Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment make a difference!
During the summer, I criticized Xbox for a meager number of games from internal studios and for taking too long to develop. Since then, the situation has improved dramatically, and a recent presentation showed that exclusive games on the Xbox will be released every couple of months! It seems that the #play period is finally in the past.
But gamers did not get bored even these six months! In July, the curious adventure As Dusk Falls appeared, in August, the sensational interactive horror Immortality, and in September, the cooperative survivalist Grounded came out of early access. After a month apart, we played controversial, but insanely atmospheric Scorncognitive Pentiment with a unique visual, funny High on Life, and the other day there was a surprise game Hi-Fi Rush. It was announced at the Xbox presentation and immediately released: bright action-platformer captured everyone and made the robots beat to the beat of the clockwork music.
What do all these exclusive games have in common? They are very different: different setting, style, and gameplay between them have nothing in common. Often, Xbox didn’t even care about their promotion, hoping for word of mouth and high marks from the press. A couple of trailers a few months before the release seemed like enough marketing strategy for her. Xbox naturally didn’t consider these games to be blockbusters, and that gives them a bit of unpredictability, which isn’t bad at all, is it?
Playstation, on the other hand, continues to bend its line with AAA blockbusters. Huge budgets for production and marketing are bearing fruit in the form of frenzied circulation of the console itself and very good sales of exclusives. But the problem of the last 10 years has not disappeared: what to play between Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok? Of course, there are hundreds of multiplatform games, but this issue does not seem to bother the Japanese corporation itself.
At the same time, gamers are slowly getting bored with the stereotypes of Playstation blockbusters. The same vibe, similar settings and gameplay solutions, copy-paste interface, wandering from project to project. In a good way, a PS player will have enough of one exclusive per year to enjoy the gameplay and a beautiful picture. If he buys another blockbuster, he runs the risk of running into the same thing with a side view. A recent example in the face of God of War: Ragnarok showed that the situation is even sadder: there are practically no differences from God of War 4 years ago!
And if in the PS3 era gamers enjoyed small but cool Gravity Rush, Puppeteer, Siren: Blood Curse, Tokyo Jungle and Wipeout HD Fury, now everything is sad with cool small games. In the summer, an excellent bagel Inscryption and an unusual speed action game Rollerdrome came out — that’s the whole line of small Playstation games for half a year.
In conclusion, I will share a crazy fact: in 2022, SIE and Nintendo did not release a single new IP — only sequels and reboots. Loud Stray and GhostWire: Tokyo came out under the brand of other publishers. Microsoft, on the other hand, boasts 4 new brands, and each of these games is remembered, despite the niche.
Sometimes it’s necessary to take a risk, don’t you think?
