Is the Vita the only PlayStation console with poor third party support?

[Casual Shinji]

Bloodborne
Persona 5
Horizon Zero Dawn
Last of Us 1 and 2
Uncharted

These are system selling 3rd party games. These are the kinds of games the Switch doesn't have.

I don't know if I'm reading this wrong, but out of that list only Persona 5 is a 3rd party game. Sony owns Naughty Dog and Guerilla. And Bloodborne as an IP is also owned by Sony, as well as having been partially made by their Japan studio.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Bayonetta 3 - Not a 3rd party game. Nintendo OWNS Bayonetta, this is a first party title.

It's not tho. Who owns the IP for a game doesn't make that game de facto 1st party. Who developed it does.

1st party refers to developers that are wholly owned by a platform holder. Nintendo may own the Bayonetta IP now, but they don't own Platinum Games. That makes Platinum a 2nd party for Nintendo, an outside developer contracted by a platform holder to make one or more games exclusively for their platform, in this case Bayonetta.

As for the Playstation exlusives you mentioned? Only Persona is 3rd party. The rest are all by 1st party Sony-owned devs, except Bloodborne, which was by 2nd party From Software.

 

[CritialGaming]

Bloodborne
Persona 5
Horizon Zero Dawn
Last of Us 1 and 2
Uncharted

These are system selling 3rd party games. These are the kinds of games the Switch doesn't have.

I don't know if I'm reading this wrong, but out of that list only Persona 5 is a 3rd party game. Sony owns Naughty Dog and Guerilla. And Bloodborne as an IP is also owned by Sony, as well as having been partially made by their Japan studio.

Spider-Man
Shadow of the Colossus
The Last Guardian
Grand Turismo
Until Dawn
Infamous
Ratchet and Clank
Heavy Rain / Beyond Two Souls / Detroit

I mean sure you have a point. Although I would count Bloodborne as it was developed by FromSoftware but funded by Sony. It still wasn't created from a source that Sony owns. There are politics in every title that you could link to some sort of 1st party funding. Hell every exclusive in general is the result of some 1st party influence/funding. These aren't games that were developed in house by Sony though, which is why I left God of War off the list.

Which actually begs the question of, if Sony is funding all these exclusive titles from 3rd party developers to create original IP's for the PS then how come Nintendo isn't doing that? They have the money for it surely. The closest they've gotten was Mario+Rabids, which sort of doesn't count because it is a 3rd party game using a 1st party IP so technically I think that's cheating.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Spider-Man
Shadow of the Colossus
The Last Guardian
Grand Turismo
Until Dawn
Infamous
Ratchet and Clank
Heavy Rain / Beyond Two Souls / Detroit

I mean sure you have a point. Although I would count Bloodborne as it was developed by FromSoftware but funded by Sony. It still wasn't created from a source that Sony owns. There are politics in every title that you could link to some sort of 1st party funding. Hell every exclusive in general is the result of some 1st party influence/funding. These aren't games that were developed in house by Sony though, which is why I left God of War off the list.

3rd party implies a title that has no reason to be exclussive other than the publisher preferring it. Yakuza is (was) a 3rd party exclussive, since it's owned by Sega, and Sony has no say in whether it'll get a release on PC, Xbone, or Switch. If the game is introduced as 'Sony Interactive Entertainment' followed by the developement studio, than it's pretty much first party.


Spider-Man is probably closer to 2nd party, since Sony doesn't own Insomniac, but it certainly isn't 3rd party because that game will never see the light of day on other (non-Sony) systems.


While technically they weren't developed in-house, for all intents and purposes they pretty much were. A game like Last of Us 2, while not in-house, has as much financial and production backing from Sony as God of War. Until Dawn was made by a 3rd party developer, but it runs on the Decima engine, which Sony owns. This is why Supermassive Games' next multiplatform title uses a completely different engine.

