Sony had plenty of game trailers to show off at this year’s E3 press conference. While all the new videos are exciting, there was a noticeable lack of release dates. When will we actually get to play all of these cool games? It seems like many will be released in the first half of 2018.
This news comes from an interview Shawn Layden gave with the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph. Layden is the chairman of worldwide studios at Sony and also is the president of Sony Interactive Entertainment America.
When asked why so many of the games at Sony’s E3 conference are due out next year, Layden responded by saying Sony has already released some major games this year.
“To be honest, we’re already halfway through 2017 and that's the nature of game development,” he said. We think there is a lot of attention around that title from our company. And the stuff coming in 2018, all of that is coming in the first half of the year, so. Is it in the next 12 to 13 months? Most likely. So.”
It’s fair to assume the games with a 2018 release window will come out in the first half of the year. This probably means games like Spider-Man, God of War and the remade Shadow of the Colossus will likely release between January and July of 2018 since those were the games given a “2018” release window. That’s a pretty solid line-up for half of a year.
What does this mean for Days Gone or The Last of Us 2? Days Gone released a new trailer for this year, but didn’t give any release info. TLoU2 was a complete no-show at E3. These two will definitely need more development time, so Sony isn’t ready to announce a release window. While you can argue whether or not it was a good idea to announce these games so early, it’s smart to hold back on release information until more is known. This could prevent having to announce a delay, if one is needed, and making fans upset.
When asked why Sony didn’t have any new games to share (outside of a handful of smaller VR games) Layden referred back to how many new games were announced last year.
“Well, game development is a cycle, right? Last year we had a lot of breaking news. I think this year what we’re trying to show is that we are living up to the promise we made you guys last year,” Layden said. “With God of War, with Days Gone, Spider-man - here’s our progress on that, and isn’t it awesome? As much as we’d like to have five or six worldwide reveals every year the cycle of development just doesn’t allow for that.”
More details on the release dates of Sony’s games will be revealed as we get closer to 2018. Expect to see a number of release dates announced in the build-up to and at this year’s PlayStation Experience in December.
So what do you think? Are you excited to know many big-name Sony games will release in early 2018? Do you wish Sony held back on revealing the games until closer to the release date? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
