Sony Interactive Entertainment has acquired Insomniac Games, the developers behind ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man’ and ‘Ratchet and Clank’, as a first-party PlayStation studio. This means that the prolific developers at Insomniac will be making their games for PlayStation exclusively. While Insomniac has often made games exclusive for PlayStation, they’ve always done so as a second-party studio resisting Sony’s desire to own the company outright.

This lack of ownership was what allowed Insomniac games to release the Xbox One title ‘Sunset Overdrive’ in 2014. This was the first break in the long partnership with PlayStation throughout four generations of PlayStation consoles, from Spyro the Dragon on the original PlayStation to 2018’s Spider-Man on PS4. Spider-Man really changed the game, pun not intended, for Insomniac as it quickly became their top selling game, selling 13.2 million copies. Sony didn’t want to risk losing Insomniac to the competition again and thus they will join the other 13 Sony owned studios.

This of course is undeniably a response to Xbox’s recent run of buying up studios to compete with Sony’s first-party lineup. Xbox has bulked up their first-party studios up to 15, and with the new Xbox and PS5 expected to be released next holiday, both companies are doing what they can to attract fans. While Sony holds the crown this generation, it wasn’t too long ago that the Xbox 360 held dominion over the PS3. With Google Stadia entering the fray and the Nintendo Switch releasing new models to attract late adopters, the competition has never been fiercer.

This is great for gamers and regardless of what system they choose to play next season, they will have a great selection of games to play. There are still questions to answer about next gen: will the push for streaming games pan out, will virtual reality continue or fade away like the fads of yesteryear and which system will have the superior hardware and better price point? One question won’t be asked, however. Where can you play the next great Insomniac game? Only on PlayStation.