seriously compete against Mario Kart release a new Modnation Racers game advertise the heck out of it and put a full budget into it. That game has so much potential its not even funny. It one of the few kart racers that feels fast like Crash Team Racing it has powerful powerups and sick tracks and User creation track tools where you can make you're own tracks
@Czar_Khastik
I’d say it definitely provides great inspiration for trying to start one, lol.
Yeeeeeeees. Just make fun games! Cartoonier the better
As if Nintendo wasn't enough of an example for decades...
It took them how long to figure out the PS5 was a one trick pony and wasn’t catering for a huge potential customer base in family gamers?
I question if offering more live services will sell any consoles however.
YES FINALLY THEY'RE LEARNING SOMETHING!!! 😭😭😭
Sony has loads of dormant IPs that they could reawaken for use in the family-friendly space. I hope they do. Better than this live service crap that they're thankfully (finally) realizing is generally not going to do the business.
Asobi needs to be given ape escape
We need a new Ratchet & Clank game 🙏
Yes a new cart game... either with Astro Bot or with Crash Bandicoot. Family friendly games don't mean they're not fun. I love a good platformer like Astro!
It's a no brainer. Sold well and was critically acclaimed. These are 2 massive things for Sony
Give the Jak and Dexter Trilogy and the Original Ratchet and clank trilogy the same care that the remasters of Spyro and crash got would be a nice start.
Given how ungodly dev times are now, get the ball rolling with a remaster "Puppeteer". It's a great family game that never got a chance to shine.
It's sad that it required Astro for them to realise that.
@themightyant I hope they dont do that then its off with the PlayStation out of my house. We already had enough crap from them with life service. We need some more fun good games not the same crap from every company. Lets hope that every bloody life service died a swift death. And Good luck with making a new Minecraft.
Welcome news to me. There were a lot of dark action games during the last streaming event. Nothing wrong with them, but variety is a good thing.
I don't think the takeaway here is "make more family games" but maybe "make great games". If games are great, people will play them.
Yes, a game that is for everyone of all ages is great too, but the games still need to be great. Just keep the quality high.
I adore "family friendly" games. I've loved them ever since I started gaming in the mid 80s. I hate the way they've always been looked down on by "grown up" gamers who think that photorealistic, muddy shaded games are the only ones worth playing.
Nintendo has made some of the most fun and highly rated games over the last 40 years by sticking to this formula and refining it to perfection.
As if Sackboy/Ratchet weren't trying to fill in that gap and no one cared. Astrobot has at least gotten noticed and that's great.
Ape Escape in years. Sly/Jak on services/Jak PS4 releases. Toro was Japan only and not used anymore but has cameos.
But like Microsoft with the teen/mature audience focus, they said about kid friendly games/Japanese, yeah third party deals or just hey it can be on here.
Basically not doing anything that great with it at all. XD I'll get a bunch of family friendly still more creative level design/worlds then mature games with darker or other themes push and eh menus/movesets/level design and boring design I don't care about in them. XD I'll take a kids game with more movement interesting challenge then dialogue/themes I find boring and worlds the same. I'll read a visual novel with hilarious dialogue over a mature video game these days.
Sony will do the same. I get it the consoles are bought by older people, the games offered by them do end up being what games they can get for kids on the platform too in a 1 console side of things as well. Makes sense to do that for sure.
They know what modern audiences want and mess them up with Destruction All stars to other live services. Let alone have so few Japan Studios like projects let alone family IPs anymore. They have pushed the teen/mature audience more.
They killed their family games anyways. Many PS1-2 IPs, where is the arcadey family sports games of Everybody's/Hotshots series? Hmmmmm. Clanphands doing good on their own now then?
Even if I think the Mario sports games Wii U/3DS/Switch era suck they still work for sales besides the quality, they still have something on the shelf besides being terrible.
Buzz or other party games don't exist anymore. Then again 1 vs 100 on the Xbox side doesn't either.
I get why third parties cover that space more or live service ones have I get that as it's more wide spread for all platforms (and not UDraw type bad from Wii to PS3/360 then dead) but even still.
Sure they have the money I get that but Nintendo has balanced family games so much niche and mainstream and I still want to buy them not because they are family games but quality. Each genre/game play design is hit or miss but still appealing.
Sony and Microsoft haven't got me convinced on Ratchet/GT/Sackboy or Astro in the slightest, let alone their other IPs of the Microsoft variety but eh quality.
South of Midnight probably is the only one to do so.
Kena was third party but still an interesting game.
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