Sony's Chess Ad: Teases Of The Future Part 2 (Sonic, Sly Cooper, Pac Man)

Welcome back, this is part two of an analysis/dig into Sony's marketing of the future through their chess ad. I recommend reading part 1 if you haven't already.

Thank you to Syn for the awesome for the awesome banners, and thank you once again to the Gaming Leaks and Rumors Reddit again for finding all of this. Great detective work.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/pmmba2/ps_showcase_symbols_megathread_ffxvi_re4_sly/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Without further Ado:

Pac Man:

This one is rather interesting. Take a look at 0:40 and you'll see the four iconic ghosts from Pac Man. As was mentioned earlier, Bamco and Sony have been partners from the very beginning of PlayStation, and that will continue with Bamco's mascot. Considering the large scale of the other games figured, I'm going to throw out a guess that this isn't a low budget arcade-like Pac Man game, and instead suggest, or the first time in 15 years, that we may be returning to Pac Man World.

The first two games are beloved by many, myself and whatever this may be, I'm extremely excited to find out.  

Dragon Quest: 

If you look there on the far right at 0:33, you'll see a very obvious Slime from Dragon Quest. Square got their two biggest franchises in on this, as you can no doubt tell. While DQ is more associated with Nintendo generally, the franchise is no stranger to Sony's platforms, with DQVII and DQVIII being exclusive to Sony platforms for a number of years. Dragon Quest XII was just announced a few months ago, so it's very likely Sony got the marketing rights for that one.

 That's honestly a pretty big deal, especially for Japan. I'm extremely interested to see how it's marketed in Japan, even more than America.

Street Fighter:

If you look at that helicopter there, Ryu's Furinkazan symbols that are seen on his gloves are very visible, most likely meaning Sony and Street Fighter's relationship is far from over. Street Fighter VI is well into development at Capcom/Dimps currently, and that's something we've known for quite a while. What we didn't know is if Capcom would continue to colloborate with Sony, but that appears to be r case once again. Personally, I do not believe SFVI will be a PS5 exclusive, however. I think this time around, it's just going to be for marketing purposes, which is what Sony mostly cares about anyway.

Sly Cooper: 

The return of a icon is near. You can clearly see the symbol of the Theivius Raccoonus at 0:58. There's been rumors swirling around about the revival of the Sly Cooper franchise as of late, and I can personally back this one myself.

My information is very limited, but here's what I know:

-It's being developed by a studio that isn't Sucker Punch, but creatives from Sucker Punch/SIE are closely monitoring the development of the game.

-I've heard it's being positioned as something of mix between a sequel/soft reboot.

-2023 is looking like the timetable it releases, as of now.

As a gigantic Sly fan, I'm hoping this does the original trilogy justice and undoes the many, many wrongs of Thieves in Time. Fingers crossed.

Sonic "Rangers":

Well, this certainly came out of nowhere. If you look at 0:34, you'll clearly see Sonic's signature item floating in the circular pattern as it usually does. Here's why that is interesting. Sony's had numerous deals with SEGA's array of franchises before, including Yakuza and Virtua Fighter, but not with their number one guy. The entire idea here with this big budget commercial push is that they're marketing big juggernaut franchises, like Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, Tekken, Resident Evil, etc. Sonic is obviously no different. Sonic's next game is nearly confirmed to be an open world affair. A game like that fits the bill very well for a huge marketing push. This also extends to Pac Man, but Sony is lacking in big, family friendly fare, Ratchet and Clank aside. This would definitely provide some competition for Nintendo's array of games next year, marketing wise. This also likely means Sony internally was impressed with what they've seen of the game. You don't spend millions of  marketing dollars on a game you believe is going to be shit. 

It's a very interesting deal, indeed.

There's much more coming up this week. I have a Nintendo article waiting in the wings, an article discussing Sony's show last week,and I'll be doing another article suggesting what this deal may mean for Sonic Rangers tomorrow. I may switch things around depending on how this week goes. I'll see you guys very soon, thanks for reading, take care.