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Deviation Games signs with PlayStation to develop a new original IP

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Sony’s first party studios are going to be holding their own. You’re acting like they aren’t having their best year ever output-wise without new acquisitions. As Sony continues to expand their studios the amount of games they will be able to produce per year will also increase. It’s a fallacy that aquiring new studios is the only way to make sustainable long term investments in your first party output. I’d wager that Sony has those “25+ first party games” already reached without these third party partnerships with Firewalk, Haven, and Deviation Games.

I'm not interested in the quality debate. This is strictly about output. Microsoft's 23 (26?) studios is basically double the size of Sonys entire first party at this point. The way Sony keeps pace is by inking smaller deals with studios like Deviation.

Sony said they have 25 first party games in development. Microsoft probably has around 30 games in development. Sonys output is keeping up right now.
 

Varteras

Gold Member
I don't think Sony should add too much studios and suffer from expenses bleeding. If that studio goes to MS then be it. You shouldn't just pile up studios without being generous with them and patient so they can make great games. The money that can be spent on acquisition could easily be used to make 5-10 massive AAA games with current prices. You won't get an Insomniac $239M bargain any time soon.
I think Sony's best path forward is something like this.

1) Grow existing studios to the point where multiple projects are in the works at most of them. Pretty sure Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, Insomniac, and Santa Monica are all sitting on or at the cusp of two full production teams. Over this generation, grow those further but at a measured pace. Don't force it and ruin the culture and flow of those studios.

2) Acquire established studios they've had a long history with and a proven track record. Housemarque is so obvious that it hurts and Arc System Works would give them their very own fighting game studio. Which would go well with them now being co-owners of EVO. This, of course, assumes a desire to sell. In which case if not just continue to work closely with them

3) Partner with and build up new external studios and see what they're made of. Haven, Firewalk, Deviation, and Ember Lab should all be watched closely and if they prove themselves with their first games I would waste no time inking exclusivity deals with them to keep them under their umbrella for awhile. Try to keep acquisition dialogue open if one of them proves just too valuable

4) Continue getting as many deals with third parties as possible including licensing unused IP that may have value and trying to keep certain valuable franchises as closely associated with the brand as possible

5) Have a plan ready to go in the event a major publisher decides to sell. This is very unlikely to happen but it could and they should be prepared for it
 

Kagey K

Banned
I'm not interested in the quality debate. This is strictly about output. Microsoft's 23 (26?) studios is basically double the size of Sonys entire first party at this point. The way Sony keeps pace is by inking smaller deals with studios like Deviation.

Sony said they have 25 first party games in development. Microsoft probably has around 30 games in development. Sonys output is keeping up right now.
MS is still fulfilling obligations made by the devs they bought from prior to purchase.

Once those are all clear, the output is going to be hard to keep up with.

Now that R&C is out of the way the next Sony 1st party game is what? Horizon that is on track to, but may not release this Holiday?

How far along do we suppose this game is if it doesn't have a name or title card to show? We have seen how long it can take for a deal to go from announcement to release.
 
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yurinka

Member
I'm not interested in the quality debate. This is strictly about output. Microsoft's 23 (26?) studios is basically double the size of Sonys entire first party at this point. The way Sony keeps pace is by inking smaller deals with studios like Deviation.

Sony said they have 25 first party games in development. Microsoft probably has around 30 games in development. Sonys output is keeping up right now.
Let's talk about output.

Since next gen release, half a year or so ago, so Sony released Spider-Man Miles Morales, Astrobot, Sackboy, Demon's Souls, Returnal or Ratched and 3rd party exclusives like Guilty Gear Strive or Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade. In a bit more than half a year or a bit more they will also have games like Horizon, Deathloop, Ghostwire Tokyo, Kena, GoW r GT7 just to name a few.

And MS? What are their main new releases for Xbox from the start of the generation until early next year? Halo and (the multiplatorm) Psyconauts 2?

Yes, there's a big difference in output and doesn't favor MS. We know Sony is growing their 1st party studios, gonna spend over $300M hiring devs which basically means they will double their headcount aprox. in a year.They are also mentioned recently that spent a lot of money on 2nd party deals and will spend more, and they are also increasing their team that handles 2nd party teams. Jimbo also said they are open for acquisitions and are hiring HR people in charge of integrating people from acquisions, which means they will acquire someone soon. Jimbo also said they are working to get more 3rd party IPs, and that PS5 is going to have more exclusives than any other PlayStation released before.

