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[Cthulhu_Steev]

Where Sony selling buildings to remain profitable then as well? Sony are not in good shape and it's filtering through to WWS.

TechnicPuppet making his crazy links between two completely different events and coming out with 'facts' that make Sony look bad? Surely not!

 

[entremet]

I have a feeling Mercs will come out on the PS4/PS3.

 

[IncandescentPrecept]

For info, Evolution is a 120+ people studio. You don't need that many to work on a racing game.

 

[Pie and Beans]

I see this is the Nintendo page then.

Fans aren't going to react well to the contraction Nintendo experiences in the next decade, thats for sure.

 

[sörine]

wrong developer brah

Oh right! It's Sucker Punch, complete mistake on my part.

That's really impressive then, the game looks phenomenal.

 

[Famassu]

I seem to be the only one who has noticed this, but the ps4 seems to be undergoing something of a vitafication

That is to say, a focus on (mostly multiplatform) indie games over AAA exclusives

The retail exclusives it does have so far aren't the best, and the future is looking equally as sparse

Is this a consequence of the studio closures this gen and last gen? Is it deliberate?

Yeeeeeah, NO. The future only seems sparse because a lot of what is under development hasn't been announced and they are keeping quiet about the games that we DO know of. DriveClub, The Order, Rime, Uncharted 4, Shadow of the Beast have been announced but not shown much, Media Molecule has a game in development, Guerilla has a new IP, SSM has 1 or 2 games (used to have 3 until the recent cancellation?), SCEE has some unannounced projects, Quantic Dreams is working on 2 PS4 games, Sony Japan likely has at least 2-3 PS4 games cooking (The Last Guardian, Gran Turismo 6 PS4/7 and others?), Sucker Punch just released one game and will probably start gearing up for a new project soon with a release 2-2,5+ years from now and then there are the SCEWWS affiliates who Sony are working with.

 

[Vinterbird]

For info, Evolution is a 120+ people studio. You don't need that many to work on a racing game.

I think you underestimate game development then.

 

[TechnicPuppet]

TechnicPuppet making his crazy links between two completely different events and coming out with 'facts' that make Sony look bad? Surely not!

Yes it's crazy to link layoffs with a company struggling financially.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

They're a lean company but their developer pool is comparable to SCEWWS in terms of headcount. The difference being Nintendo is more centralized while Sony is more spread out. That's why counting by "team" as some were doing earlier is deceptive, you have to consider EAD is about as large as SSM, Naughty Dog and Insomniac combined.

There under staff since they needed to support 2 system with one them being HD now.
Which why there are in trouble .

Umm they've been consistently profitable with every home and portable console they've made since the SNES other than the Wii U.

No one else in the industry can say the same so you should probably rethink what "successful" means

Do you really believe that GC was profitable ?
Truth is we will never know since GB was kicking ass in the GC era and everything was together .

 

[Orniletter]

For info, Evolution is a 120+ people studio. You don't need that many to work on a racing game.

Turn 10 Studios is 300+ and polyphony 140+ people strong

It is inline with other AAA racing sim developers .

 

[zomgbbqftw]

I admire your intelligence my good man, but I have to disagree.

Guerilla, out of all the European studios, have managed to ship technical showpieces that might not sell 5 million plus, but always end up racking more than 2 million sales. Killzone Shadow Fall currently is on track to sell 4 million all in all.

The issue with SCEE is a more of a holistic problem with how things are run. There is a strong lack of proper creative directors, narrative writers, and studio culture that is anywhere close to what Naughty Dog, SSM, and Sucker Punch have cultivated over at SCEA.

The heads on top need to roll and they need to closely examine how studios like Naughty Dog are run to try and figure out where their own weaknesses are.

Opportunity cost, opportunity cost, opportunity cost. 2-3m shipments per game is not good enough for a studio that size.

Shadow fall has been helped by aggressive bundling and being a launch title. It would not breach 1.5m without that help because it is not a good game and the Killzone franchise should have been flushed down the toilet at the end of last gen.

Yet here we are, GG got a prime PS4 release slot Cambridge got shunted to Vita and are shedding jobs. What's worse is that Mercenary is a better game as it is built on an all new engine made in Cambridge.

SCEE is just completely fucked up at the moment, management choices have been poor, there are a lot of agendas being played out, chief among them the willingness to let other studios go to the wall to protect the original poor decision to waste so much money on buying GG. Remember that Millennium Inc. (Cambridge), Psygnosis and Evolution were cheap. GG was not and I've heard that it took a lot of upselling by SCE managent to group level management back then to get it done, and it was on the basis that they would turn Killzone into a Halo killer under first party ownership.

