Publishing rights in certain region, IP is still belongs to Sony. It's like Falcom owns Trails and Ys, but it's NISA who is publishing these games on the West currently.
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Shuhei Yoshida Clarifies the Difference Between First-Party, Second-Party, and So On
- Thread starter Lunatic_Gamer
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midnightAI
Member
Going back a bit now but:
Shift Up have also signed on as a second party development studio for Sony. Its all semantics really, at the end of the day, whether first party or second party who cares, its still exclusive (its only really used on here in list wars).
Woopah
Member
How would you classify Spiderman on PS4 and Indiana Jones on Xbox Series?
Schmendrick
Member
I'll never be able to accept completely outsourced products as first party.
"Buying" stuff and calling it your own just doesn`t sit right in a creative space.
"Buying" stuff and calling it your own just doesn`t sit right in a creative space.
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squidilix
Member
Nier: Automata for example. (Yeah, people forget it was launch first on PS4)
or NiOh / NiOh 2
or Persona 5 / 5R
or Yakuza 0, 6, Kiwami, Kiwami 2 (even 7 in some way)
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Lots.
No Man's Sky for one recent example, but there are many others.
Woopah
Member
The creative space is collaborative. Lots of first party games involve Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft collaborating with studios they don't own.
The Nioh games wouldn't really fit as Sony published those outside Japan.
Schmendrick
Member
"completely outsourced" != "collaborative"
Woopah
Member
What sort of games are you referring to when you say "completely outsourced"?
DeltaPolarBear
Member
Not to mention, for a long time we are not even sure if the term "2nd party" even existed. We had threads arguing about what it meant. For a long time Third Party and 1st Party were all we got. But it sounds like the gaming industry eventually adopted the 2nd party term out of necessity.
TxKnight7
Member
For me, there's nothing easier than this.
First-party = the company owns the IP، it's theirs, even if the game is developed on a third party engine, like Days Gone on Unreal.
And from Nintendo , there are first-party games but developed by third-party teams that aren't owned by anyone.
And there’s no such thing as a "second-party"!
Either the company owns the IP, or it doesn't.
If they don't own it, it means it's a third-party game, even if the company published the title. But who owns the rights?
First-party = the company owns the IP، it's theirs, even if the game is developed on a third party engine, like Days Gone on Unreal.
And from Nintendo , there are first-party games but developed by third-party teams that aren't owned by anyone.
And there’s no such thing as a "second-party"!
Either the company owns the IP, or it doesn't.
If they don't own it, it means it's a third-party game, even if the company published the title. But who owns the rights?
Woopah
Member
I wouldn't use IP ownership to classify it, as there are several first party games where the publisher doesn't own the IP (such as Spiderman, MLB, Bayonetta 2 and 3 and Indiana Jones).
There's also plenty of games where IP ownership is split. For example, the Astral Chain IP ownership was split 50/50 at launch. Likewise Nintendo doesn't own all of Pokémon and I don't think they own all of Fire Emblem or Kirby either.
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hemo memo
You can't die before your death
Nintendo doesn't solely own the Pokemon IP.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Woopah
Member
A second party game is a type of first party game.Second Party.
Sony's first party should be defined in the same way as Nintendo's has been defined for years. Nintendo always reports their first party million sellerd, but they don't have a seperate list of "second party" million sellers.
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Second Party.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Oh I always believe.
Nice to see multiple former Phil'istines now becoming Believers and Shu deniers.
So if Phil said the sky is blue I should say "no it's not" from fear that I will become a "Phil Believer"? Good to know. Besides you're the one now contradicting your past self to take Shu's definitions as gospel. Welcome to the PS family.Oh I always believe.
Nice to see multiple former Phil'istines now becoming Believers and Shu deniers.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
It’s understood that he doesn’t work there anymore but he literally just left like six weeks ago and the definitions of first and second party haven’t changed since January 1. I just don’t see the point in splitting hairs when we all know that this guy clearly knows what he’s talking about. It shouldn’t even be like a point of uncertainty.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Admirable defense, might be better spent consoling posters who spent the better time of the last 2 years claiming Ronin was a first party game.