Let's say the next Resident Evil would be an exclussive 3rd party title to the Xbone - the least popular of the Big 3's home consoles - then Microsoft wouldn't suffer any (direct) finacial loss should it fail to sell by not being multiplatform; they didn't invest any significant time or resources in it and they didn't publish it. That would be all on Capcom. Microsoft wouldn't function as a safety net for Capcom's failure. Should Spider-Man have failed, it would've been Sony that would've felt that finacial brunt, not Insomniac (directly anyway). The point I'm trying to make is that this level of investment is pretty much equel to that of in-house production.

 

[CritialGaming]

Spider-Man
Shadow of the Colossus
The Last Guardian
Grand Turismo
Until Dawn
Infamous
Ratchet and Clank
Heavy Rain / Beyond Two Souls / Detroit

I mean sure you have a point. Although I would count Bloodborne as it was developed by FromSoftware but funded by Sony. It still wasn't created from a source that Sony owns. There are politics in every title that you could link to some sort of 1st party funding. Hell every exclusive in general is the result of some 1st party influence/funding. These aren't games that were developed in house by Sony though, which is why I left God of War off the list.

3rd party implies a title that has no reason to be exclussive other than the publisher preferring it. Yakuza is (was) a 3rd party exclussive, since it's owned by Sega, and Sony has no say in whether it'll get a release on PC, Xbone, or Switch. If the game is introduced as 'Sony Interactive Entertainment' followed by the developement studio, than it's pretty much first party.


Spider-Man is probably closer to 2nd party, since Sony doesn't own Insomniac, but it certainly isn't 3rd party because that game will never see the light of day on other (non-Sony) systems.


While technically they weren't developed in-house, for all intents and purposes they pretty much were. A game like Last of Us 2, while not in-house, has as much financial and production backing from Sony as God of War. Until Dawn was made by a 3rd party developer, but it runs on the Decima engine, which Sony owns. This is why Supermassive Games' next multiplatform title uses a completely different engine.

Let's say the next Resident Evil would be an exclussive 3rd party title to the Xbone - the least popular of the Big 3's home consoles - then Microsoft wouldn't suffer any (direct) finacial loss should it fail to sell by not being multiplatform; they didn't invest any significant time or resources in it and they didn't publish it. That would be all on Capcom. Microsoft wouldn't function as a safety net for Capcom's failure. Should Spider-Man have failed, it would've been Sony that would've felt that finacial brunt, not Insomniac (directly anyway). The point I'm trying to make is that this level of investment is pretty much equel to that of in-house production.

But that is still a slippery slope. Because even if those games are not funded by Sony in anyway, you have to figure the promotional material, commercials, etc. And frankly every game is funded in SOME way by the console it is going on.

Will the Medievil remake count? 3rd party developer, but with Sony funding makes it a 1st party game based on that logic?

I don't think you can say that. I mean Yakuza was promoted by Sony, which means Sony spent money on that promotion, including it in their press conferences. Does that mean Yakuza is 2nd party because of minor investment by Sony?

Bloodborne was published by Sony, but all the developing credit is listed by FromSoft which Sony doesn't own. Simaliarly Insomniac Games has a very close relationship with Sony historically, but they were never owned or funded by Sony.

I mean even the Switch's arguably only fully 3rd party exclusive Octopath Traveler was Published and funded by Nintendo. So using that logic, then that isn't 3rd party either.

Really we have to define 3rd party, and so long as the console company isn't directly developing the game we can call it 3rd party I'd say. For the sake of this.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Which actually begs the question of, if Sony is funding all these exclusive titles from 3rd party developers to create original IP's for the PS then how come Nintendo isn't doing that? They have the money for it surely. The closest they've gotten was Mario+Rabids, which sort of doesn't count because it is a 3rd party game using a 1st party IP so technically I think that's cheating.

Nah, it just made Ubisoft 2nd party to Nintendo for that game.

