Should Sony Studios devise an alternative to the shooter? – Multiplayer.it

It is now clear that Call of duty on the console Play Station His years are few. Whether it’s three years or six years, it doesn’t matter: for Sony, its inability to count on the revenue and appeal of the Activision Blizzard shooter, as well as Diablo, Overwatch and other publisher brands, for obvious reasons, is a huge disservice and will inevitably have a profound impact on Market balance and strategies of the Japanese giant for the next generation. which is going to be counter movement A company or a “contingency plan” to compensate for this loss?

Let’s give a brief summary for those who missed the latest news. Microsoft is in the process of acquiring Activision Blizzard for approximately $70 billion. If the process continues, you will get IPs of great depth, including Call of Duty, Overwatch, Diablo, and World of Warcraft. What will happen to the PS5 and upcoming PlayStation consoles? In recent months, Microsoft has reassured gamers. We remember, for example, the words of Matt Botty, president of Xbox Game Studios, who stated that large acquisitions are certainly not intended to “take something” from communities on other platforms and that the intention is indeed to “continue to build and cultivate these communities so as not to tear them apart.” .

However, a few days ago, Jim Ryan practically attacked Microsoft: according to his words, Call of Duty will be released on the PlayStation console in order to Three more years After the expiration of the agreements with Activision, after which you will become Xbox and PC exclusive.

So we are talking about particularly important data that can represent in some respects double edged sword for sonyOn the one hand, Ryan laid his cards on the table, perhaps in an effort to put the Activision Blizzard acquisition in a bad light in the eyes of the FTC, but on the other hand, it’s about how they communicate beforehand with players: “If you like Call of Duty, PlayStation consoles Futurism is not for you, look elsewhere.”

So we’d like to think that Ryan considered his words well, as powerfully as possible strategy internally to compensate for the loss of such an important brand. But how do you stand up to an imposing and sprawling franchise like Call of Duty, which can easily penetrate the traditional video game market, the free-to-play market (Warzone) and Mobile One (Call of Duty Mobile & Warzone Mobile)?

At the moment, two solutions come to mind: the first is to “Put Your Soul at Peace” and focus the company’s efforts in completely different sectors, while continuing to diversify PlayStation’s offering. A goal already achieved given the increased focus in live services, multiplayer and virtual reality with PlayStation VR2, while continuing to offer top-tier single player experiences such as The Last of Us, God of War and Marvel’s Spider-Man.

The alternative is literally creating from nothing Call of Duty competitor PlayStation signed. A really risky premise, considering that even for Sony there are no competitors to the Action brand, but it must be said that at PlayStation Studios there is no shortage of talent and resources. We’d also add that Guerrilla Games takes pride in its approach to the Killzone series (even if, let’s face it, the brand has never quite established itself) and that Bungie has a great experience with FPS, even if its products deviate from the Call style of duty. Let’s not forget that Sony is still in the middle of the buying campaign, so the following investments may be of interest to development teams that have the necessary knowledge for this.

Now we leave the floor to you. Do you think Sony can create a viable alternative to Call of Duty? Or do you think it should focus its efforts in a completely different direction? Let us know in the comments.

Parliamone is a daily opinion column that provides a starting point for discussion on the news of the day, a small editorial written by a member of the editorial team but not necessarily the editorial line Multiplayer.it.