Many PS4 exclusives sold better than Sony expected

By Kes Eylers-Stephenson,

PS4 exclusives Infamous Second Son, Bloodborne, Ratchet & Clank, Shadow of the Colossus, and LittleBigPlanet 3 are all PS4 exclusives that sold above the expectations of Sony. The news was dug up by Timur222 on Twitter, who found it on the LinkedIn page of the former head of marketing at PlayStation, Tim Kamienski.

The games Kamienski listed were all delivered at different points in the PS4 life cycle. Infamous was the first major post-launch exclusive, released in March 2014, following the console launch in November 2013. Bloodborne released nearly a year after that point but was a hardcore FromSoftware game. LittleBigPlanet 3, released in the late months of 2014, wasn't made by the original developers, Media Molecule, but rather by Sumo Digital. So it is impressive that the game might not have not only succeeded but that the LBP IP was exceeding expectations after three iterations. Ratchet & Clank (2016) was a remake of the first R&C and Shadow of the Colossus (2018) was a remake of the PS2 classic. This possibly speaks to why we are seeing PlayStation adopt remakes as a method of profit, like the Demon's Souls remake and the rumoured The Last of Us and Uncharted PS5 projects. That might also be a prime reason to incorporate BluePoint into the first-party lineup as soon as possible...

Though Kamienski is obviously trying to toot his own horn a bit for LinkedIn, the 90% year-on-year growth of revenue with first-party games is an interesting line in its own right. The direction Sony is taking, with exclusive deals all over the place and first-party games being pumped out by independent studios, appears to be a route that will garner large profits.

The other takeaway is the resolute success of PSVR. We already knew that it had outsold all of its rivals and had a fairly solid install base, but the fact it achieved it in under 12 months is actually seriously impressive, even accounting for the fact this is a self-hype LinkedIn resume.

What do you think? Any spicy takes to be found in this? We will keep an eye out for any insightful responses and make sure we update accordingly!

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Written by Kes Eylers-Stephenson

Editor Kes is our resident expert in PlayStation and other gaming news. He writes about PS5 exclusives like The Last of Us and Horizon, PS Plus news, and his favorite games — The Witcher, Assassin’s Creed, and God of War — before an evening swim.