Speaking at a PlayStation 20th anniversary event in Australia, Sony Computer Entertainment Australia’s Managing Director, Michael Ephraim, says that the company’s primary objective is to swell the PS4 install base in 2016, and believes that the line-up of great first-party games will help.
Despite the arrival of some critically acclaimed PS4 exclusives in 2015, including Bloodborne and Until Dawn, Ephraim acknowledges that this year hasn’t been the greatest for first-party titles on Sony’s black behemoth.
“We have worked very closely with third parties this year because our first party lineup was not as a strong as we would have liked," he told Gamespot.
However, Ephraim believes 2016 will be much more impressive.
"Next year, our first party lineup looks incredible. You’ve got Street Fighter,Uncharted 4, No Man’s Sky, The Last Guardian, Gran Turismo. These are all exclusives, and two of them are new franchises."
Sony will also be hoping to make waves with PlayStation VR, which also launches in 2016. Despite strong support from third-party publishers though, Ephraim is much more cautious about whether its virtual reality headset for PS4 will be a roaring success or not from the outset.
“PlayStation VR is new, everyone wants it, there are a lot of publishers developing for it. But whether it’s going to just go completely nuts early, or if it’s a slow build, time will tell."
PSU recently went hands-on with PlayStation VR at the PlayStation Experience event in California, and were suitably impressed with titles such as Eve Valkyrie, Driveclub VR and Until Dawn: Rush of Blood. Though we can expect a strong launch line-up of games for PlayStation VR, its success is really going to boil down to whether the support continues throughout its life-cycle. Let’s hope Sony looks at bringing these 10 PlayStation VR games to PS4!