I don't necessarily disagree. The Indie scene is definitely filling that role. Journey was maybe not the best example, as that's really a true Indie in scope whereas Ico was really in that AA area or even AAA for 2001 when it came to a lot of the graphical and animation tech being developed.
I guess I'm just looking for something to fill the Team Ico / GenDesign hole. Games that are a little more artistically minded but have the financial backing to still push boundaries in environmental design, fidelity, animation, score, etc. Whereas most Indies are much more limited in budget, scope, graphics, etc.
I understand their push for live service and how important multiplayer is for these companies, despite those games not appealing to me personally. But what brought me to PlayStation was their library and ecosystem, and while I enjoy most of the modern titles, I'm seeing more homogenization nowadays compared to earlier eras IMO.
Their "tentpole" franchises are still very successful. My hope is that if they do find success in Live Services, that they can use that success combined with the success of their "blockbuster" games to feel comfortable taking more risks on projects that maybe don't need to be $200 million efforts like The Last of Us Part 2.
Yeah the poor trillion dollar company couldn't possibly compete with the billion dollar company by organically building an attractive portfolio. It's not like they did it before and only lost their position due to their own mishandling of studios and misunderstanding of the market.
Well since exclusives will continue to exist, imagine if, hear me out here, third party titles remained cross platform and group B developed their own set of games at worst through infant studio acquisitions instead of, idk, acquiring the second largest third party publisher in the world (and thus all their studios).
No I think this is worse. It's not a deal. These are all first party studios now essentially, through nothing but the purchasing power of a trillion dollar company. They will and can be as locked as Microsoft prefers.
There were 360 deals before PS4/PS5 deals. There were Xbox One deals even during Sony dominance, like Tomb Raider. Sony is just one player, but the others are not angels.
Nothing here stops those deals from continuing.
What has happened is that the second or third largest third party publisher's studios and "IP" now belong to a first party publisher.
And I predict more acquisitions, and thus consolidation, will come from Sony.
Grandmas, young people. Most people are notoriously far from financially savvy. Many overpay or fail to track their subscriptions.. If you didn't know at least one person paying for a subscription they didn't actually use in the last month I would be surprised.
You have to keep up with your gaming habits long term to keep up with the subscription costs, basically never replay anything (especially not long RPGs that can take you months to finish), not waste subscription time playing non-GamePass games, or remember to cancel. And Microsoft, like most subscription services, are banking on people maintaining subscriptions they aren't fully using.
No subscription deal is ever a good financial decision long term and companies know that. Most people keep their subscriptions running and will end up paying more long term.
That's not even getting into the "ownership" vs renting aspect.
Most of them have already been named but the ones I'd choose are:
Ico
Shadow of the Colossus
The Last Guardian
Journey
The Last of Us
The Last of Us Part 2
Half Life 2
Bioshock
Mass Effect 2
God of War (2018) / Ragnarok
Kentucky Route Zero
Limbo / Inside
Abzu
And similarly RDR2
Edit: I could also potentially consider Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. Similar to the other first person games I listed, they designed their environments so that certain features are prominent as you move forward into them, which to me qualifies as this type of "cinematography" or framing we're talking about in games
The original document had the 3/5 compromise