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Sony's actual quietness

I like Destiny and can enjoy MP shooters and service games, but I feel like we get plenty of these games now. I get that Sony could be making more money off its studios' projects if they were following market trends, but I feel like they're a much, much, MUCH more compelling publisher when they COVER the holes left by third party service games. Third parties are already really good at covering that type of game and chasing market trends. I don't need first parties to provide those for me. First party games and exclusives being insanely good versions of an essentially dying breed are the very reason I absolutely adore my PS4. That ends up being my gateway to those service games.

Yeah, I totally agree. But I think a team like Zipper could've been very successful in the current era. I could see them making the mother of all Battle Royale games on PS4.
 
Ask, and ye shall receive! ;)

tRInc63.gif

we're ready for E3
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Yeah, I totally agree. But I think a team like Zipper could've been very successful in the current era. I could see them making the mother of all Battle Royale games on PS4.

this is why i have been so down on Sony this gen. shutting down Zipper was just wrong after what they did to Socom 4. fucking sent it out to die during the two month PSN outage. And then you shutdown the entire studio because it didnt sell well? what?

MAG to me is still one of the best shooters ever made. that was another game they marketed very poorly. the beta was done like a week before launch and it was very hard to get in. iirc, just trying to download the beta client was a challenge.

The game itself was phenomenal and way ahead of its time. i have no doubt that with a good accessible beta it wouldve been far more popular than it was. they should have just focused on a 60 fps MAG 2 for launch instead of Killzone ShadowFail. who knows, with a full team horizon wouldve come out a year earlier.
 
this is why i have been so down on Sony this gen. shutting down Zipper was just wrong after what they did to Socom 4. fucking sent it out to die during the two month PSN outage. And then you shutdown the entire studio because it didnt sell well? what?

MAG to me is still one of the best shooters ever made. that was another game they marketed very poorly. the beta was done like a week before launch and it was very hard to get in. iirc, just trying to download the beta client was a challenge.

The game itself was phenomenal and way ahead of its time. i have no doubt that with a good accessible beta it wouldve been far more popular than it was. they should have just focused on a 60 fps MAG 2 for launch instead of Killzone ShadowFail. who knows, with a full team horizon wouldve come out a year earlier.
I like the language you're speaking another mag lover is alright in my books
 
I would rather they talked more and more openly why they love promoting games like Life of Black Tiger and Horse Racing 2016. Think we gonna see more of these quality of games at their E3 as to show their current benchmark of quality?
 
I would rather they talked more and more openly why they love promoting games like Life of Black Tiger and Horse Racing 2016. Think we gonna see more of these quality of games at their E3 as to show their current benchmark of quality?
I am surprised that shit like that can make its way to the PSN store... But those are admittedly outliers. Some extra quality control wouldn't go amiss for sure.
 

Osiris397

Banned
It's the calm before the megatons.

You have to take into consideration Sony by themselves are going to be taking up almost a quarter of the E3 venue space while MS is going to have the same size space as Ubisoft.

It wouldn't surprise me if No Man's Sky PSVR is one of many VR games announced to speak of all the third party games they have exclusive marketing rights for releasing in the fall and their own first party content. Sony is investing heavily in E3 as a major blow horn for them so, to me anyway, it makes sense that they aren't saying much and will let the content speak for itself as per their usual.
 
They can be quiet all they want on social media, press releases, etc provided they continue to bring games. The moment that dries up, I am not going to look for them to talk, I am going to look for greener pastures. So it's a case of I prefer them to "shut up and provide the content."
 

Papacheeks

Banned
this is why i have been so down on Sony this gen. shutting down Zipper was just wrong after what they did to Socom 4. fucking sent it out to die during the two month PSN outage. And then you shutdown the entire studio because it didnt sell well? what?

MAG to me is still one of the best shooters ever made. that was another game they marketed very poorly. the beta was done like a week before launch and it was very hard to get in. iirc, just trying to download the beta client was a challenge.

The game itself was phenomenal and way ahead of its time. i have no doubt that with a good accessible beta it wouldve been far more popular than it was. they should have just focused on a 60 fps MAG 2 for launch instead of Killzone ShadowFail. who knows, with a full team horizon wouldve come out a year earlier.

