There's been a lot of talk about the PlayStation 4 only being made for indies. That the wait for Sony's exclusives has opened the door for the platform to house nothing but indies all day long. In fact, the common name given to the system around the fanboy circles is “IndieStation 4”. Well, one developer has had enough and has finally spoken up about the current slate of games and coming games for the PS4's software library.
GamingBolt managed to get in word with the CEO of Spry Fox, David Edery – a company who has ties to titles such as Realm of the Mad God and Highgrounds, and they're currently in charge of the upcoming PS4 title Road Not Taken – asking what the CEO thought about the PlayStation 4's current high count of independent titles after major AAA games such as Driveclub and The Order: 1886 were heavily delayed. Edery stated that...
“Anyone who paid attention to Sony’s E3 press conference knows that there’s no shortage of AAA content coming to the PS4,” … “The sign of a healthy games platform is both lots of indie content and lots of AAA content. Seems like the PS4 is there.”
It is true; at this year's E3 Sony took to the stage to roll out tons of games across multiple genres from small indie efforts all the way up to AAA titles from the big budget studios. The system has a healthy smorgasbord of games to choose from already and tons more on the way.
What's more is that the Wii U has just as many (if not more) indie games via the eShop and WiiWare platforms. The console is now playing host to countless games that have made the transition from mobile platforms, Desura and even Steam. The biggest difference between the Wii U and the PS4 is that unfortunately Nintendo doesn't have third-party support from many top-name publishers, leaving them without mid-tier and AAA outings from recognized names such as Electronic Arts, 2K Games and even Ubisoft, much less Codemasters and Capcom.
More than anything gamers should be complaining about the lack of games on some systems. By comparison the Xbox One has neither AAA or indie titles releasing regularly. In fact, there are long dry spells between any kind of releases on the system, leaving gamers at times with barely any new games to play or hardly any games across diverse or unique genres to experience.
The Xbox One's biggest hurdle is getting indie titles released onto the platform, something that didn't readily happen until Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut came along way back in April. Since then the Xbox One has only been receiving infrequent indie titles to flesh out its software library, as opposed to the PlayStation 4, which has had numerous indie games releasing almost on a weekly basis.
The argument that the PS4 is an “IndieStation” is kind of silly given that having more accessible games at a smaller price is never a bad thing. Delays will happen across the board, but not having any games to play in the interim doesn't really help broaden the appeal nor the fun-factors of a console, hence Nintendo's poor hardware sales of the Wii U throughout the first two quarters of 2013.
