It looks like Sony executives had a lot to say to the press. After Jim Ryan's comments on backward compatibility and eSports focus from our earlier report, Shawn Layden was featured in a lengthy interview with Glixel.
He revealed that Guerrilla Games' stunning action RPG Horizon: Zero Dawn sold almost a million of its 3.4 total million units digitally, and he pointed out that this kind of shift towards digital sales "changes everything" for publishers.
Of the 3.4 million copies of Horizon we sold, about 915,000 were digital. This kind of shift changes everything. It changes the publishing model, it allows smaller players to put out games, it affects DLC and it has a huge impact.
Horizon: Zero Dawn already had a great launch both in terms of sales and critics reception, but it's good to know that it's keeping the pace. We know that a story expansion is on the way and Sony's E3 2017 Media Showcase, scheduled for Monday, June 12th at 6PM PT/9PM ET/2AM GMT at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, could be the right venue for a full reveal.
Shawn Layden also noted that Sony isn't as active as it once was on the indie scene, with the notable exception of PlayStation VR games.
We still work with a lot of indies, but it's slowing down. It ebbs and flows. We're seeing a lot of indie activity in VR, because they can do meaningful content with smaller teams there.
Once upon a time, before the AAA PlayStation 4 exclusives started dropping in 2016, Sony used to fill their conferences and even PlayStation Plus monthly line-ups with indie games since the big developers were still working on their games. Now that there's no shortage of big titles on PlayStation 4, it seems like a wise move to scale down the indie output a notch or two.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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