In an interview with GamesIndustry International, Shuhei Yoshida expressed he was disappointed with the software reviews for PS4 titles, but was hopeful there would be an improvement in the scores. Sony’s President of their Worldwide Studios said he was sad to see the below average scores of titles like Knack, but felt it was possible that reviewers were breezing through games to get the reviews and scores out quickly. Yoshida told James Brightman:
…it’s disappointing to see some of the low scores. I haven’t spent enough time reading reviews, but I would characterize them as mixed. And with this launch there are lots of games coming out, so the media must be very busy going through the games quickly, and especially since the online functionality wasn’t ready until in the last couple days. So we have to look at how much time they spend on what aspect of the games and how that may be contributing to some of the lower scores.
Similarly, Yoshida claimed the replay value of titles like Knack and Resogun (which has the highest Metacritic score for a PS4 title so far at 82) was very high and he was already replaying them both at a higher level of difficulty. While the scores for the PS4 titles might be low, Yoshida isn’t worried it’s indicative of a bad console:
It’s disappointing but I don’t think it’s worrisome for the launch of the system. I’ve played through all of our games, Killzone, Knack and Resogun, and I totally enjoyed playing through these games. I’m now on my second run of Knack and Resogun at a higher difficulty – these games really grow on you when you play more. I’m very confident that once you purchase these games and play, you’ll be happy that you’ve done so.
At the time of press, Knack had a 59 on Metacritic while Killzone was sitting at 74.
It’s quite possible Yoshida is right and the reviews have been rushed through. Reviews are wildly varied for Knack – while Joystiq gave it a score of 30 (which has to be a terrible game all around if you believe that score) Game Informer gave it a 83. So…it’s really anyone’s guess where the game is at.
Once the consoles are released en masse and the titles get out into the public, we’ll see which way the wind blows for the first next-gen console out of the gate.
Stay tuned.
Source: GamesIndustry International