Bad Handling of Demon's Souls PS3 Meant Sony Missed Out on Dark Souls Publishing

To be honest I finally beat Demon’s Souls last year and I sort of agree that it’s crap. That’s with the hindsight of every other Souls game though, it was probably better on release.

As understandable as it may be (there are still loads of folks who don’t appreciate what these games do), this was a colossal lapse in judgment for Sony. For what it’s worth, I’d argue that they did their part in rectifying their mistake, between the excellent Demon’s Souls Remake and the amount of respect they’ve given Miyazaki in regards to Bloodborne.

Thought it was widely known sony basically missed owning the Dark Souls IP and getting FromSoft as a permanent second party over their mishandling of Demon’s Souls.

I guess he couldn’t see the potential of the game, we all make mistakes. At least i can appreciate the honesty. Obviously FromSoftware and Playstation have gone on to have a pretty good relationship eventually

How can one interview spawn so many articles

I loved it from first sight after reading about it in Eurogamer at the time, and had to import it because it wasn't available in Europe yet. But having read that article and being very into Monster Hunter on PSP, I was somewhat prepared for it. If Shuhei (and others) went into it playing it like a typical hack and slash game, it's no wonder they were easily dissuaded by the punishing rules of the game.

@Psofo Haha ikr, i guess he said a lot of things. At least he’s giving us more behind the scenes info now than Sony ever did

I can remember when I first purchased demons souls on the ps3 and I still have the original import disc in a box with my ps3 and games in a box in the attic. I struggled like hell to understand what I was supposed to do and I spent many hours in the first area before I made any real progress so I can understand the hesitation. I played the heck out of that game and I loved it even though it was rougher than Jodie Marsh in places and the frame rate was a joke in certain areas but it just grabbed me and I've played every dark souls type games ever since..my favourite genre without a doubt.

@Perturbator exactly i 100% agree.

Its worth remembering that FromSoftware was considered a very mediocre studio before Demon's Souls and Shu himself played it in a much worse state before Miyazaki joined the project and help the team find the one and only thing they're good at. Sony dropped the ball here to be sure, but let's not act like FromSoft was being extremely petty as well.

Dark Souls being 3rd party was best for everyone in my opinion.

A demon soul 2 would have been amazing.i guess even shuhei yoshida is like that hall and oates legendary song out of touch🤔.word up son

While this was a huge misjudgement from a video game professional I can see how it would be easy to think that about Demons Souls when you’re playing it completely blind without being assured that the game is actually very good, or being able to fall back on positive reviews to smooth out your misapprehensions. You really need to put trust in the game and believe in where it is going and what it is doing.

To best honest, there are probably quite a few gamers that have given these FromSoftware games a couple of hours and come to the conclusion they don’t like the game.

They are great games but they are not for everyone. And that is fine.

Also, I think these games becoming more widely available as a proper third party studio has also been good for the franchise. FromSoftware still honoured Sony with exclusives despite initially being disrespected and it seems Sony is trying to fix what they damaged.

I must admit, I didn’t see the appeal either. These games simply do not respect my time. Trial and error is not for me. Clearly Sony weren’t reading the whole market correctly though. There are a lot of masochists out there who are fine replaying sections of games repeatedly until they rote memorise attack and movement patterns.

I feel like a lot of the accolades heaped on the Souls game come with hindsight. They are excellent games that altered how we talk about the medium, but if I was an exec during the height of Call of Duty, Halo and Uncharted and you showed me Demon’s Souls, I’d also probably be like “wtf is this”.

A lot of people forget just how mind blowing the online in Demon's Souls was as the time. Having someone invade your game in a single player RPG and then realise that it's actually other players was amazing. Bear in mind this was pre-Journey, and I personally managed to import an Asian copy so there were no guides or information on how the game worked or the depths of its mysteries. To this day it's one of the best gaming experiences of my life.

You also have to remember that there was no matchmaking and each interaction with another player either as a blue or black phantom was really meaningful and something quite special. It also meant that the game was different every time you played it because of this.

The world tendancy was also really clever. The fact that the game would get harder if the invaders were winning was genius and a mechanic that should really be explored more. Then you had other fresh ideas like the assassin who kills the NPCs in the hub area if you don't sniff him out and kill him first, heck even being able to kill NPCs yourself was completely new at the time. Being summoned as a boss in other players' games. All of these things introduced by Demon's Souls on top of the concept of constant auto-saving, so your actions have meaning with no going back. As a game it has arguably had the biggest influence on the industry in the past 15 years with the new ideas it introduced and should be given credit for it.

I kind of wish they would go back to the no matchmaking model for one release, because as soon as it was possible to play with friends and team up, it killed the flow of the chance encounters if you want to play the way online was originally intended in the souls games.

Fromsoftware will probably be first party by next gen. Sony will continue to slowly buy up shares in Kadokawa Corporation until they basically own the company. Part of the current deal between the two companies Sony will publish and fund Kadokawa games and distribute Kadokawa anime.

@LiamCroft Damn, you guys are definitely getting bang for your buck with that Colin/Shu interview 😂

It's very easy to bash Sony after the fact for this. Demon Souls was brutally difficult for the time. They created a whole new genre of video games. How would Sony have known the impact at the time?

@LogicStrikesAgain in the interview he (Shu) says that he had only just gotten in the role and didn’t understand the mechanics yet because of that chaos missed how good it really was. That’s why Bloodborne and later the Demon Souls remake were priorities for Shu

I bought the original close to release, and I see his point. I was a good representation of a typical gamer at that time, and it did not make sense to me, I couldn't get past the second level lol.

