Sony literally published better Japanese games on the PS4 than they ever did on the PS3. Astro Bot, Gravity Rush 2, and Bloodborne are infinitely better than Genji 2 or Aquanauts Holiday(exaggerating but I don’t think PS3 output was that much better with the list wars)They also bankrolled two Japanese artsy games with Death Stranding and The Last Guardian. Somehow made two Knack games. Let From Software make some VR game about a weird ghost in a European school.
And for all you talk about they just make sad dad games, they also published Helldivers, Until Dawn, The Tomorrow Children, Everybody's Golf, gave Wipeout another chance, Farpoint, Blood and Truth, Firewall, The stupid Playlink stuff, Shadow of the Colossus again, Detriot and David Cage's crap in general, Concrete Genie, MediEvil Remake, Sackboy and fucking Dreams.
Ghost of Tsushima is yeah an open-world game and it's not a game I'm particularly into, but it's also a game with a setting that few developers would ever make a AAA game in. People asked for years for Ubisoft to it, and instead Sucker Punk made a better game than Ubisoft ever would have.
Honestly when some of you guy's talk about Sony, it really does come off as "it's not like how it was when I was a teen so it sucks". Like between retail, vr, and digital Sony has published a wide range of video games. Maybe not everything is to your liking, maybe none of it is. But I think it's untrue to say they haven't put out unique things during the PS4 gen.
I won't argue that there are as many nifty and out there games as the PS2/PS1 gen. Of course not, but then again there are fewer games in general. Games don't take one year to make anymore. They take 2-5 years now. You're going to get less stuff. You're going to get safer things. I'm no Nintendo fan, but despite them having one platform now, it seems they have had fewer games thanks to HD development. Uninformed opinion maybe, but it also seems they've doubled down on established ips more and more as well. These are just part of reality in regards to games today. I’m sure many moves l have led to this. Japan isn't as big of a market. Sony has doubled down on the AAA formula that works. Of course, I think there's a world of difference between Horizon, Uncharted, God of War, and even say Spider-man. But unlike the other two, they've also invested in VR. Blood and Truth is one of my favorite VR games in general. Farpoint and Firewall are also strong titles that are up there with Alyx in showing the possibilities of VR.
I mean yeah it's not the PS2 and will never be the PS2 again. But I don't know, I really liked the PS4 and I think Sony has been a strong publisher.
Yeah, you can say and it's probably true that Sony of today wouldn't publish Ape Escape. Would Japan even make Ape Escape today? As a fan of even current-day Japanese games who does think things are a bit better now on the console front(PS4, Switch, and yeah PC), this isn't the Japanese game scene of my teens. The troupes have become more apparent. The waifus are more commercialized. The oatku are more pandered too. And yet they are also more and more aware of their international fanbase and acting accordingly. I feel like they are also in a midst of change and who knows where they will end up.