Support NeoGAF

[Nightengale]

I can't recall where I saw the Demon's Souls quote. Maybe I was wrong.

As for IPs signed by Yoshida... his portfolio of multi-title franchises are actually almost non-existent at this point. Many are still new, or haven't gotten a sequel yet.

If you're referring to what other improved under him, Japan, Cambridge, ND, SP. Media Molecule, no idea. Tearaway is a great game, but they'll be judged by their new IP more so than Tearaway. Foster, San Diego, XDev, etc have maintained their output. SSM is a wild-card, that depends on whether or not this new IP of theirs foster, or fall. Polyphony's... problematic, but that was the case under both heads. More Kaz than Shu or Harrison, I'd guess. Guerilla has arguably dropped in quality as well. ( talented, but flawed ) No idea for Bend, only one game under Shuhei's watch. I hated London's output under Shuhei's watch though. Wonderbook is a shit idea. I'd rather 20 Singstars than Wonderbook.

Those who got closed, welp. :/

Opinions may differ, but of course, I see that WWS has overall maintained its standard relatively consistently. The top ones have gotten better, the flawed ones, imo, have improved. There's a bit of problems for some of the mixed bag, but we'll see how they do in next-gen.

And also, the team expansions were his initiative. MM, ND, GG and SSM. We've seen the results from 2 of them. (TLoU and Tearaway) Let's see how expanding has worked for GG and SSM.

You mention Japan Studio getting better, yet they just put out Knack.

And Tokyo Jungle, Puppeteer, Rain, Gravity Daze, Soul Sacrifice. And this year there's OreShika 2, Soul Sacrifice Delta, Freedom Wars. Gravity Daze 2 is coming too.

A few bad games from a multi-team studio does not outweigh the overall improvements to their output.

 

[Captain Tuttle]

Think it's more to do with 50 people being dumped on top of the other studios he shut down and left jobless, as well as the drop off of quality of some studios since he took over. With the exception of TLoU I don't think much in the way of IP of worth has been incubated under his tenure either as Uncharted, LBP and Motorstorm were all pitched to Phil Harrison, Heavy Rain was signed by Harrison. I guess Infamous and Resistance were too. Tearaway was good by all accounts, but once again the only reason Sony have that game is Harrison's foresight. Remains to be seen what Yoshida's legacy will be but so far it's largely redundancies and mediocre IP.

I suspect that Yoshida's prime mandate is to be profitable.

 

[nature boy]

Yeah I don't understand all the praise towards Yoshida. Up until now he hasn't been doing a good job.

Good luck to those who lost their jobs though.

 

[KingSnake]

Well, what positions did they hire for, and what positions were let go?

All anyone knows is "people" were hired and "people" were let go. Not much to go on.

That's correct, they could very well fill in some empty spots for which they don't have the skills required. But this is not one time, they kind of had continuous hiring and I remember also SSM advertising quite a lot about hiring people from THQ when disaster stroked there. Maybe just a PR hit or maybe some bad planning. Without further details is difficult to tell.

 

[Yoshi]

Yeah I don't understand all the praise towards Yoshida. Up until now he hasn't been doing a good job.

Good luck to those who lost their jobs though.

Going from third place to first going from PS3 to PS4, while being profitable, seems to be one hell of a good job.

 

[Nightengale]

Going from third place to first going from PS3 to PS4, while being profitable, seems to be one hell of a good job.

That's not Yoshida's job. His job is bringing first-party games.

 

[Carl]

People calling for Yoshida to be fired over a project being canned is a bit ridiculous. Like i said before, whoever was head of WWS (whether it be Shu, Phil Harrison, or even Cerny) projects would be canned if they weren't working out. When a project is canned, people get laid off.

 

[dragonbane]

by not wasting anymore money on them

These games make money. So no, they are not wasting anything. Quit it with the hyperbole, it's getting on my nerves. People enjoy those games, you don't have to play them.

 

[coldone]

People calling for Yoshida to be fired over a project being canned is a bit ridiculous. Like i said before, whoever was head of WWS (whether it be Shu, Phil Harrison, or even Cerny) projects would be canned if they weren't working out. When a project is canned, people get laid off.