 

[johnny956]

Oh right! It's Sucker Punch, complete mistake on my part.

That's really impressive then, the game looks phenomenal.

Indeed and I think Sony is basically telling other developers this is the bar now. Probably going to get teams in the 100(ish) range per project. I'm thinking Naughty Dog will still be the exception (unless their games start selling in the lower range)

 

[Freeman]

I already pointed it out. Sony said they had "over 30 games" in production for PS4 all-in-all. These lay-offs @ SSM and now SCEE seem to have been about the cancellation of 3-4 of those. So even in the worst case scenario, they still have about 27-30 games in production. That's still plenty of games in development. It's just a bit silly to be so worried about the whole future of Sony 1st party because of the cancellation of 3-4 games. Similar scope cancellation & lay-off sprees have happened at Sony's studios before and yet they bounce back and produce quality like Last of Us with old teams and buy new studios who make something like inFamous: Second Son to replace the Zippers & others that have got shut down.

30 internal games and 12 new IPs for the first year of PS4 is not going to happen like they said.

I'm not worried, I'm just not confident they will maintain the output they had the last couple of years instead of just going back to the early PS3 years. We got no internal game announcements from Sony this year, it they are waiting for E3 that's fine, as long as what they show is impressive.

 

[Violater]

Are they committing seppuku at SCEJ?

 

[Orniletter]

Holy shit, Guerilla Games has 270+ employees ?

....just imagine how many PS2 games they could make with those resources.

...like 6 at the same time....

 

[sörine]

There under staff since they needed to support 2 system with one them being HD now.

That was actually the major catalyst behind their last restructure, to unify their dual development lines. Supporting two systems is something neither Nintendo or Sony have been doing well in recent years though, I don't see how this implies Nintendo is understaffed while Sony needs to "trim the fat".

 

[Chamber]

I really enjoy this meme.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

Indeed and I think Sony is basically telling other developers this is the bar now. Probably going to get teams in the 100(ish) range per project. I'm thinking Naughty Dog will still be the exception (unless their games start selling in the lower range)

ND not that big for 2 team studio they around 250 people but the also got the ICE team there .

 

[Famassu]

Do you really believe that GC was profitable ?
Truth is we will never know since GB was kicking ass in the GC era and everything was together .

Every GameCube was sold for a hefty profit and Nintendo had some crazy good sellers for GC like Smash Bros. Melee and all kinds of Mario games (Kart, Sunshine) that sold millions of copies and Wind Waker and Metroid Prime etc. etc.

GameCube was highly profitable for them, even if it didn't sell that many units in comparison to PS2.

 

[sörine]

Indeed and I think Sony is basically telling other developers this is the bar now. Probably going to get teams in the 100(ish) range per project. I'm thinking Naughty Dog will still be the exception (unless their games start selling in the lower range)

I think Naughty Dog can get away with it by keeping two AAA projects (Uncharted, TLOU) in development at all times and just alternating release years. Bulk staff can be moved between them as needed even then.

 

[aeolist]

Do you really believe that GC was profitable ?
Truth is we will never know since GB was kicking ass in the GC era and everything was together .

the only time they ever sold gamecube hardware for a loss was when they dropped to $99 and they were making a profit on it again before long, plus they had several million-selling games. it wasn't a success even compared to N64 but they didn't lose money on it.

 

[entremet]

Opportunity cost, opportunity cost, opportunity cost. 2-3m shipments per game is not good enough for a studio that size.

Shadow fall has been helped by aggressive bundling and being a launch title. It would not breach 1.5m without that help because it is not a good game and the Killzone franchise should have been flushed down the toilet at the end of last gen.

Yet here we are, GG got a prime PS4 release slot Cambridge got shunted to Vita and are shedding jobs. What's worse is that Mercenary is a better game as it is built on an all new engine made in Cambridge.

SCEE is just completely fucked up at the moment, management choices have been poor, there are a lot of agendas being played out, chief among them the willingness to let other studios go to the wall to protect the original poor decision to waste so much money on buying GG. Remember that Millennium Inc. (Cambridge), Psygnosis and Evolution were cheap. GG was not and I've heard that it took a lot of upselling by SCE managent to group level management back then to get it done, and it was on the basis that they would turn Killzone into a Halo killer under first party ownership.

Exactly.

