Sony kicked off its Summer of Gaming 2023 this week with its PlayStation Showcase, an event that got millions excited. Now that we’ve had a few days to cool off from the live stream, it feels right to talk about it fairly openly. We didn’t have the pre-show hype or post-show depression to overwhelm us, so we thought we could give it a fair enough rating.
So, did the PlayStation Showcase disappoint? Well, that’s certainly not great. We won’t look back on the show in a few years and wonder how Sony managed to pull off such an incredible event. Instead, if we’re being honest, like the vast majority of these showcases, the PlayStation Showcase 2023 will likely fade into memory before the year is out.
Does that mean we have absolutely nothing to say? No, of course not. The show wasn’t a complete disaster, as we did have quite a few announcements worth mentioning. Metal Gear Solid Δ, Dragon’s Dogma 2, Marathon, and of course Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 were arguably the show’s biggest announcements, but even in smaller reveals like Ghostwalker 2, Talos Principle 2, Neva, and more , there’s plenty for fans of the game to get excited about, too. However, there were two major problems with this display, the first being that while we saw a lot, it felt like Sony was aiming for quantity rather than quality.
Here is an ad:
In fact, the vast majority of these trailers show us barely any gameplay, even if we don’t get any gameplay at all. For example, what did we actually learn from Marathon, Concord, or Metal Gear Delta? Sure, we can learn more about these titles thanks to PS blog posts and the like, but what’s the point of showing? Many of the titles shown could have been relegated to blog posts to give us more content of interest. By the end of the hour-long presentation, we were left with the blessing of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, rather than seeing it as the cherry on top of a fantastic display.
The fact that we want more details on first-party titles, as well as other major and exciting titles coming to other platforms, leaves us with the second major problem with this showcase, which is the PlayStation unknown. future. This presentation is all about showing us that. We should be entering the second half of the PS5’s lifecycle knowing at least some of the major games we’re going to get, but after Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, we’re wondering what’s next. There are a few projects in the rumor mill, and a few previously announced things like Insomniac’s Wolverine, but this reveal should give us more tidbits about those games, and ignoring them leaves us with a rather uneasy feeling in the stomach a feeling of.
I have no doubt – barring something terribly, seriously wrong – that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be great, and third-party titles could just as well be telling to fill the time between the first-party releases that Sony has become synonymous with over the past few years. But what can Sony consumers expect once Spider-Man launches? What’s the next big thing?
Here is an ad:
Wolverine? If that’s the case, then there’s a lot of weight on Insomniac’s shoulders. We’re not saying a great first-party game isn’t going to rear its head, but if we turn our minds back to this time last year, we know we’re getting God of War: Ragnarok and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, with a Project worth looking forward to now, another project to follow later. As we get closer to Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s fall 2023 date, it leaves a lot of angst about what Sony will do next, as without its major exclusives, some may start to question whether they’re buying a PS5. for what. VR doesn’t save it, not in the state it is in, and Wii U doesn’t clone it.
In short, yes, the PlayStation Showcase was a disappointment. Not because we don’t see a lot, but because we don’t see much depth. Plus, the show – Bar Spider-Man – felt like it could have been made by any other major gaming brand, showcasing more headlining third-party versions than anything else.