Problem is .. no one is getting really exicted about Sony's first party titles. If you ask any one why they are buying PS4..it is because multi-plats run better on PS4.

Infamous, KZ:SF are good, but not some thing kids will jump off the bed and stand in line to buy.

They had big mid-budget flops like PS All Stars, PS Kart, Puppeteer, Starhawk, Twisted Metal.

Today's market wants super high budget big block busters like GTA, Skyrim, BF4. Shu is still thinking like old Nintendo ...

 

[dragonbane]

The recent variety article mentioned 240 employees. So 240 - 50 = 190 left?

 

[driver116]

Didn't they just hire that girl who worked for bungie?

 

[Endo Punk]

People calling for Yoshida to be fired over a project being canned is a bit ridiculous. Like i said before, whoever was head of WWS (whether it be Shu, Phil Harrison, or even Cerny) projects would be canned if they weren't working out. When a project is canned, people get laid off.

And yet Shu has managed to keep TLG and Team ICO alive, even letting Ueda continue working on the game for years. Realistically TLG should have been canned and Team ICO disbanded but for whatever reason Shu continues to sink money on the game.

Didn't they just hire that girl who worked for bungie?

That's Naughty Dog.

 

[driver116]

Today's market wants super high budget big block busters like GTA, Skyrim, BF4.

No it doesn't.

 

[Wrynnax]

Wasn't Barlog creating a sort of all star team at SSM? Maybe they needed the budget for that project? He was going for an ocean's eleven team of game development no?

 

[driver116]

And yet Shu has managed to keep TLG and Team ICO alive, even letting Ueda continue working on the game for years. Realistically TLG should have been canned and Team ICO disbanded but for whatever reason Shu continues to sink money on the game.



That's Naughty Dog.

**Thumbsup**

 

[Carl]

Today's market wants super high budget big block busters like GTA, Skyrim, BF4. Shu is still thinking like old Nintendo ...

Uh, does it?

And yet Shu has managed to keep TLG and Team ICO alive, even letting Ueda continue working on the game for years. Realistically TLG should have been canned and Team ICO disbanded but for whatever reason Shu continues to sink money on the game.

They don't just work on TLG though. Unless i'm wrong (which i could be) people in Japan Studio move to different "teams" as and when they're needed. But i agree the game should've been canned ages ago. Looking at this thread though, I can only imagine how many people would be calling for his head if he had canned it.

 

[Nightengale]

And yet Shu has managed to keep TLG and Team ICO alive, even letting Ueda continue working on the game for years. Realistically TLG should have been canned and Team ICO disbanded but for whatever reason Shu continues to sink money on the game.

Because of the way Japan Studio operates, development hell doesn't actually cost that much. Resources gets shifted very often, many concurrent projects in planning/pre-production, everyone's working in small teams until full-production, and then only do they focus on one project once one of the game's entered full-production, where then TLG's art guy then works to design Knack's art instead of working on TLG.

The entirety of Shadow of the Colossus was made by only 35 people in a 400 person studio. And then even parts of those 35 work on other projects if Ueda isn't immediately needing them for another game.

 

[wapplew]

Problem is .. no one is getting really exicted about Sony's first party titles. If you ask any one why they are buying PS4..it is because multi-plats run better on PS4.

I bought PS4 mainly for Sony first party. I play 3rd party on PC and I'm super excited about Sony's first party titles.

 

[Hoje0308]

Problem is .. no one is getting really exicted about Sony's first party titles. If you ask any one why they are buying PS4..it is because multi-plats run better on PS4.

Infamous, KZ:SF are good, but not some thing kids will jump off the bed and stand in line to buy.

They had big mid-budget flops like PS All Stars, PS Kart, Puppeteer, Starhawk, Twisted Metal.

Today's market wants super high budget big block busters like GTA, Skyrim, BF4. Shu is still thinking like old Nintendo ...