I remember in the early days of KZ2 development that there were crazy budget estimates--I don't think we got official numbers, but they were sky high. It' final sales had to be disappointing even though it crossed one million. And KZ3 sold even worse.

 

[IncandescentPrecept]

I think you underestimate game development then.

Am I really?

Turn 10 Studios is 300+ and polyphony 140+ people strong

It is inline with other AAA racing sim developers .

Turn 10 releases 1 game every year.

And come on, seriously comparing the scope of Driveclub to Gran Turismo?

Criterion had less than 90.

 

[johnny956]

ND not that big for 2 team studio they around 250 people but the also got the ICE team there .

Didn't realize they were around that size. I was assuming they were larger but based on their release schedule that seems pretty decent. Uncharted 3 was 2011, Last of Us was 2013 and the latest Uncharted will be 2015 (I'm guessing that's correct?) so they are actually being very efficient with that size team

 

[bigboss370]

because it isn't any good. If any studio needs restructuring its gotta be GG. Killzone Mercs, I hear was a competent shooter for a dead platform.

how about lets not start cutting from studious based on your opinion....

 

[Freeman]

GG with 270+ employees makes no sense, specially since they insist with making Killzone games.

 

[coldfoot]

All in all, the canceled projects obviously weren't viewed as successful projects. This is SCEE, they spent a shit ton of money on stuff like EyeToy, PS Home, Wonderbook, etc.
I'd rather have 100 indie games to choose from than that crap.

 

[deadpixel]

Naughty Dog has a crazy amount of talented people working there. I doubt any one makes less than 80k per year.

 

[spwolf]

Opportunity cost, opportunity cost, opportunity cost. 2-3m shipments per game is not good enough for a studio that size.

Shadow fall has been helped by aggressive bundling and being a launch title. It would not breach 1.5m without that help because it is not a good game and the Killzone franchise should have been flushed down the toilet at the end of last gen.

Yet here we are, GG got a prime PS4 release slot Cambridge got shunted to Vita and are shedding jobs. What's worse is that Mercenary is a better game as it is built on an all new engine made in Cambridge.

SCEE is just completely fucked up at the moment, management choices have been poor, there are a lot of agendas being played out, chief among them the willingness to let other studios go to the wall to protect the original poor decision to waste so much money on buying GG. Remember that Millennium Inc. (Cambridge), Psygnosis and Evolution were cheap. GG was not and I've heard that it took a lot of upselling by SCE managent to group level management back then to get it done, and it was on the basis that they would turn Killzone into a Halo killer under first party ownership.

I think you are being too emotional about this - when did any of Sony's UK studios have a game bigger than KZ? They are being slimmed down because their projects have not been successful...

 

[ghst]

i wonder if sony execs are looking at the advantageous position the PS4 holds with multiplats and have decided that first party IP gambling is a bet they don't have to take. you don't need risky break-even prestige projects if people are going to buy your console to play the next call of dutyfield anyway. that's opportunity cost better spent plugging one of the sony ship's many leaking holes.

 

[Darksol]

Neil has taken his villainous act to the walking dead as well. He is not satisfied with Sony Studios, he's going after TV shows now.

But on a serious note, I hope these guys land on their feet.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought of Neil when I saw that.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

That was actually the major catalyst behind their last restructure, to unify their dual development lines. Supporting two systems is something neither Nintendo or Sony have been doing well in recent years though, I don't see how this implies Nintendo is understaffed while Sony needs to "trim the fat".

Sony needs to reboot some of there studios and trimming fat is part of that .
Also it pretty clear that the western part of Sony does not care about Vita so some of them should go .
I think it's rather clear what going at Sony some studios are to big for there own good .
When you have SP with 80 plus people bringing out a open world game in 2 to 3 years along with how ND operates everyone has to become like them

Every GameCube was sold for a hefty profit and Nintendo had some crazy good sellers for GC like Smash Bros. Melee and all kinds of Mario games (Kart, Sunshine) that sold millions of copies and Wind Waker and Metroid Prime etc. etc.

GameCube was highly profitable for them, even if it didn't sell that many units in comparison to PS2.

the only time they ever sold gamecube hardware for a loss was when they dropped to $99 and they were making a profit on it again before long, plus they had several million-selling games. it wasn't a success even compared to N64 but they didn't lose money on it.

Thanks for info and now i know better .

 

[Famassu]

30 internal games and 12 new IPs for the first year of PS4 is not going to happen like they said.

