Sony’s lineup of first party studios is, to put it mildly, quite impressive, and though it’s always been quite strong, the impressive growth it has seen over the last decade has probably been one of the biggest factors in the PS4’s massive success this generation. It’s possible, however, that Sony might be looking into expanding it even further.
In its recently published corporate report, the company talked about the importance of first party created content, and said that in order to ensure that that area keeps on growing, not only does Sony plan to improve “the personnel and work environment in its own studios”, it’s also open to invest in or acquire even more developers to add to the Sony Worldwide Studios lineup (which will become PlayStation Studios as we enter the PS5 generation). Notably, this is something that Sony has said earlier as well.
“First-party titles, developed and sold by the platform owner, are particularly important as content IP for future value-creation and earnings,” the company wrote. “In addition to improving the personnel and work environment in its own studios, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) continues to invest in, or acquire, firms with abundant creativity and cutting-edge technologies to build up Worldwide Studios (WWS), an association of first-party title production studios.”
The last studio Sony acquired was Insomniac Games back in August 2019, and it’s fair to say that that was a massive get for them. With Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales launching alongside the PS5 this Holiday and Ratchet and Clank: Drift Apart due out for the next-gen console in its launch window, Insomniac are surely putting in plenty of work.