They were infamously 2nd party. Sony as a company is stupidity famous for being “2nd party”. Supermassive, Level 5, Ready at Dawn, Square Enix, but nothing is as tragic as Crash and Spyro.
There's a difference between 2nd party exclusives and 3rd party exclusives. Some of the cases you mention weren't games published by Sony, so they are 3rd party exclusives. And well, both MS and Nintendo also had 2nd party and 3rd party since forever, it isn't something invented by Sony.

I think Sony's best path forward is something like this.

1) Grow existing studios to the point where multiple projects are in the works at most of them. Pretty sure Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, Insomniac, and Santa Monica are all sitting on or at the cusp of two full production teams. Over this generation, grow those further but at a measured pace. Don't force it and ruin the culture and flow of those studios.

2) Acquire established studios they've had a long history with and a proven track record. Housemarque is so obvious that it hurts and Arc System Works would give them their very own fighting game studio. Which would go well with them now being co-owners of EVO. This, of course, assumes a desire to sell. In which case if not just continue to work closely with them

3) Partner with and build up new external studios and see what they're made of. Haven, Firewalk, Deviation, and Ember Lab should all be watched closely and if they prove themselves with their first games I would waste no time inking exclusivity deals with them to keep them under their umbrella for awhile. Try to keep acquisition dialogue open if one of them proves just too valuable

4) Continue getting as many deals with third parties as possible including licensing unused IP that may have value and trying to keep certain valuable franchises as closely associated with the brand as possible

5) Have a plan ready to go in the event a major publisher decides to sell. This is very unlikely to happen but it could and they should be prepared for it
Regarding Sony's acquisitions plans, I think that in addition to buy studios who had a long story of profitable, quality games with them (Housemarque, Bluepoint, Quantic Dream, Kojipro, Kadokawa/FromSoft, etc) and to create a strong relationship with new studios of very successful veterans to see if they ended performing great and buy them if they work, they don't need to buy a big publisher.

They already have more IPs than the ones they can publish, and unlike MS a few years ago, Sony doesn't need a ton of studios and popular IPs more. Instead of that, if I was Sony I'd buy studios who can release quality games to milk their existing IPs like Sumo Digital, Rocksteady or Remedy.

In terms of fighting games, ARC Sys or Netherrealm would be a great addition, it's true that even if they don't need it, it would give them a more diverse portfolio, would help with their new EVO/eSports approach and to focus more the genre on PlayStation.

But again, Sony doesn't need to make a ton of acquisitions. They will acquire just a few every generation, and will focus on people who already had a long relationship of exclusives with them (seems they are nurturing these new studios like preparing them for potential acquisitions maybe in a generation or two from now).
 
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Kagey K

Banned
Let's talk about output.

Since next gen release, half a year or so ago, so Sony released Spider-Man Miles Morales, Astrobot, Sackboy, Demon's Souls, Returnal or Ratched and 3rd party exclusives like Guilty Gear Strive or Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade. In a bit more than half a year or a bit more they will also have games like Horizon, Deathloop, Ghostwire Tokyo, Kena, GoW r GT7 just to name a few.

And MS? What are their main new releases for Xbox from the start of the generation until early next year? Halo and (the multiplatorm) Psyconauts 2?

So throwing money at devs to not release on other systems is giving Sony credit for releasing them, as if they are Sony games?

Yet people blew absolute shitfits at MS during the Tomb Raider exclusivity.

So should MS start buying 3rd party exclusives again on top of thier 1st party to fill list wars?

Is that really what we want to see?
 
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SSfox

Member
Wait am i reading well? Sony is now the underdog and Microsoft is the industry leader?
1466366296-risitas60.png


Some really are living in their own imaginative world
1466366197-risitas10.png
 

Kagey K

Banned
Wait am i reading well? Sony is now the underdog and Microsoft is the industry leader?
1466366296-risitas60.png


Some really are living in their own imaginative world
1466366197-risitas10.png
It was the same a few months ago when MS bought Bethesda and people started calling them a monopoly. 🤣
 

yurinka

Member
So throwing money at devs to not release on other systems is giving Sony credit for releasing them, as if they are Sony games?

Yet people blew absolute shitfits at MS during the Tomb Raider exclusivity.

So should MS start buying 3rd party exclusives again on top of thier 1st party to fill list wars?

