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[JJD]

None of these games should´ve ever been developed. And that clearly is Sonys fault.

Yeah...I guess none of those studios should have even existed at all.

Spoiler

I am being sarcastic.

I don't get how Sony is the only one to blame. Insomniac was a second party studios that didn't close when they ended their agreement with Sony.

Those guys could still keep going forward on their own if the market was in better shape.

If they close Sony has a hand in their undoing but they are not the only to blame.

Still I feel bad for everyone that could miss it's job. =(

 

[grimshawish]

Nihilistic though, man that studio dig their own grave.

Sony gave them like 4 months to make a COD game. I was impressed by their efforts when we learned what a cluster fuck it had been and the pressure they were under.

 

[Aquamarine]

I highly doubt that with what I heard about the favoritism the management feels towards the team.

I'd love to hear more about these allegation of favoritism.

Haha, I was a big fan of the old Sly Cooper games on the PS2 but I didn't even know that it was coming out tomorrow.

If I, a person who follows up on gaming news everyday, didn't know, then I'm pretty sure that people who don't follow up on game news don't know either.

Goodness Sony... why are you so against advertising your products? Mind boggling.

Agreed. Sly 4 has been one of my most anticipated games. I adore the Sly franchise. But I could have SWORN the game was coming out in April.

 

[persongr]

How about Liverpool and Zipper

Zipper had it coming - SOCOM 4 was just horrible and Unit 13 wasn't good enough to save an entire the studio (personally i found it boring and repetitive, although i generally don't like tactical shooters).

 

[Phatmac]

Can we get a week without a game studio shutting down?

 

[AOC83]

What happens to those companies if Sony decides not to fund those games? Don't they just go out of business sooner?

Was LightBox in line for the next Call of Duty before Sony came in with Starhawk or something?

I don´t know. Maybe someone else is going to hire them. At least they don´t start making games that have "disaster" written all over them years before they launch.

 

[Ranger X]

Well, this seems to be a SCEA problem to me. They don't seem to be able to spawn creativity and good games in America with new studios or recruting. The employes there apparently don't have the eye or they really don't know what's going on with videogames.

That's bad because I am sure all those little studios have great ideas and talented people in them.

 

[Hero]

Damn, they must've had really high expectations for the game.

How much has it sold worldwide LTD? Has it even gotten past 150K combined PS3/Vita?

 

[Majine]

If you only had Crash in there.

 

[vanty]

Lol, Blur. Fuck that game and their dumbass ~race like a big boy~ commercial making fun of Mario Kart. It's poetic justice that MKWii sold literally 1000x Blur's numbers.

Blur is a far better game than MKWii. Not as good as the best MK games though. Don't say it's a shit game just because of terrible Activision marketing decisions.

 

[jbug617]

Sly Cooper is really coming out tomorrow? I haven't heard anything since the cross-play news.

In some of those cases, Sony reneged on contracts for multiple games and/or post-launch DLC support after games they didn't market bombed.

https://twitter.com/supererogatory/status/298542860301635585

 

[Metallix87]

I'm surprised there are people defending Sony in here.

SCEA has been terrible with marketing for years. Heck, just look at the Vita for proof of that!

 

[The Lamp]

rofl, more like they destroyed themselves. They had a lot of freedoms to create the games they wanted, but as sales show, not many out there wanted to pay for.

I think people just had no idea.

Nobody I talk to IRL has ever even heard of Starhawk, a PS3 Twisted Metal, or a PlayStation smash-bros-esque game.

But for the people who say they follow gaming news a lot....we have a Sly Cooper thread that keeps bobbing on the front page...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=510500

 

[Card Boy]

The bigger news here is that sly 4 is out tomorrow.

I had no idea

lol oh boy, This will bomb hard. I thought i was coming out in a couple of months.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

Damn. This does suck.

Mid of tier games feels gutted and still bleeding right now.
Hope they land on their feet as much as possible.

 

[Derrick01]

I'd love to hear more about these allegation of favoritism.

I would think 7 years of nothing and missed deadlines for a studio that doesn't even produce hits while other lesser known studios actually do their work and are closed after their 1 game bombs is enough evidence of favoritism.

 

[TheOddOne]

...

 

[Pikawil]

Lol, Blur. Fuck that game and their dumbass ~race like a big boy~ commercial making fun of Mario Kart. It's poetic justice that MKWii sold literally 1000x Blur's numbers.