I'm excited about inFamous, Driveclub, The Order and just anything that Naughty Dog conjures up and a lot of people feel the same way I do. Polyphony will push their game out soon, as will the other one or two teams at SSM. Same with Media Molecule. FIrst party games are the reason people like me stick with Sony. That doesn't magically change just because you want to make an erroneous statement.
About inFamous. You've played it, and know if it's a system seller or not? Good thing someone didn't have the dumb idea to bundle the game. Who knows how that would have turned out...

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Problem is .. no one is getting really exicted about Sony's first party titles. If you ask any one why they are buying PS4..it is because multi-plats run better on PS4.

That's because we know of very few Sony games inbound for the PS4 just yet. The Order, DriveClub, Uncharted and MLB are the only forthcoming games which we yet know about; there's plenty more on the way.

Today's market wants super high budget big block busters like GTA, Skyrim, BF4. Shu is still thinking like old Nintendo ...

But a failure of a project like that is far more costly than LBP Karting or Starhawk bringing disappointing sales.

 

[Circle Jerk]

Problem is .. no one is getting really exicted about Sony's first party titles. If you ask any one why they are buying PS4..it is because multi-plats run better on PS4.

Infamous, KZ:SF are good, but not some thing kids will jump off the bed and stand in line to buy.

They had big mid-budget flops like PS All Stars, PS Kart, Puppeteer, Starhawk, Twisted Metal.

Today's market wants super high budget big block busters like GTA, Skyrim, BF4. Shu is still thinking like old Nintendo ...

heres a bunch of shit i just made up that ill try to pass on as facts

 

[Kyoufu]

I think coldone has never heard of Naughty Dog. More specifically; Uncharted.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Today's market wants super high budget big block busters like GTA, Skyrim, BF4. Shu is still thinking like old Nintendo ...

So the market wants big name third party titles then. Good thing PS4 runs them better than Xbox One.

 

[mrklaw]

SSM gotta get their shit together. They recently released a video to entice people to join the studio and now they are letting people go and cancelling games.

If the first PS4 game they announce is yet another GOW then this studio is not worth all the praise they get at Gaf.

The two things aren't necessarily related. The shape of the company they want going forward may require additional resourcing in certain areas (hence the hiring), but fewer resources in other areas (hence the redundancies). It may be that there would have been >50 people laid off but they could move some of them directly into new roles.

 

[Aversion]

Problem is .. no one is getting really exicted about Sony's first party titles. If you ask any one why they are buying PS4..it is because multi-plats run better on PS4.

Infamous, KZ:SF are good, but not some thing kids will jump off the bed and stand in line to buy.

They had big mid-budget flops like PS All Stars, PS Kart, Puppeteer, Starhawk, Twisted Metal.

Today's market wants super high budget big block busters like GTA, Skyrim, BF4. Shu is still thinking like old Nintendo ...

This doesn't even make sense. Today's market wants whatever the hell is good and addicting. About it really. The trouble comes when everyone and their mother wants to spend 80m on a game and not even hire one competent writer or few great animators or balancers or whatever. People can't find connection in some of these games anymore as they are bored to death of the terrible writing, acting, and gameplay. As for the mid tier games well those are just bad marketing, lukewarm playerbase, etc. Happens to every one of the systems. Calling only Sony out is just picking your cherries.

You analyze the situation quite strangely imo. People are very excited about Sony exclusives. Infamous will sell and so will MLB14 for sure. But if you want to go big what do you propose? 200m GTA6? 150M BF5 that don't work? Yeah, those sound like really good business decisions from a company that only has like 10 billion. I mean we have Order and SSM stuff coming along with other projects as well. I have WAY too many games to play and see no reason to complain. My PS4 doesn't work? Oh well off to the PC.

 

[beril]

The two things aren't necessarily related. The shape of the company they want going forward may require additional resourcing in certain areas (hence the hiring), but fewer resources in other areas (hence the redundancies). It may be that there would have been >50 people laid off but they could move some of them directly into new roles.

I think it's far more likely that this was a fairly sudden decision from higher up in the corporate ladder, whereas the previous job listings were done while the studio heads were thinking they would also be making the game that presumably got cancelled.