Is that really what we want to see?
Welcome to the consoles market. Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft and everyone else have been buying 3rd party exclusives since consoles started, and even published some of them (2nd party) or bought 3rd party studios to make them 1st party.

This is how an underdog competes with a juggernaut like Microsoft.

Make short term deals that are significantly cheaper than buying studios. Secure your output over the next 5 years. Reaasses down the road when the market may (or may not) prove unstable for a lot of developers/publishers.

Microsoft did this exact strategy against PlayStation 10 years ago when they weren't able to grow their first party stable.
Sony an underdog? Do you know that the (non mobile) gaming market leader by far is Sony and not MS? Do you know that Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and all other platform holders published 2nd party games since forever? Do you know that if MS had to spend many billions on studios and IPs was to close the gap with Sony because they couldn't compete with the ones they had? Do you kwow that since Sony has a huge market share they get many exclusives (specially from Japan) without needing to pay them? Do you know that Sony as a clear market leader having already a lot of exclusives selling better than ever and dominating the GOTY awards, and most of the best selling multis having PS as their best selling platform don't need to make big publisher/studio purchases?
 
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Kagey K

Banned
Welcome to the consoles market. Nintendo, Sega, Sony Microsoft and everyone else have been buying 3rd party exclusives since consoles started, and even published some of them (2nd party).
At least you get it. So many insist MS started moneyhats by buying 3rd party exclusives with the 360, but we all know it went back much further than that.
 
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yurinka

Member
At least you get it. So many insist MS started moneyhats by buying 3rd party exclusives with the 360, but we all know it went back much further than that.
During the 8 and 16 bit Nintendo or Sega moneyhatted exclusives, and on its first PlayStation Sony moneyhatted games like Final Fantasy VII. Xbox moneyhatted tons of stuff before Tomb Raider, like Dead Rising and Lost Planet.

Sony biggest danger isn't Microsoft, Sony biggest danger is actually hermen hulst.
Not very dangerous when they are collecting more GOTY awards than anyone else and their first party games are selling better than ever before.
 
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Kagey K

Banned
During the 8 and 16 bit Nintendo or Sega moneyhatted exclusives, and on its first PlayStation Sony moneyhatted games like Final Fantasy VII. Xbox moneyhatted tons of stuff before Tomb Raider, like Dead Rising and Lost Planet.
What about Sony Money hatting GTA3 and Vice City on PS2 or Tomb Raider on PS1?
 
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SSfox

Member
During the 8 and 16 bit Nintendo or Sega moneyhatted exclusives, and on its first PlayStation Sony moneyhatted games like Final Fantasy VII. Xbox moneyhatted tons of stuff before Tomb Raider, like Dead Rising and Lost Planet.


Not very dangerous when they are collecting more GOTY awards than anyone else and their first party games are selling better than ever before.
Dude this guy has nothing to do GOTY games, he's just riding waves created by Yosp and Andrew House, and awards doesn't matter for me unless i myself judge it's GOTY.

Porting games on PC, making weird deals, making crossgen games even for huge games that will come in 2022.

This guy is slowly destroying the brand, he need to go from playstation brand asap.
 

yurinka

Member
Dude this guy has nothing to do GOTY games, he's just riding waves created by Yosp and Andrew House, and awards doesn't matter for me unless i myself judge it's GOTY.

Porting games on PC, making weird deals, making crossgen games even for huge games that will come in 2022.

This guy is slowly destroying the brand, he need to go from playstation brand asap.
He's in charge of these universally acclaimed games that win a ton of GOTYs and they are super successful in sales, more than ever. Obviously he has something to do with them and he's doing a great job.

Weird deals? With Bluepoint, Housemarque, Sumo? With the new studio from the key people behind Metal Gear, Destiny, Black Ops, Assassin's Creed and many other Ubi hits?

And how is exactly destroying the brand if they sell more consoles, games for their consoles and subscriptions than ever before, and if we look only at 1st party games they are selling/rated/awarded better than ever?

Aren't these big AAA 2022 crossgen games started to be developed in 2017/2018, before he was in his current position? And several years before they knew the PS5 specs or even without knowing that its technology was even going to exist?

If your personal taste is different than most people then it's your issue, most people thinks the opposite, that he's doing a great job and their brand is better than ever and we can see it on their many recent gaming history records (revenue etc).

Nope.

You would be wrong. Sony bought timed exclusivity on these to keep them off other systems.
Not sure if timed exclusives were a thing back then, as I remember they paid full exclusives. If they weren't released at the same time, maybe the dev released them only in a single console, the best selling one. And later with that money (or moneyhatted by MS or Sega) ported it.
 
