Family Titles a Neglected Genre, Says Sony

The Wooster

King Snap
Jul 15, 2008
15,305
0
0
Family Titles a Neglected Genre, Says Sony


Expect lots of family-friendly titles on PS3 this Christmas.

According to Sony Worldwide Studios president, Shuhei Yoshida, Sony will be concentrating on "family-friendly" titles and relying on third party studios to deliver "big core games," this Christmas.

"We'd love to have multi-million sellers for the holiday," he said. "But each title needs time to develop, especially new IP like The Last of Us, God of War has always come out in March, so that's a natural time to aim at."

"Our strategy for Christmas is to go big on family-friendly titles," he continued. "This is a neglected genre for the PlayStation 3, but as it matures, I think it's really important to have these games on the platform. I think we have a great lineup this holiday to complement third parties' big core games."

As CVG pointed out, Yoshida's comments sound odd taken alongside those made by Sony's head of digital games, Jack Buser, who last month criticized Microsoft and Nintendo for neglecting core gamers at E3.

"Some of our competitors, seemingly, are losing the plot, forgetting what built this industry," he said. "It was the gamer... We are for the gamer first and foremost. Everything we do at PlayStation, we ask ourselves first, 'What's right for the gamer?'"

Personally, I've always taken the distinction between "core" and "casual" - or in this case "family-friendly" - with a grain of salt. What matters to me is whether or not the games Sony releases this holiday season are good, not which demographic distinction they fall into. Of course, I'm not a parent desperately trying to find a gaming gift for a young child that doesn't involve horrific violence, foul language, sexualized characters or all of the above.

Source: Game Informer Via Gaming Everything [http://gamingeverything.com/25301/yoshida-on-lack-of-mega-blockbuster-sony-titles-this-year-family-friendly-strategy/]

Permalink
 

BrotherRool

New member
Oct 31, 2008
3,834
0
0
I'm fairly okay with this, most of Sony's franchises needed some time off and it's true that Fat Princess and Little Big Planet are pretty much the only family places you can go. (although maybe it's too late? I'm sure most families wouldn't have aimed for the PS3)

When the games do come out, they better be good though. God of War is in need of a rethink.


(Also, was so focused on filling out Captcha forgot to actually write a comment :D )
 

kortin

New member
Mar 18, 2011
1,512
0
0
Can't say I am interested in a "family title". I don't share well, and most of my family tends to not enjoy playing games with me.

I guess there are people out there who do though, so glad they're getting some more games, I guess.
 

Elamdri

New member
Nov 19, 2009
1,481
0
0
Family friendly titles can be be great, but there is somewhat of a vicious cycle where the money and talent gets dumped into making violent games because of a perception that the market desires those things. Because of that, family friendly games tend to be of poor quality and so people avoid them, thus further fueling the cycle.

Shame too, because companies like Pixar and Double Fine have clearly shown that something can be family friendly and still be exceptional quality entertainment.
 

Falterfire

New member
Jul 9, 2012
810
0
0
I don't think there's a contradiction at all in focusing on what's best for the 'gamer' and creating family friendly entertainment. Third parties have consistently put out high quality 'core' games. There is no danger of us Gamers running out of good games to play. (At least on non-Wii systems) Meanwhile, nobody has bothered to put out an actually good game that can safely be called kid-friendly. The closest multiplayer hits I can think of are all Wii games. Since the Wii did very very well for itself with games like Super Smash Bros and Wii Sports, I can see why Sony would want in.

I for one welcome a chance to pick up new fun multiplayer games, and hopefully with a first party developer on board the end result will be better than the mediocre chaff family games normally end up as.
 

Eric the Orange

Gone Gonzo
Apr 29, 2008
3,245
0
0
As long as they don't take the Nintendo route by making the game even long all skill levels by making the game completely random.
 

Evil Smurf

Admin of Catoholics Anonymous
Nov 11, 2011
11,597
0
0
I have a Wii at home and the "family friendly" games are what my dad bought the Wii for. If Sony can pull this off, good for them
 

Antari

Music Slave
Nov 4, 2009
2,246
0
0
Good on them for making the PS3 a little more family friendly. Its pretty obvious they are trying to bite into the Xbox/Wii battlefield come christmas, I can't say I'd blame them for trying. But ...

Gamers first? .. Sony? ....... Well atleast the lies haven't changed.
 

Raggedstar

New member
Jul 5, 2011
753
0
0
Not against this at all. Most of the games I play I'm not ashamed to play in front of parents or children (as opposed to something like Bayonetta, which I do under cover of darkness or when no one is around *cough*). Plus, a lot of these games I hinted at before are 3D platformers, my favourite genre (a genre, like the focus of competant family-friendly games, that has been marginalized this generation in the AAA non-Nintendo market). What happened, Sony? You used to be one of the greatest homes of classic platformers. 2 generations! I'll hold out for some 2D masterpieces like Rayman Origins too.

Also, does this mean Sly 4 will be released closer to the holiday season? *sniffles* But they said fall. You know I'll have to play the shit out of that demo when I get the Ratchet collection.
 

Mortuorum

New member
Oct 20, 2010
381
0
0
zidine100 said:
so... no big ips ready,

expect shovelware.

thanks for the heads up.
Exactly the point I was going to make. "Family-friendly" has become an industry euphamism for the wordt kind of shovelware.

But -- hey! -- maybe Sony will surprise us with several new IPs that are appropriate for chilren, have clever writing for the adults and feature deep and original gameplay for the hard core.

You can't see it, but I'm having a hard time keeping a straight face right now.
 

faefrost

New member
Jun 2, 2010
1,280
0
0
Sony actually doesn't have that bad of a "family friendly" catalog for the PS3. Little Big Planet, Katamari, Mod Nation Racers, Fat Princess, they do at least make an effort. Granted it's nowhere near as good as Nintendo's in terms of non violent titles, but it stands head and shoulders above the XBox's, in which the least violent games on the platform are probbaly Limbo and Super Meat Boy.
 

sethisjimmy

New member
May 22, 2009
601
0
0
There's a small semantics disconnect going on here: family titles vs family-friendly titles. I think family titles refers to games for the whole family to play together, such as Wii Sports or Mario Party. Family Friendly is just anything that you'd be fine playing in front of your family. I think of a lot of Nintendo first party games, such as the main Mario series, The Legend of Zelda, Smash Bros, etc, games without a lot of "mature" content.

Yoshida refers to "family-friendly" titles, so I'm inclined to hope for the latter here, but he may actually be talking about "fun for the whole family" instead.