Yesterday Sony announced their next State of Play event. It takes place this week, on August 6, and will have absolutely nothing to do with the PlayStation 5. That’s right, while Microsoft is doubling down on announcing games for their next-generation console, Sony seems to be actively ignoring the fact that fans want to hear about theirs. I have no idea what sort of marketing plan this could be, other than a bad one.
State of Play returns Thursday at 1:00pm Pacific!
What to expect:
▪️ A focus on upcoming PS4 & PS VR games
▪️ A few quick check-ins on third-party and indie games from June’s PS5 showcase
▪️ No big PS5 announcements!Tune-in details: https://t.co/kgrDFZsHd2 pic.twitter.com/9AIPFnh3CT
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) August 3, 2020
Let’s run through the details then. First things first, this event is going to have nothing to do with the PlayStation 5. there might be a few check-ins with third-party developers and indie developers, but there’s no guarantee that these check-ins will be for PlayStation 5 games. The big point of note here is that there will be no big PlayStation 5 announcements. That means absolutely no new game confirmations or reveals, no price points, and nothing of interest for anyone who wants to know more about this next-generation console.
What will be coming out of this event is a focus on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR games. These games are due to release this year, so my guess would be that these will all be expansions, or things we already know about. For example, Star Wars: Squadrons is a Star Wars pilot game that’s due out this year, and it’ll be a hugely important game for PlayStation VR. I think we may also see some more of the upcoming expansion for Marvel’s Spider-Man, but outside of these I don’t know where Sony is going to take us.
It seems really weird that Sony is focussing so much on the PlayStation 4. It feels like they had a slot planned for a State of Play, but all the big PlayStation 5 news is massively behind. They might be suffering from manufacturing issues, but that’s just pure speculation. The reality is that we have no idea where Sony is going with this event, other than in a direction we don’t want them to. With that said, Sony has been letting Microsoft take the lead with all next-generation marketing this year. They don’t want to make a mistake, so they’re watching their biggest competitor to make sure they don’t. I reckon we’ll get a price point for the PlayStation 5 as soon as we have one for the Xbox Series X, but not before. As for this event? Let’s just wait and see.