 

[Opiate]

A lot of the very best indie and iOS developers have been formed from downsizing like this at console developers. The employees are (for the most part) not leaving gaming altogether.

 

[FiggyCal]

The team got to be over 220 employees. Keep in mind that it was 132 during the development of God of War 3-- that is a tremendous growth in the span of just 4 years. Whatever project they were working on got too large and probably way over budget (or was projected to do so), so they had to cut their losses. Sony's job, as a business is to first and foremost stay profitable. It's a shame that this had to happen, but it is a reality of the business world.

 

[iceatcs]

I suspect that I can see they are being replaced.


Like e.g. internship people lost my bro job.

 

[Marvel]

A lot of the very best indie and iOS developers have been formed from downsizing like this at console developers. The employees are (for the most part) not leaving gaming altogether.

Very true.

 

[Can Crusher]

It bugs me that such a talented studio is getting hit with this, and there's one less game coming from Sony in the near future.

I thought Sony was doubling down on first party, and they wanted to grow these studios. Apparently not.

 

[Takiyah]

And your idea that Micro is locking in all these exclusive is shaky at best imo. You see from your post one might gather that Sony is in dire trouble. It's so laughable as to be completely inane.

I'd agree, in fact, if you look at the landscape of all games, Sony is/as locking in an incredible lineup of titles from smaller devs. In fact, MS is playing major to the already well established Sony recruiters.

 

[DESTROYA]

The recent variety article mentioned 240 employees. So 240 - 50 = 190 left?

Exactly, everyone is making it sound like they just closed up shop and locked the doors forever. They are still there just trimmed some of the fat to make a leaner and meaner team.
Best of luck to those cut.

 

[mindsale]

I thought Sony Santa Monica was the workhorse of their devs... It helped other teams and had a steady output of quality content. Y'know, the anti-Team Ico.

 

[FiggyCal]

I thought Sony Santa Monica was the workhorse of their devs... It helped other teams and had a steady output of quality content. Y'know, the anti-Team Ico.

They still have 190 employees (apparently down from 240). Back in 2010, when God of War 3 was released, they had 132. I don't see any reason why they couldn't still operate as they used to.

 

[LilWayneSuckz]

Problem is .. no one is getting really exicted about Sony's first party titles. If you ask any one why they are buying PS4..it is because multi-plats run better on PS4.

Infamous, KZ:SF are good, but not some thing kids will jump off the bed and stand in line to buy.

They had big mid-budget flops like PS All Stars, PS Kart, Puppeteer, Starhawk, Twisted Metal.

Today's market wants super high budget big block busters like GTA, Skyrim, BF4. Shu is still thinking like old Nintendo ...

What?...I bought a PS4 because I know Sony has 12 studios that have made AAA games in the past. Sony Santa Monica has made the God of War series, Naughty Dog with the Uncharted series and TLoU, Sony Bend with Syphon Filter, Sucker Punch with Sly and Infamous, Media Molecule with recently Tearaway and LBP.

We don't even know what most of the 1st party are even working on.

Super high budget blockbusters are why it's hard to justify having big studios like SSM with 220 people. They need to continuously churn out blockbuster games that sell 5 million copies each to justify their existence. And sadly it's the nature of the video game industry.

 

[Doug Heffernan]

I suspect that I can see they are being replaced.


Like e.g. internship people lost my bro job.

That makes absolutely no sense.

Companies don't lay off 50 people at once just to replace them immediately afterwards.

This was a cost cutting sacrifice, plain and simple.

 

[Interfectum]

Not reading 24 pages of this, why are people calling for Shu's head? Bloated AAA dev studios is an industry wide problem.

 

[Suzzopher]

People calling for Yoshida to be fired over a project being canned is a bit ridiculous. Like i said before, whoever was head of WWS (whether it be Shu, Phil Harrison, or even Cerny) projects would be canned if they weren't working out. When a project is canned, people get laid off.

Killing Studio Liverpool is unforgivable

 

[andycapps]

This is pretty shitty, and my heart goes out to anyone affected. With it being a rumored project being canceled and around 50 people let go, I'm hoping that they can rehire most of these people when they get their next project going. While layoffs are horrible, this doesn't have the same impact to me as Irrational shuttering after putting out a game that was received very warmly, yet had a prolonged dev cycle.

