Sony has an award-winning stable of first-party titles and when the PlayStation 5 launches later this year, all of them will fall under the newly created PlayStation Studios brand.
The new umbrella brand will encompass critically acclaimed titles like Horizon: Zero Dawn, God of War, and The Last of Us, as well as other established IPs iconic to the brand, like Uncharted, LittleBigPlanet, and Ratchet & Clank - all of which you can check out in the snazzy new opening animation that will play when booting up a game that releases under the brand post-launch.
Eric Lempel, senior vice president and head of global marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment, said:
"We are really excited about this. Over the last few years -- and even the last decade -- the strength of the titles coming out from our studios has been stronger than ever.
"We have been thinking about how we unite all of these great games under one brand, and really the purpose of that is to make the consumer understand that, when they see this brand, they're getting ready for a robust, innovative, deep experience that they've come to expect from games coming from PlayStation. So we came up with PlayStation Studios."
Lempel added that Sony has "never had any problem" when it comes to getting people to play these games, as they're "usually critically acclaimed, award-winning franchises that are games of the year" - and he's not wrong! But the average consumer might not be aware that they're all games from Sony's Worldwide Studios.
The new branding makes that easy to relay, and won't be limited to just popping up before a game. Lempel described shorter animations that have been trimmed for trailers and advertising, as well as other assets that will be sported on box art and the physical discs. Even the characters featured in the animation may get swapped out to reflect others from past and future franchises.
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"We think this is a good way to let consumers know that, if they see it, then the quality games they've come to expect from us are here. And this brand will exist for well-known existing franchises, as well as brand new franchises that we have yet to explore."
The branding will also apply to new PS4 titles that fit the bill, but it won't go live in time to appear in the upcoming Ghosts of Tsushima or Last of Us: Part II.
Lempel clarified that the PlayStation Studios umbrella brand can also apply to games from external developers:
"If our studios are managing the production of these games and working with an external developer, it will still come out under the PlayStation Studios brand. It doesn't mean that we outright own the developer, but it just means we brought it up as a first-party. In a lot of cases we don't own the developer."
With such a strong lineup of single-player, narrative driven games, it's a clever move to bring them under one label that's easy to recognise. The animation will almost certainly bring to mind the intro for the numerous MCU movies - although Lempel says it's just a coincidence - which unites a slew of films under one easily recognisable umbrella brand for the viewer, and this is effectively doing the same with Sony's standout franchises.
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Source: GamesIndustry.biz
