Tom Henderson·
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··2 min read

PlayStation Needs a Second Showcase This Year

best games releasing on playstation 5 in 2023

First off, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t as disappointed as the majority of people expressed themselves to be on yesterday’s PlayStation Showcase. Personally, I thought it was just mediocre, not brilliant, but not terrible, and maybe somewhere in the 6 out of 10 region. Still, despite my feelings toward the showcase on an individual basis – It was definitely a bad showing in the grand scheme of things.

It’s been 20 months since the last PlayStation Showcase in September 2021, where the likes of Wolverine and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 made their debuts, and God of War Ragnarok had a strong showing. When you look back, the 2021 showcase feels a lot more prestigious and this time around, Sony fell flat on delivering that same experience because of its lack of 1st party showings.

It’s not like PlayStation is short on first-party exclusives either. Wolverine, Death Stranding 2, Rise of the Ronin, The Last of Us Multiplayer, and Horizon Multiplayer are just a few titles that I can think of off the top of my head that didn’t make an appearance. Although it’s possible that some of these games (The Last of Us Multiplayer and Death Stranding 2 in particular) could make an appearance at the Summer Games Fest on June 12, it made Sony’s future lineup seem rather weak. To be honest, this showcase didn’t set up “the next phase” of the PlayStation 5 that was rumored and instead felt more like a 12-month slate presentation.

Speaking on the hardware front with Project Q, CEO Jim Ryan said, “we look forward to sharing more information in the near future”. Whilst this doesn’t necessarily suggest another PlayStation Showcase is on the horizon, Sony could be looking at the negative perception of this showcase and decide to create. Understandably, the new PlayStation 5 which sports a detachable disc drive also didn’t make an appearance and is yet another piece of Sony hardware that will need to be announced before its expected release in September.

Updates and reveals on PlayStation’s new hardware, in addition to focusing solely on 1st party titles would be the showcase that PlayStation needs to set up the next phase. It’s understood that a lot of the games we’re waiting on seeing are pretty much ready, so I’m not sure why Sony decided to wait this time around.

Heck, where on earth is Spider-Man 2’s release date, too?

What do you think? Do you think Sony needs a second showcase this year? Let us know in the comments below.

For more Insider Gaming news, check out our coverage of the Helldivers 2 reveal.

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Tom Henderson
Tom Henderson is a FPS fanatic, social media guru, and a father. But when he's not building 5,000 piece lego sets (and standing on them), he's likely playing things like Call of Duty, Battlefield, and CS:GO.

8 Comments

  2. last night’s showcase allowed PlayStation to be “first-to-market” in the summer show season. In fact, by hosting their showcase before Microsoft, they were able to take the wind out of Microsoft’s sails since there is bound to be a ton of overlap between many of the games showcased yesterday by Sony. Sony got to do a splashy show. Microsoft had to tweet “Hey these games are on our console too!” I agree that a second showcase – perhaps coinciding with summer gamefest or, alternatively, in its wake, would allow Sony to bookend Microsoft’s announcements on both ends and grab more of that mindshare.

  3. “It’s understood that a lot of the games we’re waiting on seeing are pretty much ready”

    Just to clarify, this is according to your sources? And which games specifically?

    I post on public forums and want to make sure I won’t misrepresent your comments.

  4. Hey Tom fellow Twitter and YouTuber randellaOnline here I think maybe this is a play by Sony to let Xbox have their moment in s few weeks time then combat with summer games fest silent drops of info before a Gamescon showing this can only make sense as your stated and we have known for a while new hardware and games are just getting polished up ready to go. I wonder if anybody else agrees with me thinking this can be the only logic here as Sony have been giving us enough to keep us talking up until now I also thought maybe we would hear more about PlayStation studios other tv shows a teaser of many things like this would of wet our appetites for the future this can’t be the only gambles for rest of the year just Spider-Man 2 alone surely….

  5. I think this is purely a marketing failure. Because the way the “showcase” was structured, it felt more like Sony’s own iteration of a summer games fest or E3. There were so many 3rd parties that just paid to have their games “showcased”, & Sony barely showed anything of their own. For this event specifically, they should’ve concocted a brand new name because this seems like something Sony is interested in doing around this time each year if they can. Also, I think they weren’t a fan of how even though last showcase was so well regarded, they pretty much announced nearly every project they had in the pipeline at the time, which restricted them from having one last year. Hell, at this “showcase” they didn’t even show things like Eterknights which was is an indie, but also expected to come out this summer I believe. So I wonder if they end up going back to the “Showcase” event proper, if they’ll still stagger what they show and when they show it just so they don’t leave the cupboard completely dry.

  6. Hello Tom, do you know or think we will get a half life ALYX port for psvr2? I was disappointed with everything was shown this last showcase.

  7. Wow.
    Fans are whining because they didn’t get exactly what they wanted?
    I am soooo shocked

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