That being said, I love the remake, platinumed it, and Bloodborne, but it took a few years for this type of game to make sense to the gaming world.

This all led to Bloodborne however. That's a good thing.

Honestly, a good thing that Dark Souls became a multiplat game. Souls Games would not have been a smash hit if it remained a PS exclusive.

Demon Souls may have started the Souls formula but Dark Souls is what made the Souls a popular sub-genre that it is today

For the best, because in the end Bandai Namco stepped in and gave us a multiplatform release so that all players can enjoy this masterpiece, the sequels, and Elden Ring.

@Psofo think this is the second interview / podcast he has done since leaving PS. So there have been 2 waves of multiple articles

@Kienda yes I am one of those people that has tried souls like games but just don't get on with them. It's a shame because I so want to because they look excellent.

@nessisonett respect your opinion, but gonna have to STRONGLY disagree. Demon’s Souls did so much right: world-building, atmosphere, creature design, combat, challenge, and innovative multiplayer. Calling it crap just seems nuts to me… I am curious how you have enjoyed (or not enjoyed) other games in their catalog?

@Old-Red preach!!!

I remember buying Demon's Souls on PS3 when it was brand new, before we had any consistent online guides besides a handful of semi-enthusiastic reviews...

It sounded brutal as hell and uniquely grim, which it was, but i completely bounced off it. Just like the Sony exec, I spent a few hours struggling through the opening zone and got nowhere. People forget how much more straightforward the PS5 remake was compared to the PS3 version. None of the game mechanics were clearly explained, and things like character and world tendency were only vaguely referenced in the game manual. It also wasn't clear how invasions worked. The game seemed to constantly push you to stay in human form... which led to continuous invasions, continuous deaths, loss of resources, increasingly difficult enemies due to the world tendency shifting darker every time you died in human form (again, this was not explained). Just extremely oppressive and unfriendly to play back then.

Years later I played through Bloodborne and Elden Ring, and eventually circled back to the PS5 Demon's Souls remake, at which point it finally clicked. Still hard as nails, but if you go in armed with a guide and a basic understanding of Souls games, it's certainly doable. But you really can't blame anyone for bouncing off the original - it was designed to be impenetrable.

@Bagwag82 I’m the same. I have dabbled in them but after dying and losing things over and over, I just gave up. I have limited time to game and I enjoy seeing progress that sticks. I don’t have the time or willpower to tough it out and get good.

Having said that, I have bought Elden Ring so I will give it a fair try one of these days.

@thefourfoldroot1

That's not how Souls games work.

While I do agree that they are opaque and that they are not for everyone, they are not nearly as tedious as you make it sound. It is NOT about rote memorization and knowing every move you have to make, it is about adapting and overcoming, and the entire system is built to support that.

To my point: you rarely really have to fight anything in "Souls" games other than bosses, and bosses often have a trick to them (especially in Demon's Souls) that make them almost trivial.

Yes, it does take repetition to learn, and I get if that isn't for everyone, but it is not just for "masochists" and it does not force memorization or perfect execution (otherwise I would not have completed every single Souls game).

didn't they release and publish bloodborne later on though?

@ear_wig Love Dark Souls 1 (top 10 of all time) and appreciate 2 more on a third playthrough to the point I have a love for a lot of it even if it’s also downright silly at times. 3 I’ve played once and thought it was good at the time but never really had a reason to go back. Bloodborne is a mixed bag, the game sort of falls apart after Yharnam imo but the DLC is brilliant at least. Elden Ring is up there with Ocarina of Time in terms of best games I’ve ever played.

Demon’s Souls is a mess. It wavers between brutally difficult and incredibly easy with no actual difficulty curve throughout the game. The lack of bonfires and barely any shortcuts makes it more similar to a King’s Field which makes the many, many stupid enemy placements and annoying traps that much worse. There were like 3 good bosses, Flamelurker, Penetrator and Tower Knight. The reliance on gimmick bosses makes most of them either irritating or pathetic. The final boss I got hit only a couple times the entire fight and I was playing it blind, he posed very little threat and mostly just did a giant telegraphed wind attack that you could easily avoid. The final boss is a complete letdown so I assume it’s a troll thing but that meant the previous boss is even more of a letdown as it’s the final boss and not the penultimate one. In all honesty, the game peaks very early on and once you narrow your paths down by beating some of the worlds then it becomes a lot less interesting. I had the most fun pushing myself in the opening sections of each area to eke out upgrades to my build than actually exploring some of the later areas. The swamp is a disaster on every front, annoying, unforgiving and visually drab to the point I’d rather play Blighttown over and over again on original hardware. Don’t even get me started on the buggy Maneaters, being pushed off the edge by a terrible invisible hitbox is not fun and will never be fun. The Bell Gargoyles stomp them as bosses despite being much easier. I can’t think of anything in that game that isn’t done much better in another From game.

I personally was never a fan of Demon Souls or the later Dark Souls games. I don't enjoy replaying the same sections over and over again just to progress a bit further next time. Most of the From Software games are a niche type game that has become very successful with Elden Ring. I did find any of the Dark Souls games particularly interesting, but the original ps3 Demon Souls game was interesting and unique but brutally hard. The later Dark Souls games, likely were more successful but were more generic than the original Demon Souls. I will admit I've only played the various games for a few hours or so, but that is my impression/experience of the games.

I'm still angry to myself I've exchanged my PS5 copy of Demon Souls for Diablo 4 crap (I'm lifetime fan of Diablo series... except Diablo 4) but at least I have my day one PS3 copy.

@Kienda do you know if Eldon Ring is just as punishing as I'd like to try it someday if it's not