As for why Nintendo doesn't use more outside devs to make stuff for them? I don't know, but it seems they heavily prefer to do everything either in-house or by a handful of independent developers they trust. Rare was one of those once. Pretty much all of their output on Nintendo systems was done as a 2nd party dev (Nintendo never had share majority). Aside from them, Platinum is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.

Lemme see, HAL Laboratory (Kirby, Smash Bros) and Intelligent Systems (Fire Emblem, Paper Mario) are both officially independent from Nintendo, tho I don't think they've ever released something on a non-Nintendo system, so there's not much distinction from a 1st party dev. Game Freak (Pokemon) kind of counts, I guess, although they're actually partners with Nintendo in the Pokemon Company joint venture, so that's a different relationship.

Nope, got nothing anymore.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Nah, it just made Ubisoft 2nd party to Nintendo for that game.

As for why Nintendo doesn't use more outside devs to make stuff for them? I don't know, but it seems they heavily prefer to do everything either in-house or by a handful of independent developers they trust. Rare was one of those once. Pretty much all of their output on Nintendo systems was done as a 2nd party dev (Nintendo never had share majority). Aside from them, Platinum is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.

Lemme see, HAL Laboratory (Kirby, Smash Bros) and Intelligent Systems (Fire Emblem, Paper Mario) are both officially independent from Nintendo, tho I don't think they've ever released something on a non-Nintendo system, so there's not much distinction from a 1st party dev. Game Freak (Pokemon) kind of counts, I guess, although they're actually partners with Nintendo in the Pokemon Company joint venture, so that's a different relationship.

Nope, got nothing anymore.

It's probably a quality control thing, but they've done plenty of work with 3rd parties over the last ten years. They allowed Koei-Tecmo to make Pokemon Conquest, Hyrule Warriors, and Fire Emblem Warriors. Speaking of which, the latter two also had the involvement of Team Ninja, who also worked on Metroid: Other M and are doing Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order (I'm still wondering how Nintendo got the exclusivity rights to that; Reggie must know where bodies are buried). Then there was Atlus doing the Shin Megami Tensei-Fire Emblem crossover in Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE and most recently MercurySteam did Metroid: Samus Returns. So it seems they're fine working with 3rd parties, it's just that some 3rd parties don't want to deal with Nintendo's oversight. Although the funny thing is, no one who's actually worked with Nintendo has actually complained about working with them. They're apparently complete pros, they just don't let people get lazy.

 

[CritialGaming]

Nah, it just made Ubisoft 2nd party to Nintendo for that game.

As for why Nintendo doesn't use more outside devs to make stuff for them? I don't know, but it seems they heavily prefer to do everything either in-house or by a handful of independent developers they trust. Rare was one of those once. Pretty much all of their output on Nintendo systems was done as a 2nd party dev (Nintendo never had share majority). Aside from them, Platinum is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.

Lemme see, HAL Laboratory (Kirby, Smash Bros) and Intelligent Systems (Fire Emblem, Paper Mario) are both officially independent from Nintendo, tho I don't think they've ever released something on a non-Nintendo system, so there's not much distinction from a 1st party dev. Game Freak (Pokemon) kind of counts, I guess, although they're actually partners with Nintendo in the Pokemon Company joint venture, so that's a different relationship.

Nope, got nothing anymore.

It's probably a quality control thing, but they've done plenty of work with 3rd parties over the last ten years. They allowed Koei-Tecmo to make Pokemon Conquest, Hyrule Warriors, and Fire Emblem Warriors. Speaking of which, the latter two also had the involvement of Team Ninja, who also worked on Metroid: Other M and are doing Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order (I'm still wondering how Nintendo got the exclusivity rights to that; Reggie must know where bodies are buried). Then there was Atlus doing the Shin Megami Tensei-Fire Emblem crossover in Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE and most recently MercurySteam did Metroid: Samus Returns. So it seems they're fine working with 3rd parties, it's just that some 3rd parties don't want to deal with Nintendo's oversight. Although the funny thing is, no one who's actually worked with Nintendo has actually complained about working with them. They're apparently complete pros, they just don't let people get lazy.

