During Sony’s PlayStation 5 gameplay reveal event on Thursday, the studio tried to streamline an E3-style presentation into a quick series of gameplay trailers. While the focus was no doubt put on the games, a few of the bigger reveals were preceded by introductions from the associated developer or a key figure at Sony. These intros typically built excitement for the following reveal, like Shuhei Yoshida calling the Demon’s Souls remake a product dear to his heart, but they also have inspired a weird conspiracy theory among gamers.
Before the rundown of game trailers for Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Horizon: Forbidden West started, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan gave his own brief introduction. He then concluded by saying that the rest of the presentation would let the games doing the talking and that everything seen from that point onward was captured on PS5.
Now, the theory suggests that Ryan was telling the complete truth when he said that last part. Many believe that the presenters during the PS5 reveal stream were actually CGI and were created using PS5 development tools. From Worldwide Studios head Hermen Hulst to Polyphony Digital CEO Kazunori Yamauchi, the theory claims that these were all not real people.
Several different viewers noted that something looked off about the presenters but it wasn't entirely clear what. Considering the situation and that many of these individuals had to record their intros away from a proper filming studio, Sony may have had to do some touch-up work to remove any blemishes. Most of them were also in front of digital backgrounds, which can soften the edges of a figure when done in suboptimal settings.
That’s all to say that there are plenty of reasons for why the presenters may have looked weird during the PS5 gameplay reveal event, but that they were still real people. Shuhei Yoshida, in particular, looked the most real and would have been really hard to fake.
On top of that, if Sony did use CGI models for its presentation, one would think that the company might highlight that fact during the presentation as a type of “mic drop” moment. Leaving gamers speculating is an odd choice for something that would be a huge conversation starter. Perhaps Sony plans to deploy this strategy with future presentations and they don’t want to ruin the surprise just yet.
But that’s assuming the people were CGI and right now Sony is actively denying that they are. Still, it’s an interesting theory to consider and with how powerful these next-gen systems are said to be, we may eventually see a digital host.