PS4’s first-party line-up for 2015 is a “little sparse,” Sony admits

By Sherif Saed

Sony is honest about the fact that 2015 is not looking like a great first-party year for PlayStation 4.

SCE president and global CEO Andrew House spoke to attendees at the company’s Inventor Relations Day about how the rest of the year looks like in terms of PlayStation 4 content.

“We are working very hard to continue very strong support from third-party pubs and devs,” he said in his presentation. “Our first-party line-up is a little sparse this year, so I think this places even greater emphasis on getting good third-party support.”

According to House, third-party support includes things like taking advantage of PS4 features such as SharePlay, offering early-access to DLC, or offer extra game content to PS4 players. Outright third-party exclusives are becoming fewer and fewer, House admitted.

“I will admit that these [third-party exclusives] are, in the current publishing landscape, few and far between. but we were able to announce a full exclusive around a franchise like Street Fighter so that Street Fighter 5 is a complete exclusive for PlayStation 4.

“Although given publishing dynamics and development costs, those are increasingly difficult to secure.”

House continued to flaunt the PS4’s lead over the competition, saying that it is “the fastest selling hardware platform in our history” and that it exceeded Sony’s expectations.

Thanks, Games Industry International.