According to numerous industry insiders, Sony resisted releasing the most recent PlayStation Showcase. Their claims surfaced online after the event’s generally negative reception, which included complaints that it lacked first-party exclusives aside from showing Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 gameplay.
The PlayStation Showcase was last held over two years ago. Thus the May 24 broadcast from Sony was eagerly anticipated by the community. Even though the event lasted over an hour and had plenty of content, it offered few release dates.
It mainly concentrated on CGI trailers rather than gameplay segments, which many fans had been expecting for. Some fans were shocked to discover how many PlayStation Showcase games will eventually be released for Xbox.
Tom Henderson, a well-known industry insider, asserted online that Sony has been holding back with the PlayStation Showcase. Henderson said on May 25 that many of the event-related games “are pretty much ready” despite not receiving gameplay trailers or release dates.
Soon after, The Snitch, another well-known leaker, expressed surprise that Sony had excluded numerous upcoming AAA titles from its PlayStation Showcase roster.
The Snitch furthers this assertion by claiming that another PlayStation PC port is planned for release in July and that it’s “very strange” that this game wasn’t present at the May 24 event. Generally speaking, the idea that a major publisher may delay announcing almost finished products isn’t implausible.
Multiple reports recently highlighted that Nintendo has allegedly been putting off Metroid Prime Remastered and Fire Emblem Engage for years. Yet Sony has always chosen lengthier marketing cycles, so such an approach is far from standard.
Another reason to mistrust the assertion that many of the titles on display at the event are close to going gold is the general need for fresh release dates disclosed during the most recent PlayStation Showcase.
The Last of Us multiplayer spinoff was never shown during the May 24 broadcast, but Naughty Dog promised more information about it sometime in 2023. As a result, the second half of 2023 may still see the release of another PlayStation Showcase or, at the very least, a State of Play stream.
But given that publishers often concentrate on pushing their current inventories in the lead-up to the holiday season, which is typically the most lucrative time for the video game industry, the window for that to happen truly is very small.
Despite this, Sony must find a place to showcase several AAA PlayStation exclusives, including Death Stranding 2 and the upcoming multiplayer edition of The Last of Us.