Sony has created a new umbrella brand to encompass all of its PlayStation first-party releases.
Later this year, the PlayStation Studios logo will appear in PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 titles. It will only appear in games created and managed by Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Worldwide Studios division.
In addition to the logo, PlayStation has designed a new opening cinematic that will play at the beginning of its games. In the video, characters from Uncharted, LittleBigPlanet, God of War, Ratchet & Clank, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and The Last of Us appear. Take a look at the video below.
Eric Lempel, senior vice president and head of worldwide marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment, said, “We are incredibly thrilled about this.” “The strength of the titles coming out of our studios has been stronger than ever in the last several years — and even the last decade.” We’ve been considering how we might bring all of these fantastic titles under one banner, with the goal of convincing consumers that when they see this logo, they can expect the robust, innovative, and immersive experience that they’ve come to expect from PlayStation games. As a result, PlayStation Studios was born.
“You’ve seen the animated asset that will appear mostly at the start of our games, but the brand will appear in a variety of areas.” In trailers, there will be a variety of shorter animations… It will appear in advertisements. Any other creative elements, such as the game packaging and the game discs themselves, will contain it.
“We believe this is a fantastic approach to let customers know that if they see it, they can anticipate the high-quality games they’ve come to expect from us.” This brand will be used for both well-known existing franchises and brand new brands that we have yet to investigate.”
The PlayStation Studios branding will not be available in time for The Last of Us: Part II or Ghosts of Tsushima, which are set to release this summer. It will also be absent from the PC release of Horizon: Zero Dawn, though Lempel claims that any future games released on other platforms will bear the label.
According to Lempel, there will be variants on the video asset. And, while the video may appear to be something you’d see before a Marvel film, the branding was inspired by the games themselves.
He explains, “What we wanted to accomplish was establish a mechanism to bring the consumer into the world.” “That’s the lovely robust piece that happens when they play our games, and then you’re transported into an adventure with rich worlds, old characters, and very compelling stories.” We’re all Marvel fans. With Spider-Man, one of our most popular games of all time, features a Marvel superhero. But the actual point here is to build something unique for our games and business.
“You’ve seen the cinematic that contains numerous games in it.” However, when we bring more well-known properties, we can modify that introduction to demonstrate the franchise’s evolution through time, as well as new characters that have joined the cast… We have a lot of things we can accomplish, and we’re incredibly thrilled about it.”
Along with games created by Sony’s first-party companies, such as Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Santa Monica Studio, Media Molecule, and Guerrilla Games, the PlayStation Studios label will also apply to work-for-hire developers working under Sony’s supervision.
“It will still come out under the PlayStation Studios brand if our studios manage the production of these games and work with an external developer,” Lempel explains. “This doesn’t mean we own the developer altogether; it simply means we raised it as a first-party.” We don’t own the developer in a lot of circumstances.”
For the PlayStation 4‘s existence, the first-party lineup has proven to be a significant selling factor. Uncharted 4, Spider-Man, God of War, and Horizon: Zero Dawn have all won awards and sold over ten million copies globally, establishing the firm as a leader in story-driven single-player games. However, according to Lempel, the average consumer is unaware that all of these games are produced by Sony.
“It’s something we’ve been thinking about for a while,” he says, “and especially as we move towards the next generation, we want to back our games in a bigger way.” “We’ve done everything we can in terms of enormous, comprehensive marketing efforts, and this is an even better approach to bring these games together, united, in an easy-to-understand way for fans to comprehend what they’re putting themselves into.”
“We’ve never had an issue getting people to play these games,” he says. The games of the year are frequently highly acclaimed, award-winning series, but it’s not always evident to the average consumer which games come straight from our Worldwide Studios. And, to your point, they’ve realized that these are, in many cases, very substantial, inventive single-player experiences. Of course, there are a variety of other games that don’t fall into that category, but we wanted to make sure that everyone was aware that these are the titles coming from our Worldwide Studios.”