Sony says PS5 HAS NO GAMES?

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hey there gamers. Dreamcast guy here.

[00:00:01]Today we're talking about PlayStation because the CEO of Sony has just referred to the PS5 as an empty plastic box with no content. Now, I really want to explore this because the strangest part of the quote that nobody seems to understand is they're trying to phrase this as a compliment, as a good thing.

[00:00:24]That Sony is just so far ahead that at this point all they have to do is worry about making sure the PS5 sells. Every third party developer, every gamer is just buying a PS5 or a PS5 Pro. At this point, Sony is basically admitting they don't even have to try that. they really can't just sit back and wait for everybody else to make the games that make them billions. And I wanted to sort of explore this because I do feel like just the idea, the classic concept of console wars has very much completely fallen apart here in the last year. Ever since Xbox completely gave up. Now, if you want to buy everything from Gears War to Flight Simulator to Sea of Thieves or even Starfield, it's on the PS5. It's better on the PS5. You get haptic triggers and PS5 Pro graphics.

[00:01:11]Everything is literally better. Even if it's made by Microsoft, it's better on Sony. And it just seems like Sony is in a spot where they're basically telling you, "Look, man, you got to play by our rules." So, let's take a look at the quote. Let's see about how they're trying to frame this and why they're still promising the future will be better eventually.

[00:01:32]Let's get into it. Hi, hope you're having a great day. if you could please give this video a like and subscribe if you haven't already. Now, all of this came out from the new podcast by Christopher D. Now, this dude, I don't know why people despise this dude. I feel like I constantly see people saying that he's just such a piranha of the gaming industry now. I've been following Christopher Dream now for a couple years, and it seems to me like he's the kind of guy that really just enjoys industry analysis, but he definitely enjoys that blood in the water. He enjoys bad news more than good news. But he does talk a lot about the idea of like the death of physical games or sales charts being sometimes rather bleak. But he sat down with essentially one of the major people at PlayStation.

[00:02:15]This dude here which is named Christian.

[00:02:17]This dude is in charge of third party and second party boss. Basically whenever there's third party exclusives, third party sales, second party, which is like a studio that's sort of not directly owned by PlayStation but purely funded by PlayStation. He talks about how this platform is doing better. We as an industry should be super optimistic.

[00:02:36]He's probably sort of trying to fight back the doom and gloom of the industry.

[00:02:40]And we got this very amazing quote. The Sony CEO says, "Playstation is a plastic box without content." Now, let's start by actually seeing what the quote is. I think that a lot of this is an excuse.

[00:02:55]It's essentially talk about the fact that there have been these lawsuits lately, a lot of discussion about why is it that PlayStation requires this 30% fee on everything on the PlayStation store. Some people feel like, okay, at some point, is this really going towards development? Is it really that every PlayStation dollar is making more PlayStation games? Is it just all being pocketed by Sony above them? And it seems like it really is just about the fact that well, nobody's really making PlayStation games except for everybody that isn't PlayStation. The new topic is PlayStation being called a box without content. In a new interview with the game business, Christian Vivven, how the hell do you pronounce this? Zvenson, the VP of second and third party content said that this first started. So he says, uh, talking about PlayStation being a third party focused platform ecosystem. The VP said references the CEO saying Hideiaakate Nishino said PlayStation is a plastic box without content. A third party holds the lion share of content on the platform. Now this to me is very very wild. He adds that this is why they focus on being ambitious and bringing new voices to the platform is they're shifting towards third parties. It would result in the industry's growth coming to a halt. The VP adds that the team as an industry leader has responsibilities to continue to push and drive and grow the whole industry, not just our own business.

[00:04:18]Now, this to me sounds very much like they realize how much people have absolutely called them on their BS, right? I I feel like when it came to the PlayStation 4, which was just such an explosively hyped platform, like the PS4 had so many backto backto back exclusives, infamous Second Sun, crazy DLC's, not only The Rise of Spider-Man, God of War coming out both in 2018.

[00:04:46]There's been so much stuff that not just like justified the idea of owning a PS4, but it made you excited for the next generation. Whereas now, a lot of the excitement of the PS5 is just, hey, here's a good place to play. Here's a big platform with an active online user base and lots of players to play online with. But there isn't that same sense of like raw fervor of, hey, this is the PlayStation. Instead, it feels like a gaming console generic, right? This kind of stuff. You need the PS5 Pro to play the 007 First Light on its console best.

[00:05:20]So, there's been a lot of games coming out that if you actually read the credits, there's a lot of Sony developers that are now going to different studios that are making like big budget games like this that are going to be very heavily advertised and probably very high selling on like their system. Sony is now essentially sending texts to help out with PlayStation development to make sure it's very optimized, very beautiful, very high frame rate, especially if it's like got a PlayStation 5 Pro version of it. And it feels like Sony's in the spot where they're thinking, "Okay, we can just drip feed our own developers here and there and make hundreds of millions of dollars back for no upfront work, right?

[00:05:57]We're not really investing our time.

[00:05:59]We're not really risking ourselves. We spend, you know, 2 million to make back 10 million. That's a better return on investment than actually making games."

[00:06:07]Now, this is the other thing of it, right? I think Sony has really gotten themselves in this odd spot where when I see this 50% on console, 50% on PC.

