Although Sony has built a formidable stable of first party studios over the last ten or so years, one thing they have always lacked in is a stable of recognizable IPs- where Nintendo has dozens of instantly recognizable franchises associated with their brand, and Microsoft have Halo, Forza, and Fable, Sony’s biggest franchise hits have always come from third parties. However, they have been working at building their IPs recently- Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank, Killzone, inFamous, LittleBigPlanet, Sly, and Gran Turismo are all the results of these franchise building initiatives.
There are reports coming out of from Sony’s 97th General Shareholder Meeting at the Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa in Tokyo that we may see this taken a step further- not only will we see the divisive but commercially popular PlayStation 4 launch game Knack be turned into a franchise, but we may see old fan favorite PlayStation characters returning to PS4 soon too. Interestingly, these developments are all going to come courtesy of Sony’s Japan studios, so expecting Crash Bandicoot to return (who is anyway owned by Activision now) may be unrealistic.
Let’s see what franchises Sony chooses to revive.