What a year 2017 is turning out to be for gaming! I really, really hope the original Spyro trilogy is next for Activision. As much as I like Crash, Spyro will always be my favorite PlayStation series.
Worldwide Crash success after only 2 days on the market is very well deserved and reminds me of Nioh and Nier from earlier in the year. All three of these games could be considered mid-tier compared to the popular annual franchises and new IP that Ubisoft pumps out every year. In a time in the industry where we're trying to figure out whether games like this still have a place and can be successful, it's really nice to see them all not just doing well, but exceeding expectations. (
Nier) (
Nioh)
What's fascinating is that all three of these games are very successful
without being on multiple consoles. There's obviously a level of risk associated with every game in this industry but here, if these games can be hugely successful without ever gracing Xbox One or Switch, what kind of message does that send to publishers when they plan out future mid-tier games? (I'm just focusing on mid-tier here, not indie or AAA which tend to have a slightly different strategy.)
Crash may come out on Xbox One at some point but it's abundantly clear that the audience is on PS4 and they are more than enough to make the game successful. If Activision remasters the Spyro trilogy, why prioritize Xbox or even Switch after this response to Crash? For Koei Tecmo, why prioritize either of those two systems if they make another game like Nioh? Likewise for Square Enix?
Because of how successful these games have proven to be on just PS4, even if exclusivity deals were in place to get this specific content there in the first place,
I wonder if at least some publishers will start to consider PlayStation first without being asked for exclusivity, again, simply because we now know the audience for these kinds of games is on PlayStation and they are willing to spend the money to play them.
Between this scenario and the multiplatform splits being as high as 75-25 or 85-15 in favor of PS4 (vs Xbox), I think it speaks to years and years of Sony cultivating the fanbase to enjoy a wide variety of games that third-party publishers can then tap into and be successful. This stuff doesn't happen overnight so they deserve a lot of credit for being where they are today.