It's even more poetic justice of the "if you can't beat them, join them" kind when you find out that a good deal of Blur's staff went on to work on on All-Stars Racing Transformed after Activision murdered Bizarre Creations, self-defeating the entire point of that commercial!

 

[YoungOne]

Shame as the game is pretty fun, hopefully they are able to stay up.

 

[Mooreberg]

I can see them taking the Microsoft approach with PS4 of publishing fewer games. It has been obvious for a while now that they are releasing more games than they have the inclination and/or budget to market. Wonder Book bombing hard was the easiest prediction to make coming out of E3 last year.

I agree listing Sanzaru among those other studios is weird at the moment, but they are doing the game no favors with the release date timing. All the typical person shopping at GameStop knows of releases for this week is Dead Space 3.

Of all the new IP that appeared on PS3 from Sony in a "physical first" format, I suspect Uncharted and LBP are the only ones that will be appearing on PS4.

 

[fvng]

Not to mention first party studios like Studio Liverpool, Zipper and Bigbig Studios. It's just depressing

They are only responsible in closing down first party devs. They can't close down third party studios.

Not surprised Zipper got shut down. MAG wasn't very good. Survival of the fittest.

 

[NearRivers]

This is unfortunate. I really enjoyed PSASBR, it was easily one of my favourite games of the year. Good luck to those looking for new jobs, and thanks.

 

[Supermanisdead]

There's a Sly Cooper 4???

 

[Aquamarine]

I would think 7 years of nothing and missed deadlines for a studio that doesn't even produce hits while other lesser known studios actually do their work and are closed after their 1 game bombs is enough evidence of favoritism.

I'm just hesitant because of all the secrecy surrounding development. Perhaps Sony is banking on The Last Guardian to be a big hit?

I'm not saying that Sony allowing Team Ico all these concessions isn't favoritism...but there's lots of circumstances going on here.

...More interested if there's any tangible evidence beyond conjecture that points to favoritism?

 

[Drago]

thats coming out this week?

holy shit lol

Exactly. I thought I had the release date wrong before posting it and checked and it launches tomorrow. It's almost like Fire Emblem has all the release hype for this week.

That's releasing this week? WHAT IN THE FUCK.

Sony is embarrassing.

Had no idea it was about to come out so yea, probably right.

WHAT? It's coming out TOMORROW?

Holy shit SCEA, I want to buy the stuff you put out...but you gotta do better than that.

Sly Cooper is really coming out tomorrow? I haven't heard anything since the cross-play news.



https://twitter.com/supererogatory/status/298542860301635585

lol oh boy, This will bomb hard. I thought i was coming out in a couple of months.

The bigger news here is that sly 4 is out tomorrow.

I had no idea

Haha, I was a big fan of the old Sly Cooper games on the PS2 but I didn't even know that it was coming out tomorrow.

If I, a person who follows up on gaming news everyday, didn't know, then I'm pretty sure that people who don't follow up on game news don't know either.

Goodness Sony... why are you so against advertising your products? Mind boggling.

good job SCEA marketing team

 

[JJD]

...

New games I could understand, but not even DLC for the already released ones? That's a shitty attitude towards the devs.

Spoiler

I want more maps for Starhawk...

 

[Huff]

...

make bad games get cut

sony just being a business

 

[Violater]

Game should have been a $20 download title.

 

[Poyunch]

Superbot needed more direction from senior developers. PSABR was pretty amateurish in some parts largely due to this. Sucks that they get offed because Sony wouldn't help them out more.

 

[HamPster PamPster]

good job SCEA marketing team

SCEA's new marketing strategy:

Buy Sly 4 or Sanzaru is next ::finger across the throat motion::

 

[Grimsen]

Sucks for the dev team. I wonder if any of them saw it coming. From the outside, it was painfully obvious this game was going to fail hard, but when you're too close to something you sometimes don't see the big picture.

This news is far from surprising

 

[velociraptor]

The problem with Sony is that they have been focussing on too many different IPs.

It is far better to focus on a small set, where you can advertise properly, and ensure the game is developed to a high standard.

I just wish they would bring back Syphon Filter. Syphon Filter on the PS4 would be insane!

 

[fvng]

Well, this seems to be a SCEA problem to me. They don't seem to be able to spawn creativity and good games in America with new studios or recruting. The employes there apparently don't have the eye or they really don't know what's going on with videogames.

So it's Sony's fault for hiring un-visionary developers, not the fault of the un-visionary developers?

