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As you're hopefully already familiar (and should go listen to or watch before proceeding), Episode 246 of + was the first of a two-part episode dedicated to ranking PlayStation's first party teams. In other words, a way to organize studios Sony owns outright through some loose metric. While we originally intended on doing this in a single podcast, the notion proved too unwieldy, and so today we offer our selections from numbers 10 through 1 (with 18-11 in the aforementioned previous episode). These are the big guns; some of them are easily among the best development teams anywhere in the world, under anyone's banner. And we're glad to spend about 100 minutes discussing our selections in great detail.

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Comments

Anonymous

FINALLY

Hidari Shotaro

I think you're really overexaggerating the "first game in 20 years," Colin. GOWR is still a cut above most games from the past generation, even if it doesn't reinvent the wheel. Going from a game like Far Cry 5 (which I love) to Ragnarok is a huge leap, especially for people who play a few games a year. Or the stinky Switch.

Bogey Zero

I think the reputation of difficulty the FromSoft games have does it a disservice. People come up to a brick wall and think “well I heard these games are hard so i guess I just suck at it” when in reality that’s the games way of telling you you’re not ready for this yet, go somewhere else. I think that’s what happened to you Colin. You were fighting in areas before you were ready for them, and there’s a vast land to explore towards the south that would’ve been much easier to handle and level up in. Like exploring the optional dungeons and beating the bosses and get a shit ton of XP to level up with. I’ve seen you play games, you’re definitely good enough at them to handle Elden Ring.

Anonymous

Yeah, I honestly don't even think their games are as hard as people think. You just need to pace yourself properly

Tonys_Always_Write

Coincidentally Insomniac was teasing Resistance again today.

Zack E

I love any type of ranking based episode from SS! It’s great getting these shows during the holiday break, much appreciated :) 1-5 should objectively contain Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Guerrilla, Sony Santa Monica, and Sucker Punch Naughty Dog is objectively Top 3. Besides those two conditions, where you arrange those 5 is where subjectiveness comes in. Any other studio in the Top 5 is inadequate analysis.

Anthony Martinez

I feel like you guys think the rpg mechanics were too deep and unnecessary in ragnarok because you all played on normal.

Anonymous

Love these types of episodes and it feels like theses were the seeds for formats like SSL. I would love a series like this with more defined metrics. The numbers game has always intrigued me and it would be great to have defined parameters for each of you to grade each studio. For example, we could look at current output, potential ceiling, financial importance, size and resources, etc. It could all culminate in a more ultimate evaluation of PS studios. Either way, absolutely love the content guys and hope yall are having a great holiday break.

NinjaDC

I'm not a betting man, but I'd wager we see atleast one more single player Insomniac game after Wolverine this generation. That is on top of their rumored multi-player project. I wouldn't be surprised if Sony wants to grow Insomniac to be a 4 game studio. With two in development at each sub studio (CA and NC).

james glenn roten

I would like to say that Bluepoint is more important to Sony than just Remakes. They have great knowledge with the platform and, in an interview with Gavin on Digital Foundry he brings up a point and says "We have a legacy version of Demons Souls running on PS5." So...they got a PS3 game to run natively on the console..and if I remember correctly, they've been helping other studios with optimization. If Bluepoint does get a chance for their own game it's going to use an existing IP with a possibility of new gameplay mechanics.

LastStandMedia

I don't know that it's that impressive to get Demon's Souls' PS3 version running on PS5, if you're dedicated to porting it. They've ported a million games.

Anonymous

As always, loved the discussion. I would love to see a single player centric shooter or a real rpg from one of the top teams at Sony. I truly enjoy the third person action adventure games they typically make but seeing some of these best of the industry teams tackle a different genre would be awesome.

Greg Hommel

Chris, my friend, Gran Turismo is certainly not the premier racing sim out there. That said, neither Forza title is even considered a competent sim. Forza is beautiful and there is fun to be had, but the physics are nowhere near realistic enough to be considered a sim. Now I will continue listening to see if you can mention Xbox in every segment.

Anonymous

Awesome episode and appreciate everything you guys do! I think Horizon Forbidden West was wonderful as is. I think people who love horizon don’t really want anything the series to be like elden ring. In my experience most working people don’t want to get clapped countless times and have no idea what they’re supposed to do. I think horizon provides an awesome story, world, stellar combat/exploration. Maybe I’m off base and that’s just my opinion but this idea that horizon is just behind the times feels off to me.