Based Shu shattering so many brains with his interviews since leaving Sony.
That's because it is a first party game if it's published by SIE. The IP isn't first party. You were saying Death Stranding isn't first party in 2023 and Spiderman/Wolverine is first party. I'm sure his definitions shattered yours too because those would have flipped.
Admirable defense, might be better spent consoling posters who spent the better time of the last 2 years claiming Ronin was a first party game.
Based Shu shattering so many brains with his interviews since leaving Sony.
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
The answer lies within the OP:
Did Sony fully fund Spider Man before acquiring Insomniac? If yes, it's first party.
Did Sony only partially fund Death Stranding? Seems like it.
Shu is saying that Ronin is second party, it was not fully funded by Sony, Team Ninja either partially or fully funded the development themselves.
DeltaPolarBear
Member
2nd party is clearly too young a term to exist in financial reports. But in game production it is a useful term for something that isn't a clear cut of one or the other. I know it is a made up word, but as mention the MCU all words are made up. What matters is that "2nd party" is now a useful descriptor that is used even within PlayStation production teams.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
The answer lies within the OP:
Did Sony fully fund Spider Man before acquiring Insomniac? If yes, it's first party.
Did Sony only partially fund Death Stranding? Seems like it.
Shu is saying that Ronin is second party, it was not fully funded by Sony, Team Ninja either partially or fully funded the development themselves.
The bottom line is that as publisher and platform holder they get the biggest slice of the pie by far.
Remember the first thing that happens is the funding cost getting paid back to them! Its a loan, not a gift. And after that they get most of the revenue per sale.
There's very little need to try and categorize once you understand this.
The matter of IP ownership aside, which is a big deal because it allows the holder to make subsequent deals leveraging the perceived market value of the property. Obviously there could be other contractual considerations affecting the use of the IP (like no Xbox version for a certain time as that's directly competitive with Sony's interests) that are applied on a per deal basis.
Woopah
Member
The term second party has been used for over 20 years and Iwata did say the term to investors so I wouldn't say it's young.
The issue is that Iwata used it differently to how Shuhei is. Tradionally it's been used to describe independent studios working on a first party game.
Either way, if you're looking at a platform's first party lineup, titles that could be considered "second party" should be included. We do that with Nintendo (Rise of Ronin would be classified as first party if Nintendo published it) and so we should apply the same standard to Sony and Microsoft.
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"Seems like it"- citation needed. where are you getting this info from? Seems more like and generally agreed that Sony fully funded and owned the IP rights to DS up until recently.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Sure, you can go with that. We don't know for sure.
But other incidental things like them (Sony) not having full rights to publish the PC version before, which led to the original Non DC version coming to the Win Store / PC Game Pass kinda shows that they didn't have full ownership before Kojima bought the rights back from them anyway.
Don't worry adam already does this, especially when he's acting 'surprised' that Wii U had more first party games than PS4. Most of the Wii U first party games were developed by an external studio.
Show why you're going with the other idea instead with literally no evidence and who you think originally funded DS. Sony owned the trademark and game and is known to have funded it. The fact that they allowed it to go elsewhere or sold the trademark later means nothing regarding this fact. This would be like saying Hifi Rush wasn't a MS first party game because it went to other platforms and the IP now is owned by Krafton. Doesn't change the fact that Hifi Rush was a first party game.
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Huh?
HiFi Rush on PS5 was published by Bethesda, an Xbox studio. Death Stranding on PC was not published by any SIE entity. HF: Rush was a fully funded first party game when it landed on PS5. MS chose to publish it there themselves. Sony did not have a hand in Death Stranding coming to PC or Game Pass.
If you're going to say I have no evidence, the least you can do is provide some yourself, lol. I'm just pointing out incidental details that go contrary to your claim.
Also, relax with the 'adam already does that' drivel lol, we're both working off of the little information we have.
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Bumblebeetuna
Member
We all knew this already. It makes sense.