And to Nintendo's credit. They don't let you put in microtransactions.......*gasp* wait! Maybe it hasn't been the "evil" piblishers forcing Mt's into games this whole time! Maybe it was the devs doing it so they could make commissions from the MT sales rather than taking their cut once the game was done!

MAYBE WE'VE HAD IT WRONG THIS WHOLE TIME!!!!!!

 

[Yoshi178]

Let me fix this for you

Doom Eternal - Not out yet, not an exclusive, can't call it good or bad yet
Octopath Traveler - Beautiful but mediocre game, not a must have.
Mortal Kombat 11 - Was this announced for Switch. I missed that part. Either way, not out yet, cant call it good or bad or exclusive
Crash Team Racing Remastered - Not out yet, can't call it good or bad, not exclusive
Bayonetta 3 - Not a 3rd party game. Nintendo OWNS Bayonetta, this is a first party title.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 - Not exclusive, not out yet.
Dragon Quest Builders - Not exclusive.
Team Sonic Racing - Mario kart's shitty cousin? HA!
Mega Man 11 - Not exclusive.

I mean what part of 3rd party exclusives do you not understand?

But the fact is that you are kidding yourself when you say the system is getting stellar 3rd party titles. Because I don't believe it is, and it's certainly not getting exclusives.

You didn't say that. You said that Switch didn't have good 3rd Party support. There's a difference.

By your logic PS4 has shit 3rd party support because hardly any 3rd party games for that platform are exclusive to it.


As for Bayonetta 3, ok i'll give you that. that's no 3rd Party but it's not 1st Party either. Sega owns the Bayonetta franchise technically not Nintendo. Nintendo just publish Bayonetta 3.

It's more of a 2nd Party game

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

Not really. It's just not supported at all in the west. All its best stuff is third party Japanese games.

Basically this. The VITA is pretty much a JRPG machine. It has loads of third party support just not many from western devs.

 

[Mothro]

the Vita would've done better if Sony didn't charge people out the ass for the memory cards and didn't try to treat the handheld like it was a home console.


people who play handheld games on the go want games they can easily pick up and play for 5 minutes then sit back down again. not some massive JRPG that's going to take someone 30+ hours to finish. the reason why the Switch works is because of it's hybrid nature. you can easily pick up and play something like a level from Donkey Kong or Mario for 5 minutes on the go and then get back home and play something more cinematic like Xenoblade on your big TV instead.

BS. The GBA, DS and 3DS had plenty of RPG's.

 

[Yoshi178]

the Vita would've done better if Sony didn't charge people out the ass for the memory cards and didn't try to treat the handheld like it was a home console.


people who play handheld games on the go want games they can easily pick up and play for 5 minutes then sit back down again. not some massive JRPG that's going to take someone 30+ hours to finish. the reason why the Switch works is because of it's hybrid nature. you can easily pick up and play something like a level from Donkey Kong or Mario for 5 minutes on the go and then get back home and play something more cinematic like Xenoblade on your big TV instead.

BS. The GBA, DS and 3DS had plenty of RPG's.

They also had plenty of easy pick up and play for 5 minutes type games.

Even the RPG's were pretty easy to play in short bursts like Pokemon.

 

[themistermanguy]

Not really. It's just not supported at all in the west. All its best stuff is third party Japanese games.

Basically this. The VITA is pretty much a JRPG machine. It has loads of third party support just not many from western devs.

Sure if you want to count Niche Japanese RPGs from small developers. But in terms of more mainstream third party support, even Japanese games were pretty lacking. Companies like Square Enix, Capcom, Sega, and Bamco all gave the Vita either very little, or no support at all. The Vita barely even had any Final Fantasy games, when even the PSP had plenty of those.