They first let them make a very expensive game called MAG, which didn't light the world on fire but let them support it, they then let them make a socom 4 which yes the PSN hack fucked it's online. But the game itself wasn't good to begin with it reviewed poorly regardless of the online.

Then Sony let them make a new IP for VITA and that tanked as well.

What would you do as a business when you've given the developer multiple chances to make a game that can sustain or make back's it's production budget? Because Zipper, Evolution have made stinkers and expensive ones at that.

Sony at least let those games come to market. Microsoft canned Phantom Dust reboot, scalebound, and fable legends before letting them come tom market.
 
this is why i have been so down on Sony this gen. shutting down Zipper was just wrong after what they did to Socom 4. fucking sent it out to die during the two month PSN outage. And then you shutdown the entire studio because it didnt sell well? what?

MAG to me is still one of the best shooters ever made. that was another game they marketed very poorly. the beta was done like a week before launch and it was very hard to get in. iirc, just trying to download the beta client was a challenge.

The game itself was phenomenal and way ahead of its time. i have no doubt that with a good accessible beta it wouldve been far more popular than it was. they should have just focused on a 60 fps MAG 2 for launch instead of Killzone ShadowFail. who knows, with a full team horizon wouldve come out a year earlier.

I loved the shit out of MAG, but Socom4 was terrible with or without the PSN outage. Sony was hoping to have their own first party Call of Duty, and the game controlled like a cement mixer with dialog written by Amazon Alexa.
 
I'm hoping the sucker punch game brings back giant enemies. That was my main disappointment with SS. I don't care if it's Infamous 3, I just want giant enemies.
 

rokkerkory

Member
Quiet Sony is best Sony IMO. When they used to 'talk' back in PS2 and PS3 era, I did not like one bit. They used to be too proud and then had to eat some humble pie with almost entire PS3 generation.

I'd rather have them just execute and give us the goods in which they are. They are leading, so no need to react or talk as they hold the position of power.

MS on the other hand, with a new leader, needs to change as they are swallowing the humble pie right now. With a new leader comes a new vision, so that leader needs to be front and center and have the talk AND walk. So far so good, ship has turned around but still way behind in the race.
 
Because the third-party games has nothing with the quitness of sony to do. They announce their games by themselves most of the time.

Nier, Horizon, Persona 5, Nioh, MLB The Show 2017 all just released this quarter. Then we have some great fan favorite remasters, an expansion to UC4 and three of the biggest 3 party games. Not to mention an exclusive good budget PSVR game with a new gun attachment. Beyond that we we know of a rebooted GOW, Spiderman, and Days Gone. And there's still a few major conferences coming with E3 around the corner. There is plenty to get excited about. There is no need to make noise. Just focus on E3 to continue the momentum, which is what they are working hard to do.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
They first let them make a very expensive game called MAG, which didn't light the world on fire but let them support it, they then let them make a socom 4 which yes the PSN hack fucked it's online. But the game itself wasn't good to begin with it reviewed poorly regardless of the online.

Then Sony let them make a new IP for VITA and that tanked as well.

What would you do as a business when you've given the developer multiple chances to make a game that can sustain or make back's it's production budget? Because Zipper, Evolution have made stinkers and expensive ones at that.

Sony at least let those games come to market. Microsoft canned Phantom Dust reboot, scalebound, and fable legends before letting them come tom market.
Right it made financial sense just like it makes financial sense for MS to chase the online shooter market and nothing else.

To me, and I guess this is me just being a naive Sony fan back in the day, i loved that they were investing in B games and B studios despite losing billions. Their games never sold particularly well. I remember Uncharted 1 selling 111k copies in its first month and only 650k lifetime. Infamous sold like 170k in its first month. LBP was around 250k. Ratchet FTOD was also under 100k and yet they sold relatively well over time and Sony understood the potential of the franchises to grow bigger and better.

To me, Evolution Studios never ever made a bad game. Even DC despite its online issues was a great fucking game. So when they go and shut down Evolution, Sony Liverpool, Sony Cambridge (GG Cambridge) and Zipper after finally posting profits I am like wait is the same company that had no problems funding these studios when they were losing billions? Maybe it's great business and IIRC Zipper was closed before the PS3 was revealed soon after Vita's launch so they never could've known that they would hit it this big with the PS4.