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And Death Stranding was a fully funded first party game when it landed on PS5. It later came to PC but again this doesn't mean it is no longer a first party game. Even Minecraft was had different publishers for different platforms while being owned by MS.
But they don't go contrary to it at all because it's just you wishfully guessing and providing no evidence. I don't need to provide evidence that Sony funded the game, it's common knowledge. The fact that it was later published by somebody else on a different platform means nothing, as Minecraft has shown, unless you again want to pretend that those "incidental details" mean it's not first party too. Or maybe you want to say that MLB The show being published by MLB Advanced Media on xbox now means MLB isn't first party either even though Sony in their earnings and slides refer to it as first party games and sales.
If we even go by your definition would that then mean we have no idea what's first party and what's not since we never really know what is fully funded by whom? You're clasping at straws.
What if Disney partly funded Indie, it's coming to other platforms, no longer first party. do you have evidence that others didn't fund it? Show it. This is what you're doing.
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Yeah, however Nintendo solely owns the Pokémon trademark and has a partecipation in Creatures Inc. (one of the three entities that own Pokemon).
It isn't by chance that the mainline Pokemon games remained exclusive to Nintendo consoles for 29 years and counting.
As a fact Nintendo includes Pokemon games into the first-party titles.
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Minecraft was on PS platforms before MS bought Mojang, there were probably lasting contracts there before any MS involvement. Kinda like how Ghostwire and Deathloop still mandated their PS5 exclusivity even if MS was the publishers owner.
In any case, I reckon Shu would know more about PS's internal dealings than most of us and if he's saying Sony determines games like Ronin as second party, who am I to counter it.
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So you chose to dodge almost every point about 'incidental details' meaning nothing then choose to ignore the incidental detail when you see fit? You know very little about the inner workings of Kojima Productions.
Shu doesn't formally call the games second party internally. In all internal documents and earning reports the games are categorised as first party.
so there is no need to act like this is some revelation of the internal workings of Sony if he conversationally uses the colloquial term "second party".
I'm sure you have enough braincells to read headers in actual internal document leaks
And to find the games that you're now claiming aren't first party based on your silly unknown criterias (One of which now seems to be "cannot later be published by somebody else somewhere").
Both MLB the show and Death stranding are catagorised internally as 1st Party in internal documents and in all legal earning reports.
"But we don't know who fully funded because some other publisher published the game somewhere else later! Where is the proof it was fully funded! Not first party"
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Shu is calling Rise of Ronin a second party game. Not sure why you're going so hard on Death Stranding.
If you have an issue with this, DM Shu on Twitter, he's pretty active there.
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I'm chill. I have no problem with Shu calling games "second party", he can do what he wants so why would I DM him? I have a problem with you now pretending others are making a mistake calling internally catagorised first party games first party due to Shu's informal conversations while contradicting yourself. Then pointing to no evidence when you're the one making claims of "not first party" for games like Death Stranding without it. Especially when there is clear evidence that it's categorised as first party at PS.
Shu is calling Rise of Ronin a second party game. Not sure why you're going so hard on Death Stranding.
If you have an issue with this, DM Shu on Twitter, he's pretty active there.
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iQuasarLV
Member
Spiderman is Sony's baby for all A/V entertainment. So, 1st party
Indiana Jones is LucasFilm's baby. Collaboration with Machine Games developing and Bethesda Softworks(Microsoft) published. So, 2nd party
iQuasarLV
Member
That was most definitely a formal conversation / claim / comment.
1. He made it on the record as a former boss of Sony
2. It was made in the atmosphere of his title to an entity officially recording his words.
3. He made that comment as a representative of his experience working at the time in Sony's Gaming division.
Its not like he was making these comments in his home off the record and his own privacy.
Mr Moose
Member
Second party isn’t formally used. It was done in a podcast as a former employee who can speak freely and doing so conversationally. His definition of second party isn’t used formally in any leaked official documents. On the contrary, all official documents have their published games listed under 1st party.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Yep. 100%.