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kyoji

Member
So throwing money at devs to not release on other systems is giving Sony credit for releasing them, as if they are Sony games?

Yet people blew absolute shitfits at MS during the Tomb Raider exclusivity.

So should MS start buying 3rd party exclusives again on top of thier 1st party to fill list wars?

Is that really what we want to see?
You know i see this argument a lot, and lets not pretend like other company's haven't done it or aren't doing it right now, And then there's the fact that some titles have just been legacy exclusive by default for whatever reason like guilty gear dating back to 98' only on arcade and PlayStation in the beginning and only until over more recent years starting to make its way over to pc.

BUT now to my point, you do realize it takes TWO or more parties to agree on something right? So if people truly have a problem with situations regarding timed games rather it be medium or death loop or cup head or tokyo whatever the game is called.. I think more accountability needs to be placed at the feet of the actual publisher agreeing to the terms, these guys are getting off scott free without any criticism in there part, and yet people act like SONY or whoever are going to these guys with a machete in hand and pressing it against there throats while saying "sign here or else!".

IF people truly want to see things changed then there needs to be a unified front from people in addressing the publishers more not the platform holder, because if these publishers dont agree to the terms then obviously theres no deal to be made. In Sony's case theirs a lot more instances of funding and co development of a game with its external partners than just simply keeping a game off another platform.


All that being said i miss the days when 3rd party devs actually took these deals because they wanted to focus on specific hardware to exploit a feature or maybe because they were small at the time and went with whom they felt there product would be reflected at max potential with (don't get me wrong there are some that still reason with these guidelines in mind, as moneyhatting simply isnt the end all be all defacto other wise MS corp money bigger than sony corp money right? we here it touted all the time on these forums and yet its glaringly obvious that money isnt the sole factor always for getting great exclusive content or games to your platform, see nintendo. see sony.). Kagey K Kagey K i only used your post as a reference not specifically talking to you but i saw something that got my train of thought going.
 

SSfox

Member
It was the same a few months ago when MS bought Bethesda and people started calling them a monopoly. 🤣
Yeah, i mean i don't care about the acquiring thing on itself, it's the result that matter. And for now all i see is that 272 millions $ are producing way more results than 7.5 billions $
 

Rolla

Banned
At first I thought it was just COD/Treyarch alumni and then I saw this tweet




Now I'm not one to celebrate one dev moving from one studio to the next. But ex DICE, Respawn, and COD alumni with Sony Santa Monica forming their own studio?

Sweating James Mcavoy GIF


If you've been gaming in the FPS space for a while, then that DICE/COD combo with a polished SP is a discussion you've had with friends.
 
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Tschumi

Member
I honestly tried to think of what kind of fps i would make for sony and i just realised that i care too little about fps games to contribute.

The closest i got was a cross between death Stranding and Killzone with lasers.
 
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Unknown?

Member
At first I thought it was just COD/Treyarch alumni and then I saw this tweet




Now I'm not one to celebrate one dev moving from one studio to the next. But ex DICE, Respawn, and COD alumni with Sony Santa Monica forming their own studio?

Sweating James Mcavoy GIF


If you've been gaming in the FPS space for a while, then that DICE/COD combo with a polished SP is a discussion you've had with friends.

Potentially a great SP game!
 

kuncol02

Banned
And MS? What are their main new releases for Xbox from the start of the generation until early next year? Halo and (the multiplatorm) Psyconauts 2?
And Gears Tactics, and Flight Simulator and Hive Busters and probably Forza Horizon 5. Maybe more. They were openly stating that not all their games for this year were shown.
 

kuncol02

Banned
Yeah, i mean i don't care about the acquiring thing on itself, it's the result that matter. And for now all i see is that 272 millions $ are producing way more results than 7.5 billions $
You have to be trolling. No one is THAT stupid. Insomniac was bought 2 years ago and prior to that they were already working on games for Sony. Bethesda was bought literally 3 months ago.
 

kyussman

Member
I'm not sure what levels of interest I'm supposed to have from this....if you want my interest,sign your deal with Sony,make your game and then show me what it is....these kind of annoucements are getting earlier and earlier....one of these days a dev will proudly take to the stage to annouce his wife is pregnant and his son is going to grow up to be a great game developer and make a wonderful game....please be excited!
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
I'm not sure what levels of interest I'm supposed to have from this....if you want my interest,sign your deal with Sony,make your game and then show me what it is....these kind of annoucements are getting earlier and earlier....one of these days a dev will proudly take to the stage to annouce his wife is pregnant and his son is going to grow up to be a great game developer and make a wonderful game....please be excited!