But GG and other studios were shutdown after posting record sales and making like a billion dollars a year just from PS+ subs. Again, it's great business and shutting these studios down maybe made them post profits but as a gamer, as a fan of those studios, as a guy who loved Sony for taking risks despite being in last place losing billions, i cant help but be disappointed to see the same company lose that drive to create first party games and acquire first party studios.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
Right it made financial sense just like it makes financial sense for MS to chase the online shooter market and nothing else.

To me, and I guess this is me just being a naive Sony fan back in the day, i loved that they were investing in B games and B studios despite losing billions. Their games never sold particularly well. I remember Uncharted 1 selling 111k copies in its first month and only 650k lifetime. Infamous sold like 170k in its first month. LBP was around 250k. Ratchet FTOD was also under 100k and yet they sold relatively well over time and Sony understood the potential of the franchises to grow bigger and better.

To me, Evolution Studios never ever made a bad game. Even DC despite its online issues was a great fucking game. So when they go and shut down Evolution, Sony Liverpool, Sony Cambridge (GG Cambridge) and Zipper after finally posting profits I am like wait is the same company that had no problems funding these studios when they were losing billions? Maybe it's great business and IIRC Zipper was closed before the PS3 was revealed soon after Vita's launch so they never could've known that they would hit it this big with the PS4.

But GG and other studios were shutdown after posting record sales and making like a billion dollars a year just from PS+ subs. Again, it's great business and shutting these studios down maybe made them post profits but as a gamer, as a fan of those studios, as a guy who loved Sony for taking risks despite being in last place losing billions, i cant help but be disappointed to see the same company lose that drive to create first party games and acquire first party studios.

All the studios they have closed got a chance to make games and bring them to market. Now mis-managing them was on Sony for some of the studios, Like LiverPool, and Cambridge. Liverpool though all they did was make racing games, either F1 or Wipeout. I never heard anything from those developers in interview stating they tried a new IP and SOny shut it down.

That's on them as a developer, why do you think Naughty dog doesn't just make uncharted? Why do you think sucker punch makes more than Sly Cooper? It's so at least they can keep themselves relevant to the business as it changes within Sony. Sony is not the software giant Microsoft is, and it took them almost 10 years to get their TV business and camera business back into a good state.

Does it suck Sony has shut down studios yes, but they also open up more ports with their third party publishing+eastern partners and have more games from the east in this past 2-3 years than almost all of last generation.

Maybe they will open up a second studio or a third team in GG for some of the ex Cambridge guy's.

Business changes but the unique games haven't. Where do you want them to go? Back into non-profit days? Like all the money they lost on starhawk, MAG, puppeteer, socom 4, driveclub, motorstorm:pacific rift, apocalypse has to get mitigated somehow.

It sucks I know, but your still getting amazing games? Just not ones in all the facets you would like. Something they could work on and maybe Days Gone can fix that and give Sony the idea of opening a new studio, or re-creating an old one.
 

camac002

Member
...maybe Days Gone can fix that and give Sony the idea of opening a new studio, or re-creating an old one.

To me, Bend almost has the feeling of a newly opened or purchased studio added to Sony's stable, since it's been what, 10 years or so since they put out a main console game? So I suppose that's a positive.
 
All the studios they have closed got a chance to make games and bring them to market. Now mis-managing them was on Sony for some of the studios, Like LiverPool, and Cambridge. Liverpool though all they did was make racing games, either F1 or Wipeout. I never heard anything from those developers in interview stating they tried a new IP and SOny shut it down.

They were apparently working on two PS4 games when they were closed: a new Wipeout and a Splinter Cell-like stealth game.

Nothing obviously came of that attempt but it did seem like they did tried to move outside of the racing genre and Sony wasn't happy with the results. Whether that's because Sony made poor decisions or Liverpool failed to deliver good non-racing games is up for debate but given their slim output over a number of years, I'd (sadly) lean towards the latter. I can understand why Sony shut them down, even if it was a punch to the gut at the time.