Case in point: Microsoft's internal documents called Ori and the Blind Forest a first-party game. They even called Moon Studios a first-party studios in official doc just because they were working on Ori for Xbox.
nial
Member
My problem is that he wasn't even part of senior leadership at Sony six or more weeks ago.
DeltaPolarBear
Member
Some words have legal meaning, others do not. Just as there is no absolute meaning for a AAA game, 2nd party games is not legally defined. At least, not yet.
It makes sense that two different companies might differ on what a 2nd party game is defined as, just because it is what you use when something is "not quite first party". But it is not uncommon to have something not legally existing but is understood by employees anyway.
Most of us are fully aware that "2nd party" doesn't exist in business contracts. In fact traditionally in business transaction "2nd party" is used to refer to the customer, i.e. us gamers. With the Service Provider being 1st party. And 3rd party having the same meaning as we understood it in gaming. But of course in daily life we rarely call ourselves 2nd party in this forum. But because the legal definition of 2nd party already exist this way, they can't really use it another way in business terms.
So even though everyone knows what 2nd party games is suppose to be, it can't ever be used formally because the term "2nd party" is already taken for something else.
It makes sense that two different companies might differ on what a 2nd party game is defined as, just because it is what you use when something is "not quite first party". But it is not uncommon to have something not legally existing but is understood by employees anyway.
Most of us are fully aware that "2nd party" doesn't exist in business contracts. In fact traditionally in business transaction "2nd party" is used to refer to the customer, i.e. us gamers. With the Service Provider being 1st party. And 3rd party having the same meaning as we understood it in gaming. But of course in daily life we rarely call ourselves 2nd party in this forum. But because the legal definition of 2nd party already exist this way, they can't really use it another way in business terms.
So even though everyone knows what 2nd party games is suppose to be, it can't ever be used formally because the term "2nd party" is already taken for something else.
Woopah
Member
So if I'm understanding you correctly, for you the definition is all about the ownership of the IP or film rights.
Insomniac's Spiderman is first party as Sony has film rights, but Insomniac's Wolverine is second party because they don't have the film rights. MLB The Show on PS5 is second party because Sony doesn't own MLB. Is that right?
If so, how does this work when IP ownership is shared?
I can see the logic, but it's not how Nintendo or Sony define games and I don't think we need a different classification for IP ownership in first party games when we don't do that for third party games (see below).
Does it easily distinguish though? Someone could say second party and mean:
- The publisher owns the developer but not the IP
- They own the IP but not the developer.
- They own some of the development team but not all of it.
- They don't own 90%+ of the development team but do own 30% of the IP
Etc. Etc. Etc
To me I don't see why we need to distinguish the different types of first party games when we don't do that for third party games. We don't have a term like "fourth party" to highlight third party games where the publisher doesn't own the developer / IP or provide 100% of the funding. We just call them all third party.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
YES LOL!!!!
iQuasarLV
Member
Its how I see Star Wars. If LucasFilm wants video games, and EA is contracted to develop and publish games for it. But it does not mean EA has 1st party rights to it. They are glorified contractors, or 2nd party until LucasFilm pulls the contract. Now if EA comes up with a Star Wars idea and wants LucasFilm blessing then its EA 3rd party, and LucasFilm 2nd party at worst as LucasFilm has final say on everything Star Wars. There is no 1st party in that scenario.
If Sony dreams up an idea and wants to pay another studio to create it then that is 2nd party. Did Sony have any involvement in the creation process after the handoff? It is all about business law and who has the initial idea and who funds it. Every party wants credit where its due. Its grey areas until the lawyers get involved. Just ask yourself, who thought of the product, who funded the product, who published the product?
Its a sweet little triangle of product development. 1-Developers 2-Investors 3-sonsumers. It all begins with the IP (branding), is it established or or something new? Did the person funding the project put in terms of funding that they get rights to the IP or not. When product is on market who has the IP rights? All else is secondary to that.
This is why Nintendo wins every case they take to court. They own the IP and brand thus they get to absolutely say what is brought to market and what is not.
IP law is super murky and why the lawyers get paid mega bucks to play around with definitions of the law.
bitbydeath
Member
Did they launch earlier than first though?