[00:06:16]Crimson Desert, huge, huge, huge game, maybe one of the biggest, probably one of the best games of the year by far.

[00:06:22]Everybody, I literally was at a party this weekend and people were telling me Crimson Desert is the best game they've ever played in their lives. And I do think about this, right? this 50% you could say maybe 5 6% of that is Xbox but at least 44% of this if not you know all of it is literally just on PS5 or PS5 Pro and that's crazy it's weird to think about the fact that like this is just raw crazy you know $170 million does that mean like 80 million of that went to PlayStation or went through a PlayStation platform that's wild to even consider especially like let's just do this right this is the PlayStation Twitter account let's how long we can scroll before we see a firstp party game. This is literally the tweets from today. So, we got a new storybased game, a new controller, new update to uh Phasmophobia. Hell yeah. Nine Souls given to PlayStation Plus. What do we got here? Wu Chang. Uh what is it?

[00:07:16]Quadricep damage. The update to uh uh Resident Evil Reququum. Uh screenshot of the week. What do we got here? Oh, here we go. Soros. Soros is their last big game. And this has been a recent game.

[00:07:29]is a great game, but I almost feel like PlayStation is getting more and more into this spot where I feel like they just don't really care about actually giving you something special, some real bang for your buck. There has also been the recent lawsuits. People have been trying to essentially sue them saying that like Sony is being predatory with PlayStation. They have such a monopoly they're now getting hit with like antitrust lawsuits. Now, the actual refund you're getting not very big. It's probably going to come out to like $2 a person. But I am thinking about the fact that it does feel weird that look at this. Th this is the most recent financial report. Right. Right now they are trying to claim, oh, we're spending that money right now. We're unbelievably positive. That the industry should be more optimistic. PlayStation's third party says the next few years of unannounced games is unbelievably positive. There's no dire times for the industry. But notice this guy will not talk about what Sony's up to. What is PlayStation really doing? Like cool.

[00:08:24]It's nice that Astrobots in here, but what is Astrobot? Are we getting another five Astrobots? Is this money going somewhere other than just right up into the bank accounts of Sony headquarters?

[00:08:35]My thing is that when I see this, it feels like what PlayStation is trying to claim is this $15.8 billion they've made of operating income for the PlayStation 5 just so far. This is from their current financial reports from literally two days ago. this $16 billion. It feels like they're trying to say, "We're using this to make the best platform possible. We're using this to make sure that the PS5 is the most safe, fun, optimized place to play." But I feel like what they should be saying is, "Hey, here's how we're using this to make the best spot for our exclusives as well. We're in this fight with you. You guys are risking hundreds of millions of dollars on big budget crazy games. Let's do marketing deals. Let's do exclusives.

[00:09:20]Let's buy out cool rights. Let's do cool stuff beyond just like basic acquisitions. Let's say, hey, here's where that $16 billion is making gaming better for everybody. And instead, it just feels like they're saying, "Oh, yeah, we're spending that money on like console updates." I just don't get it.

[00:09:36]Now, Sony, again, I do feel like they're about to make even more billions of dollars in just this year alone because now there's been like talks. They haven't said the full words of it, but it sounds like Sony is actually doing an exclusive marketing deal with GTA 6.

[00:09:50]That's going to sell probably literally bare minimum another 10 million PlayStation fives. And what is that going to be? Even more billions of dollars for Sony. Does that lead to more exclusives? Absolutely not. I think a lot of my frustration comes down to like what is it that made PlayStation great in the first place? The exclusives. You could say a lot of those were thirdparty exclusives back in the day. Final Fantasy 7, a lot of that early Naughty Dog work. Yeah, that stuff was exclusive. But even when I think about the PS2, the PS3, the games that really wowed me the most, right? Kill Zone, crazy stuff like Resistance, of course, Uncharted. And all that stuff feels further and further in the past.

[00:10:31]Recently, like yesterday was the 10-year anniversary of uh uh Uncharted for A Thieves End. A game I reviewed, a game I loved. And it's weird to think about the fact that, you know, I was making content back then. And it's weird to think about how much crazier is it that we don't have any other games since then really, right? We've had one Naughty Dog game in 10 years and it was Last of Us Part Two and that's the end of it. It just feels like Sony's in this weird spot where I'm not claiming they're doing nothing, but they're not really showing their work at this point.

[00:11:01]They're just sitting there saying, "Yep, I promise we're profitable. I promise we're really making this a good spot for developers." But where is the Soniness on the Sony platform? I don't know, man.

[00:11:12]This feels lazy in a way that we've never really witnessed before. So, if they're trying to spin this as a positive of, "Wow, it's so great that we don't even have to try anymore." I'm definitely not seeing this as a good thing, even if they're trying to frame it as a good thing. Tell me your thoughts in the comments down below. How do you feel about PlayStation basically just giving up and letting everybody else run the platform for them and they just collect a fat fat paycheck? Tell me what you think in the comments down below. If you could, please give this video a like, subscribe if you haven't already, and please keep dreaming.

[00:11:45]Thanks so much for watching that video.

[00:11:46]If you want to see something else, you can always click this link to see what I put up last or, you know, subscribe and see what's coming up next. Also, I promise that whatever I do, it'll try not to suck.