I'm hoping that this is just a normal course of business where projects are canceled and people laid off and rehired later for another project. Hoping this doesn't mean that we're only getting the next God of War and not a new IP as well.

 

[Caronte]

People calling for Yoshida to be fired over a project being canned is a bit ridiculous.

Has anyone actually said that?

If you're referring to what other improved under him, Japan, Cambridge, ND, SP.

SP improved because they became first-party, they have more money now. Japan hasn't changed much. And I disagree about Cambridge, I think making them work only on Guerrilla IPs was a bad decision.

 

[Wax Free Vanilla]

And yet Shu has managed to keep TLG and Team ICO alive, even letting Ueda continue working on the game for years. Realistically TLG should have been canned and Team ICO disbanded but for whatever reason Shu continues to sink money on the game.

Team ICO is Yoshida's Olympic Team. Totally off-limits, I bet he pulls apart and kills the western studios just to keep feeding monies to this joke of a team.

 

[StuBurns]

Team ICO is over, Ueda already said he finished design work long ago. The design was probably complete when it was delayed originally, and since it's just been moved to PS4 and awaiting a release window that's most effective.

 

[Castef]

Killing Studio Liverpool is unforgivable

Yet, the people who lost the job and formed FireSprite went back to work with Sony (correct me if I'm wrong here).

So, Sony actually managed to keep working with them without having to pay them continuously.

This has been perfect for Sony.

 

[andycapps]

Team ICO is Yoshida's Olympic Team. Totally off-limits, I bet he pulls apart and kills the western studios just to keep feeding monies to this joke of a team.

Eh, I wouldn't say that. That team has definitely been restructured.

 

[Nightengale]

SP improved because they became first-party, they have more money now. Japan hasn't changed much. And I disagree about Cambridge, I think making them work only on Guerrilla IPs was a bad decision.

Like I said, a lot of it is opinionated. I think 2011-2013 Japan Studio is better than 2007-2010, but not everyone may agree. Especially since their production is so Vita-leaned in those 3 years, that they're lacking in console output compared to 07-10.

And I'm making comparisons to Harrison era, where they're both in years in the PS3 era. Cambridge is excellent in the PS1/2 era, but in the 2008-2010 era? They were nothing more than tech support + made shovelware TV Superstars.

I'm not happy that Cambridge is just a 'sister studio' now, but looking at Mercenary, I'm happy that a small team like them can at least make high-quality games, even if they're probably recycling a lot of assets from Guerilla.

I think they stand a better chance of stepping out of Geurilla's shadow actually making games instead of being nothing more than a tools team. And we get more games, so yay.

I'd love it for Cambridge, if they could somehow take all the assets ever built for the entire Killzone lore, and basically repurpose them into something else that they can claim on their own.

 

[Labadal]

I was very surprised to see this happen at first, but then I thought to myself: Have any of their games really sold gangbusters? The anwser is no.

 

[MrCookiepants]

Team ICO is Yoshida's Olympic Team. Totally off-limits, I bet he pulls apart and kills the western studios just to keep feeding monies to this joke of a team.

Studio Liverpool and Zipper dying is a fair trade off for a new Team Ico game. Hell, shut down Guerilla if you have to.

I was very surprised to see this happen at first, but then I thought to myself: Have any of their games really sold gangbusters? The anwser is no.

There isn't a game like God of War that's ever sold half as well as God of War.

 

[Loudninja]

I was very surprised to see this happen at first, but then I thought to myself: Have any of their games really sold gangbusters? The anwser is no.

The GOW games sold very well.

 

[eighty(one)]

Didn't they just hire that girl who worked for bungie?

Corrine Yu?

She's with Naughty Dog.

She left 343 - this was one hell of a 'get' - by Sony.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrinne_Yu

Although David Jaffe left SSM a while back, I wonder (how heavily) the impact of the cut, how severe to top level former colleagues? Maybe he saw this coming (writing in the wall)?