As for their other closings, I think Guerrilla Cambridge and Evolution were the only ones that stuck out as stupid to me. Cambridge because they hadn't really put a foot wrong, Killzone Mercenaries and RIGS were both well received given the platforms they were on, so that came out of nowhere. And Evolution because while they did stumble at release, they did a fantastic job supporting Driveclub. It was the perfect opportunity for Sony to continue supporting it as a GaaS game and they killed it because they don't seem to have the patience to support games for longer than a year.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
They were apparently working on two PS4 games when they were closed: a new Wipeout and a Splinter Cell-like stealth game.

Nothing obviously came of that attempt but it did seem like they did tried to move outside of the racing genre and Sony wasn't happy with the results. Whether that's because Sony made poor decisions or Liverpool failed to deliver good non-racing games is up for debate but given their slim output over a number of years, I'd (sadly) lean towards the latter. I can understand why Sony shut them down, even if it was a punch to the gut at the time.

As for their other closings, I think Guerrilla Cambridge and Evolution were the only ones that stuck out as stupid to me. Cambridge because they hadn't really put a foot wrong, Killzone Mercenaries and RIGS were both well received given the platforms they were on, so that came out of nowhere. And Evolution because while they did stumble at release, they did a fantastic job supporting Driveclub. It was the perfect opportunity for Sony to continue supporting it as a GaaS game and they killed it because they don't seem to have the patience to support games for longer than a year.

LIVERPOOL had multiple wipeout games that didn't sell. PS1 and I think the second HD wipeout on PS3 were the ones that sold the most. I think it's possible they may not have got the stealth game where it needed to be for vertical slice.

But who knows at this point. YEA, closing cambridge was to me the biggest mistake this gen. They were work horses and helped with engine work for other teams. They could have been re-directed or something.
 
They could have been re-directed or something.

This has historically been both Sony's first-party strength and weakness. Outside of some x-platform tech stuff that is shared between all studios, they're all distinctly their own self-managed units and are effectively isolated from each other in day-to-day workings.

For companies like Ubisoft where significant chunks of resources could be reallocated to support any mega-project led by another studio at any given day, Acti which puts up significant studio support networks to support CoD at any given year, or what EA is doing recently where Criterion and Motive do support work on their quiet moments, or how Mass Effect is a 3-studio initiative, Sony doesn't do those stuff.

The plus side of this is that with some exceptions, studios are not at risk of becoming franchise factories or non-creatives, working as support functions for other studios. On the negative side, studios can't expect to be given a lifeboat that other companies in Sony's position would do, and Sony would close Evo down instead of turning them into "Polyphony Digital Runcorn" or Bend into "Naughty Dog Hand-Me-Downs"
 
LIVERPOOL had multiple wipeout games that didn't sell. PS1 and I think the second HD wipeout on PS3 were the ones that sold the most. I think it's possible they may not have got the stealth game where it needed to be for vertical slice.

But who knows at this point. YEA, closing cambridge was to me the biggest mistake this gen. They were work horses and helped with engine work for other teams. They could have been re-directed or something.

Uh, what? I said Liverpool.
 
Quiet Sony is best Sony IMO. When they used to 'talk' back in PS2 and PS3 era, I did not like one bit. They used to be too proud and then had to eat some humble pie with almost entire PS3 generation.

I'd rather have them just execute and give us the goods in which they are. They are leading, so no need to react or talk as they hold the position of power.

MS on the other hand, with a new leader, needs to change as they are swallowing the humble pie right now. With a new leader comes a new vision, so that leader needs to be front and center and have the talk AND walk. So far so good, ship has turned around but still way behind in the race.

Quiet or loud? Who cares? It is all about the games and the install-base...The rest is meaningless...
 

Fafalada

Fafracer forever
Sangetsu-II said:
I feel like the second bullet point is very important to this day.
That's being unfair to current gen second place. In PS2 era, the real second-place "winner" was the PS1, it outsold DC, GC and XB in years 2000-2004.
 

sense

Member
Just curious, what are people expecting out of Sony this year at E3, need to update a gif.
Mostly updates of last year's reveals with release dates, sucker punch new game reveal and possibly a couple of Sony Japan stuff that may include a new from software game ala Bloodborne 2 or new ip. Also the usual cod, destiny 2, Star Wars battlefront and mayyyyybbbbbeeeee rdr2.
 
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