As the walls of exclusivity begin to crumble and development costs soar ever higher, PlayStation is looking to every possible market to grow. PCs were the first obvious target since they aren’t generally considered a direct competitor to dedicated hardware and give PlayStation a way to entice those players into its own ecosystem. While there are still growing pains to work out there, specifically with the forced PSN accounts even for single-player games like God of War: Ragnarok, PlayStation has more to gain in its budding relationship with Nintendo hardware.
I imagine it was a harder pill to swallow given the history between these two companies, which is why it took so long. We’ve only seen one example so far, but PlayStation embracing the Switch (and eventual Switch successor) could end up being an even bigger boon to business than PC.
The best of both worlds
While I believe it is somewhat overblown about how similar PlayStation first-party games have been since The Last of Us, we can at least agree that the PS5 has a distinct lack of family-friendly games. After Sackboy: A Big Adventure at the system’s launch and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart not long after, first-party titles have been aimed squarely at older teens and adults.
As much as I love those games, Sony is leaving a potential market on the table that Nintendo is more than happy to dominate. Nintendo understands that making someone a fan early is the best way to make them a fan for life — assuming the content is of high quality. PlayStation seems to be getting that message this year with Astro Bot and Lego Horizon Adventures, but the next step is meeting people where they already are instead of holding its games behind massive hardware costs. If it wants to capitalize on that family market, it could accomplish that by partnering more closely with Nintendo and introducing its own characters to an already captive audience. Putting a PlayStation game side by side with Nintendo’s IP can act as a bit of a Trojan Horse for Sony.
That’s starting to happen. Lego Horizon Adventures is coming to Nintendo Switch this year and I couldn’t think of a more perfect game to start with. The Horizon games aren’t exactly what I would call family-friendly, but I always saw the world as being very adaptable for a younger audience. Before Lego Horizon Adventures was announced, I envisioned a Horizon TV show as a perfect episodic kids’ show to widen the series’ appeal. The primary antagonists are all robots or AI, there’s a sense of mystery and wonder to the technology of the postapocalyptic world, and the heart of the story is about a girl fighting to be accepted for who she is.
Since that show seems to be in rocky water — if not canceled— Lego Horizon Adventures can fill that gap and act as a bridge into not only the deeper Horizon franchise, but PlayStation at large. I would look at this just like the PC market, only instead of making multiplayer games day one launches on both platforms, have it be these smaller, all-ages games. As that audience gets older, it would be easier to either switch to or add in a PlayStation console if there are franchises there they already know. The relative weakness of the Switch could also be a benefit. Instead of gamers being annoyed that PC players get a better version of the game later, Switch ports would necessitate compromises that would allow PlayStation to still tout its own hardware as the optimal place to play.
On the flip side of that, the Switch’s astronomical sales and lower barrier to entry for a more casual consumer could convince Sony fans to double-dip on another portable platform. Time and time again we are learning that convenience and cost trump even the most breathtaking visuals and flawless performance. PlayStation could cater to both markets at once without appearing like it favors one over the other.
Lego Horizon Adventures should only be the beginning, though. PlayStation has other franchises that could find a new life on the Switch, namely Sackboy, Astro Bot, and Ratchet and Clank (assuming Sony could get any of these running on Nintendo’s hardware). Should these ports be as successful as I imagine they would be, it could open the door for these franchises — and perhaps some dormant ones like Sly Cooper and Jak and Daxter — to see a revival.
Every company except Nintendo seems to have realized that the exclusives of old are becoming too risky to justify the perceived value they provide to the brand. Xbox was forced to diversify as its hardware continues to lag behind further with each generation, first to PC, but even to PlayStation and Switch. PlayStation has been holding on to its prized IPs for as long as possible, but it can’t afford to be so precious with them forever. Sony’s current PC strategy makes perfect sense as it stands considering the two platforms are so similar in terms of target audience and utility, but the Switch is an untapped gold mine. While there’s plenty of overlap between Nintendo and PlayStation players, the Switch and mobile alone have dominated the attention of the next generation of gamers that PlayStation would be wise to target.
If Sony wants to find more sales for its ever-expensive first-party projects, it is finally time to embrace Nintendo as an ally and not as a rival.
