Sony continues to do everything it can to turn its flagship video games into TV shows and movies – according to Varietythe company has announced that it will create a show based on Horizon Zero Dawn with Netflix at an investor event. Sony is also working on a show based on the Gran Turismo series but has not yet found a distributor for it. (I’m all curious what the plan is for this series – Variety only says it’s about “racing”.)
Both projects are reportedly in “early development”, so we probably won’t be streaming them for a while. However, the fact that Sony continues to introduce new TV and film projects shows that the company is committed to expanding the PlayStation brand beyond just hardware and video games.
PlayStation Productions currently has several other projects in the works (10 in all, according to Tony Vinciquerra, CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment). It is reportedly working on:
That is a lot from major franchises, and some projects have some heavy hitters involved. Oscar Isaac plays Solid Snake, Pedro Pascal plays Joel, Bella Ramsey plays Ellie and Ghost of Tsushima is directed by one of the people behind the John Wick movies. And of course the recently released not mapped movie starring Hollywood’s golden boy, Tom Holland. PlayStation Productions is not diving into cinematic waters; it dives head in.
This news also shows that Sony is continuing its strategy of working with several streaming companies – it seems that no matter what you subscribe to, the company wants to make sure you can at least see something that starts with its video game characters ( or, like, cars in the case of Gran Turismo† During the investor briefing, Sony said the “highly competitive streaming wars” are good for the company.
This isn’t the only step the company is taking to expand the PlayStation brand beyond the audience of just people who buy consoles. On Wednesday, the company announced that it also plans to significantly expand the presence of its games on PC and mobile.
