Opinion – What Is The PS4 Going To Do This Christmas?

The PlayStation 4 is doing well as the console continues to fortify its foothold this generation, and with exclusive hit Bloodborne just released. But trouble is on the horizon. The are currently no first-party titles officially scheduled for the system during the all-important holiday season. This will surely change, but the company could be in for a rough Christmas.

There certainly will be games to play for the PS4 this holiday season, and there are some first-party games that will come out in the holiday season. But they aren't going to be the tent-pole titles like the PS4 lost when Uncharted 4 was delayed into 2016.

PS4 titles like Kill Strain, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Tomorrow's Children, Alienation, or the numerous indie games Sony has signed could come out by the end of the year (although they currently do not have concrete release dates), but even if they do they're not of the caliber of Uncharted 4, nor do they have the retail bonafides to go up against Microsoft's Halo 5. Horror title Until Dawn should be out near Halloween and there may also be the inevitable remasters/remakes of old titles, but I don't believe any of these could go toe-to-toe with the Halo franchise, either.

A lack of first-party firepower removes a key differentiator between the PS4 and the Xbox One. While buyers can certainly pick up the PS4 with the expectation of big first-party games in the future, the Xbox One having Halo 5 on the shelf is a powerful, tangible asset consumers can immediately quantify towards Microsoft's console.

Sony could announce one or more big first-party games for the PS4 this Christmas at E3, but what can realistically come out in time? Guerrilla Games is working on a new IP, Sony Santa Monica is doing a new God of War, and Polyphony Digital (Gran Turismo 7), Quantic Dream, and Media Molecule are working on unannounced projects. In my experience, it seems unlikely that any of those titles are going to be suddenly announced at E3 and then rushed out for a release in 2015. Even if they've been in development for a long time, you're going to want more than five or six months of solid PR from E3 to Christmas – particularly for a new property that's not a sequel.

Perhaps The Order 1886's PR timeframe is a useful comparison: The game was announced at E3 2013, and even if it had not been delayed into 2015, it would have come out at the end of 2014 – after spending over a year in front of the public. The next God of War or Guerrilla's new IP likely will be given a similarly long red-carpet treatment – not surprisingly thrust onto the market.

To be fair, LittleBigPlanet 3 was announced at E3 last year and came out that same November, but I believe this is not a normal circumstance. That was a sequel being handled by an outside studio who had help from the creators, Media Molecule. From what we know of what properties Sony's main first-party studios are handling, I don't think there will be a situation this year where one of the company's games is in such a ready-made state.

To further illustrate the hole Uncharted 4 has created, I do not believe Sony could just move up the release date of another game to fill that game's shoes in the PS4 release calendar. In this day and age, where delays are common and developers often need more time and money, not less, rushing another game to market to fill the void could be a disaster. Even games that come out when they say they are going to, like Driveclub, can have major problems.

Of course, the savior could be The Last Guardian. Given the game's rocky history, I'd be nervous having to put my eggs in that basket if I were Sony.

Perhaps a way forward for Sony this holiday season would be to strike a deal with a third-party title for a timed exclusive. Hello Games' No Man Sky already fits this bill, but at the moment the game only has a nebulous 2015 release date. Hopefully Sony announces a firm holiday release date for the title, and the PS4 gets some bullets back in its chamber.

Hello Games' No Man's Sky needs a firm holiday 2015 release date for the PS4, but can it compete with Halo 5? 

Sony could put out Morpheus as its PS4 Christmas showpiece, but with consumer desire for VR still undetermined, I think its too early for Morpheus or any other VR device to become a hot commodity this Christmas.

With E3 coming up, Sony's position doesn't look good at the moment, but it's not insurmountable. A game like No Man's Sky could come to the rescue, and we may even finally see the release of The Last Guardian, but the impactful candidates for the cavalry don't appear to be numerous.

Last Christmas, Sony's first-party developers neither bombarded the platform nor hit home runs with their holiday titles – with all due respect to Driveclub and LittleBigPlanet 3 – but it didn't hamper the momentum of the PS4 through the holiday season. But if you're Sony, do you want to coast through another holiday season when your main competition is coming to the fight with Halo 5 as well as many of the same third-party titles? The pressure is on Sony this E3, which should make for an interesting show for the company and possibly an uneasy Christmas.