Remasters and remakes have been vital to PlayStation this generation. Games like The Last of Us, Horizon, Marvel’s Spider-Man, and others have seen remakes, which fans often criticize as something nobody asked for.

Notably, there have been very few new first-party titles for PlayStation 5 and the former PlayStation boss has talked about why. He says the growing costs of developing new games make remakes necessary. 

Why it matters: PlayStation 5 hasn’t had a lot of exclusive first-party releases which is a major departure from how Sony normally does things. Even for the PS4, there were plenty of notable releases.

Talking to Kinda Funny Games, former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida discussed how he hears a lot of criticism from fans regarding PlayStation’s remakes. He said he thinks the company isn’t sacrificing anything, as the remakes take a lot of effort, too.

For big single-player games, they (Fans) should support Hermen doing these porting and remasters so that he can keep investing in these great new games.

– Shuhei Yoshida

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered was heavily criticized as an unwanted release.
The remakes are generally cheaper to develop and have the potential to generate a lot of revenue. This revenue can then be invested into new big titles therefore fans should support them. The remakes and remasters can lead to new first-party titles.

Yoshida recently also talked about how he was against the live-service push from PlayStation. Years later, it seems like Sony should’ve gone with this, based on Concord’s failure and cancellation of multiple live service games.