Sony Says it Has Internally Delayed “a Portion” of Upcoming First Party Titles

Far bet it from me to complain about Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The London Case introducing more incongruous eye candy, after my previous conniptions over Hot Hipster Poirot with his ankle-grazer trousers and his sexy egg-shaped head, but tick tock, it's himbo Hastings o'clock. Released on Steam this week, The London Case takes young Poirot to, err, London, charged with protecting a famous painting along with a representative of the insurance firm. Naturellement, the painting is stolen from an apparently locked room under everyone's silly noses, and thus begins Poirot and Hastings' first puzzle caper together (for who else is our insurance representative?).

Of the big three gaming publishers, Microsoft has always had a problem with exclusives. Sony had many 1st-party exclusives they could rely on and numerous 3rd-party ones, too, as this year has shown. As for Nintendo, they make the bulk of their success off of their massive 1st-party library cultivated over the generations of their consoles. The Xbox has 1st-party franchises, but they aren’t all ones you can keep cranking out titles for. However, in 2023, the Xbox Series X finally seems to be turning a corner, and Xbox head Phil Spencer is very happy with what has been done so far.

Genre-defining horror game Phasmophobia's console release has been delayed following a fire at the team's offices. 

What exactly is involved when a publisher decides to partner with AMD for a game? An increasing number of titles have been doing it, and many have noted this seems to result in those games only featuring AMD’s FSR upscaling tech (rather than NVIDIA’s DLSS) at launch. It was true with Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and will also be the case with Starfield. That said, it’s just been revealed Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will have FSR and DLSS despite being an AMD partner game. So, what’s the deal here?

Kinetic Games’ multiplayer horror title Phasmophobia has been something of a revelation ever since its PC early access release back in 2020, and earlier this year, the developer confirmed that it would be opening the gates for an even larger community with a console launch. That launch, however, has been delayed by a couple of months.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has been officially delayed to Q1 2024.

Xbox has said the launch of Starfield will be the «starting gun» for even more first-party releases on Xbox.

Xbox fans will be well aware that arguably this generation's biggest first-party exclusive is just around the corner. Starfield launches in just a couple of weeks, hopefully bringing to an end a rather disastrous dry spell for the platform that has been sprinkled with disappointing releases such as Redfall. It's no secret that Xbox has been struggling with first-party exclusives in comparison to PlayStation and Nintendo, but those at Xbox believe Starfield is the "starting gun" for a long period of regular releases over the next couple of years.

An Xbox executive has said Starfield’s release is like a “starting gun” for a steady stream of first-party titles.

Microsoft might not have had the strongest set of first-party releases in the past couple of years. They might have also felt few and far between. But that might be changing in the future, and it all starts with Starfield. This game is easily one of the most anticipated titles launching this year, and its release date is nearly here. With Gamescom going on, there are some players who are getting a look into the game at the show. Recently, Gamesindustry.biz had the chance to speak with Jerret West, the Xbox chief marketing officer, who praises Starfield and what’s coming after.

The launch of Starfield is the start of a "multi-year relay race of first-party titles," Xbox has told GamesIndustry.biz.

The early access release date for Nightingale has been announced, though it’s later than originally planned.