Sony's latest financial report indicates that the company delayed multiple PlayStation exclusives which were originally meant to release in the second half of its current fiscal year. This turn of events raises additional concerns about the gaming giant's near-term ability to add system sellers to the PS5 game catalog, which still largely consists of cross-gen titles like God of War Ragnarok and Gran Turismo 7.
While the PS5 is already on the verge of its three-year anniversary, Sony has been holding off on abandoning its cross-gen release strategy due to pandemic-induced component shortages that made it difficult for the company to meet the demand for the console, thus inhibiting its adoption rate. This year finally saw Sony start to move away from that strategy after the PS5 built a convincing sales lead on the Xbox Series X/S. Nevertheless, the current roadmap of PS5 exclusives remains fairly lightweight.
That state of affairs is unlikely to change for a while yet, not least because Sony has ostensibly delayed some first-party titles that were originally targeting releases in the second half of its fiscal year 2023, which runs until March 31, 2024. The company's latest financial report indicates as much, noting that Sony decided on some "changes in the launch dates of a portion of first-party titles" previously planned to debut during this period, as first spotted by Kotaku's Ethan Gach.
No specific titles were name-dropped in the report, although Sony did say that it doesn't anticipate these changes will meaningfully impact its annual revenue forecast. That expectation suggests the postponements did not reach its biggest upcoming PlayStation exclusives like Marvel's Spider-Man 2, which is scheduled to hit the market on October 20 and would likely create a dent in the gaming giant's bottom line were it to suffer a delay.
As for what games the company could be referring to, one potential candidate is the PS5 exclusive Stellar Blade. That action adventure was originally announced in 2019, with Sony eventually buying its exclusivity rights from South Korean studio Shift Up two years later. The PlayStation maker announced that Stellar Blade will be out in 2023 last September, but seeing how the game is still without a release date, it's plausible that its launch could slip into 2024.
Irrespective of these delays, PlayStation gamers can still look forward to dozens of PS4 and PS5 games that are releasing in the coming months. The list of upcoming PlayStation console exclusives planned to launch beyond 2023 also includes some heavy hitters such as the Silent Hill 2 remake, Death Stranding 2, and whatever Naughty Dog's next AAA game—not to be confused with The Last of Us multiplayer spinoff—is going to be.
Source: Sony (PDF)