Sony reveals PlayStation Studios branding for PS5 games

There’s no mention of when the PlayStation 5 is coming, how much it’ll cost or what its HDMI port even looks like, but here’s something new! Something arguably more important, the one piece of footage you’ve been dying to see: The short video that’ll play before every first-party PlayStation game. OH YEAH, FEEL THE HYPE!

It may take a page from the Marvel Cinematic Universe playbook, but I kind of like it. In addition to heavyweight franchises such as Horizon: Zero Dawn and The Last of Us, the video also features LittleBigPlanet and Ratchet & Clank. No mention of Drive Club though. Shame. “We are really excited about this,” said Eric Lempel, senior vice president and head of global marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment via Games Industry 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.

You’ve seen the animated asset that will exist primarily during the beginning of our titles, but the brand will exist in a lot of different places. There are different, shorter animations that will exist in trailers… It will exist in advertising. It will be in any other creative assets, such as the game packaging and the game discs themselves.

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. And this brand will exist for well-known existing franchises, as well as brand new franchises that we have yet to explore.

Upcoming PS4 games such as Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us: Part II will also bear the new branding, which Sony says will be altered when necessary for their first-party games. Horizon: Zero Dawn on PC, won’t feature it due to timing issues. So what’s the big deal behind this bit of pre-roll footage? According to Lempel, Sony may be pumping out plenty of high quality games from their studios, but most people aren’t even aware of their origins. “It’s something we’ve thought about for a while, and especially as we move towards the next-generation we really want to back our games in an even bigger way,” Lempel said.

We’ve done everything in terms of massive robust marketing campaigns, and this is an even better way to bring together these games, united, in an easy way for fans to understand what they’re getting into.

Tune in next week, when Sony reveals what the PlayStation 5 power button looks like and one over-hyped twit writes up a thousand words on its hidden meanings. Yes, I’m looking into a mirror again.

Last Updated: May 12, 2020