 

[dmr87]

GAF is surprised that a game is coming out tomrrow, bomba in the making.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

I never agreed with Sony's decision to put this one up to an upstart dev. The expectations were too high, the budget was too low, and the marketing was non-existent. Sony pretty much set these guys up for failure, they should have been willing to spend the cash and manpower on getting their absolute top in-house talent on this game if they wanted it to make a splash.

Really sad for Superbot, they made a good effort with the faith and power that was put into them, but I hope Sony will give another crack at the concept next-gen, this time developed in-house.

 

[5amshift]

This is the greatest news this gen. Suck bags should have listened to the fans. Sayonara!

 

[sense]

i understand their marketing sucks but will any kind of mass marketing sell games likes starhawk, sly, all stars, etc....? i see so many people blame these games did not sell for lack of marketing but i don't think any kind of marketing would have helped these games. spending more money on games that sony probably expects to make minimal profit to begin with is probably the thought process. they were made for gamers that are always in the know and not enough of those people bought these games to justify them staying open.

 

[Hot Coldman]

make bad games get cut

sony just being a business

There was little buzz, positive or negative, about most of these titles. A lot of them just sorta came out and not many people cared either way. Games like Twisted Metal and Starhawk seemed to get a decent-ish reception at least, so I don't think any of them were outright bad games.

There was no marketing.

 

[Professor Beef]

Game should have been a $20 download title.

It should've had a budget 10x bigger than it had, due to it being named "Playstation All-Stars" and all. Just a circus of bad decisions all-around for that game.

 

[StuBurns]

I'm surprised there are people defending Sony in here.

SCEA has been terrible with marketing for years. Heck, just look at the Vita for proof of that!

It's not a question of being good or bad at marketing, it's about having the money to market, and having products that are actually desirable. The marketing budget for the Vita was a joke. Sony never actually put any money behind it. No one could market a platform for that pissy amount.

This is a different situation though, because this game shouldn't have ever been made. It was always a terrible idea. I don't think Starhawk or Twisted Metal were though, those could have been successful. In fact at the time, I remember reading on GAF that TM did really well, better than TM:Black. Starhawk is a funny one, I was super excited for it until I saw it. Looked really terrible to me.

 

[mattp]

you know, i have a feeling if they had just managed to get an actual good roster for this game and had better marketting, that alone would have probably been enough to sell the game to people

yes, working out deals with 3rd party publishers is probably hell, but you know what? that's not the consumer's problem. don't make the game if you can't get crash, lara croft, cloud, solid snake, the ridge racer car, heihachi, spyro, someone from resident evil, alucard, abe, etc in it
i mean that list took me 2 minutes to think up

 

[outunderthestars]

The problem with Sony is that they have been focussing on too many different IPs.

It is far better to focus on a small set, where you can advertise properly, and ensure the game is developed to a high standard.

I just wish they would bring back Syphon Filter. Syphon Filter on the PS4 would be insane!

Except for the part where nobody buys the game because nobody gives a shit about Syphon Filter and the studio that develops it goes out of business.

 

[Devilgunman]

Allstart was already bad on the paper so this is expected. Shame I was quite an enjoyable game.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

Reading more of the thread, SLY 4 is out this week?!?!?!
I started coughing when I read that.

 

[The Lamp]

This is the greatest news this gen. Suck bags should have listened to the fans. Sayonara!

People potentially losing their jobs is the greatest news this gen?
You're just a fun one, aren't you?

 

[Derrick01]

GAF is surprised that a game is coming out tomrrow, bomba in the making.

The thing is people who did know about Sly 4 knew it was going to be one of those games SCEA just forgot about and that Sanzaru would likely pay the price for that. It's become a pattern at this point.

I actually felt a little guilty switching my preorder to god of war even though I'm not a sly fan really. It almost felt like I was part of the problem.

 

[Malvingt2]

superannuation‏@supererogatory

I can't hold an independent developer accountable for their game bombing if their publisher completely failed to market said game.


superannuation‏@supererogatory

Or said publisher canceling post-launch DLC laid out in contract once that game they failed to market didn't end up doing well.

I have to agree..

 

[TheChits]

This is the greatest news this gen. Suck bags should have listened to the fans. Sayonara!

A studio shutting down and people losing their jobs is the greatest news this gen? Classy

 

[Wynnebeck]

Sad to hear this. Hopefully, people land on their feet. Last thing these guys need are people slapping asses over the game failing.

 

[SteeloDMZ]

By the amount of pre-release excitement and over 20k post threads this game had here on GAF, one would have expected it to be at least a decent success.