Sony Unveils New PlayStation Studios Branding and Opening Animation

Sony today unveiled a new overall brand for its first-party PlayStation titles going forward in [...]

By Rollin Bishop

Sony today unveiled a new overall brand for its first-party PlayStation titles going forward in the form of PlayStation Studios. The new branding will go into effect with the launch of the PlayStation 5 later this year, and will apparently only apply to games directly under Sony's development and management. So, for example, if The Last of Us Part II were actually launching much later this year, this is the sort of thing that would have appeared in front of it.

"We are really excited about this," Eric Lempel, senior vice president and head of global marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment, told GamesIndustry.biz. "Over the last few years -- and even the last decade -- the strength of the titles coming out from our studios has been stronger than ever. We have been thinking about how we unite all of these great games under one brand, and really the purpose of that is to make the consumer understand that, when they see this brand, they're getting ready for a robust, innovative, deep experience that they've come to expect from games coming from PlayStation. So we came up with PlayStation Studios."

Basically, the new branding serves to tell folks in various places -- trailers, advertising, game packaging and so on -- that anything with it is directly from PlayStation itself. Prior to this, there was no real overarching branding for first-party PlayStation titles that differentiated them from any other game published on a PlayStation console.

"We think this is a good way to let consumers know that, if they see it, then the quality games they've come to expect from us are here," Lempel said. "And this brand will exist for well-known existing franchises, as well as brand new franchises that we have yet to explore."

As previously noted, it won't just be the games from studios that are owned by PlayStation that end up with this branding either. While the latest and greatest games from developers like Naughty Dog or Guerrilla Games will absolutely feature the PlayStation Studios branding when it launches later this year, other titles that are managed by the company will also feature it.

"If our studios are managing the production of these games and working with an external developer, it will still come out under the PlayStation Studios brand," he added. "It doesn't mean that we outright own the developer, but it just means we brought it up as a first-party. In a lot of cases we don't own the developer."

In terms of official information about the upcoming next-gen video game console, Sony has revealed the new controller -- the DualSense -- as well as the full technical specs. The design of the controller has changed around a bit, with the light bar taking a new position, and it also comes with haptic feedback to provide a more immersive sense of touch and feel to the controller's trigger. The PlayStation 5 is officially set to release Holiday 2020. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the upcoming console right here.

What do you think of the new branding and opening? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk all things gaming!

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