This is PR.

Sony wants us to know that they're getting exclusives for the future too.
 

WellSheet

Member
ya know…the only reason I see Sony announcing these partnerships this early is because they’re desperate to give the early adopters ANYTHING to feel good about. Like many of you have said, these games are 3-5 years out. But, this is some half-assed lame way to make us (early adopters) feel like “exclusive* games are coming”…this is some weird and dumb optics shit that makes Sony look weak compared to MS just throwing bags of money around.

not saying they absolutely have to make an acquisition on the level of Bethesda….but this to me looks worse than not doing anything and just announcing these partnerships as when they actually have games to show off.
 

HTK

Banned
This studio has potential to deliver something great ooooorrrrr crash and burn. I'm excited to see what they come up with, I'm definitely curious. I'm all on board for a Multiplayer based game with this talent.
 

yurinka

Member
And Gears Tactics, and Flight Simulator and Hive Busters and probably Forza Horizon 5. Maybe more. They were openly stating that not all their games for this year were shown.
From what I see in wikipedia:
-Gears Tactics: April 2020 (PC), November 2020 (Xbox), December 2020 (Hivebusters DLC)
-Flight Sim: August 2020 (PC), H2 2021? (Xbox)


ya know…the only reason I see Sony announcing these partnerships this early is because they’re desperate to give the early adopters ANYTHING to feel good about. Like many of you have said, these games are 3-5 years out. But, this is some half-assed lame way to make us (early adopters) feel like “exclusive* games are coming”…this is some weird and dumb optics shit that makes Sony look weak compared to MS just throwing bags of money around.

not saying they absolutely have to make an acquisition on the level of Bethesda….but this to me looks worse than not doing anything and just announcing these partnerships as when they actually have games to show off.
Lol! PS5 early adopters already got like half a dozen next gen only exclusives during the first half a year plus several crossgen exclusives, and there are many other ones coming in less than a year. I mean, they released Ratchet, Guilty Gear Strive and FFVIIR Intergrade this week.

In all that period Xbox will have received a total of zero? next gen only exclusives, and seems that as new crossgen games will have received Halo, Psyconauts 2 and the Gears Tactics and Flight Sim ports. In both cases there are several more than likely (many of them already confirmed) timed console indie exlusives.

PS5 sales are like double of the the Xbox ones, and Sony exclusives get reviewed better, sell better and win more awards. If someone is desperate and needs to buy studios to fill catalogs and roadmaps isn't Sony. Sony delivers, they don't have anything to prove.
 
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Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
Why are some people talking about moneyhats? A publisher working with a developer isn't a bribe ffs.

So much of the discourse around gaming is so incredibly stupid.

The same guys crying about this, (while this recent events what Sony is doing is more interesting then just acquire random studio's like MS is doing) are cheering for every new MS bullshit acquisition thread and defending it with all kinds of arguments, and the best one yet is "just business" lol. A little bit over a year ago it was all like "Who buys consoles only for exclusives, most gamers play multiplatform".

Just because Gamepass exists, they defend it because they don't have to pay separately for the games, otherwise they would be talking differently. Meanwhile they forget that Xbox also has timed exclusive games running including Warhammer and STALKER 2 etc etc
 

8BiTw0LF

Banned
Yeah, it's boring to see multiplats becoming 1st parties - where's the effort in that? Money? MS has only nurtured one developer: Turn 10 Studios - everything else is something they just bought.
Sony is funding newly started developerhouses, to get new IP's.

This Is The Way GIF by Priya
 

KAL2006

Banned
Can Sony not provide these new teams with there internal engines like they did for Kojima and have a tech support team. That would get the new studios rolling along much quicker. Kojima managed to pump out Death Stranding rather quickly.
 

ksdixon

Member
Hermen Huslt is a PC fanboy, and a big hater of Japanese games, this guy is the total opposite of what build playstation brand and values.

Oh jesus, really?
How did these two fuck nuggets fail upwards to become PS5 leadership team?
 

Woopah

Member
I always found the term 2nd party weird. If a game is published by the platform holder it's first party to me.

I think Sony investing in new IP and new teams can only be a good thing. Good on them.
 
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