I'm not worried, I'm just not confident they will maintain the output they had the last couple of years instead of just going back to the early PS3 years. We got no internal game announcements from Sony this year, it they are waiting for E3 that's fine, as long as what they show is impressive.

It was 20 for the first year, 30+ overall in production. That's still a good amount and even if some of the games first promised for the first year are delayed (and I think the cancelled SSM game might've been one of those?), they should still be some early/first half of 2015 games, so it's not like it's too horrible to wait for them for a few months more.

GG with 270+ employees makes no sense, specially since they insist with making Killzone games.

Isn't the rumor that their new IP is an RPG? If that's true, then it makes perfect sense for them to have that many employees, RPGs aren't exactly small scale projects, neither are spectacle FPSs like Shadowfall.

 

[Dusky]

Am I really?




Turn 10 releases 1 game every year.

And come on, seriously comparing the scope of Driveclub to Gran Turismo?

Criterion had less than 90.

Gonna nitpick here. It's 1 game every 2 years.

 

[Vinterbird]

Naughty Dog has a crazy amount of talented people working there. I doubt any one makes less than 80k per year.

I sure hope so, that's not the best salary to get considering the hours a normal industry person does.

 

[The Lamp]

This industry is so bad. It's amazing to me that anyone new tries to get into it. Full of unemployment, bad work life balance, sexism, and awful "journalists".

Sad to see these people lose their jobs.

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

I think Sony is going to be going with smaller teams (compared to past). Considering we just had Infamous released by a 100 person team and Ready at Dawn seems to be a similar size I think that's what we can expect now from Sony's team.

Yea, I think they're trying to make all their teams lean and cost efficient.

Opportunity cost, opportunity cost, opportunity cost. 2-3m shipments per game is not good enough for a studio that size.

Shadow fall has been helped by aggressive bundling and being a launch title. It would not breach 1.5m without that help because it is not a good game and the Killzone franchise should have been flushed down the toilet at the end of last gen.

Yet here we are, GG got a prime PS4 release slot Cambridge got shunted to Vita and are shedding jobs. What's worse is that Mercenary is a better game as it is built on an all new engine made in Cambridge.

SCEE is just completely fucked up at the moment, management choices have been poor, there are a lot of agendas being played out, chief among them the willingness to let other studios go to the wall to protect the original poor decision to waste so much money on buying GG. Remember that Millennium Inc. (Cambridge), Psygnosis and Evolution were cheap. GG was not and I've heard that it took a lot of upselling by SCE managent to group level management back then to get it done, and it was on the basis that they would turn Killzone into a Halo killer under first party ownership.

Wow... didn't know about the drama surrounding GG's buyout. If that's really the case, their new RPG better shine like a fcking diamond, or heads will probably roll.

 

[Hoje0308]

because it isn't any good. If any studio needs restructuring its gotta be GG. Killzone Mercs, I hear was a competent shooter for a dead platform.

So the studio should face layoffs because of your subjective opinion? Sorry, but the game had huge sales given the install base and a fair number of people think the MP is amazing. On top of that, the studio has a great policy regarding new maps and they make themselves available to fans via the official forums, Reddit and Twitter.

 

[paradise_circus]

Naughty Dog has a crazy amount of talented people working there. I doubt any one makes less than 80k per year.

Afaik, Naughty Dog is permanently firing and hiring personal, especially in probation periods.

 

[SteveO1683]

I have a feeling Mercs will come out on the PS4/PS3.

I had that same thought not to long ago. Doesn't seem like it would be to hard since its running on the KZ3 like engine.

 

[Omnistalgic]

Doesn't Sony as a whole employ the same amount of people as MS? They absolutely dwarf Nintendo in staff, the layoff comparisons are not balanced at all. Sony truly needs restructuring guys, they are just two big. Do we want random mediocrity or focused quality? This is how you achieve it, every in house studio running like the dogs, it starts with cuts unfortunately, and looking real hard at sales numbers.

 

[Nightengale]

What? Since when was Guerilla 270?

They've said that they're around 200 last month.

 

[Bundy]

Yet here we are, GG got a prime PS4 release slot Cambridge got shunted to Vita and are shedding jobs. What's worse is that Mercenary is a better game as it is built on an all new engine made in Cambridge.

=

"Running on a modified version of the Killzone 3 engine, Mercenary is prettier than a portable first-person shooter has any right to be."

GG with 270+ employees makes no sense, specially since they insist with making Killzone games.

270 = Two AAA teams in two different buildings (for two IPs! Killzone + unannounced PI) + Guerilla Cambridge

 

[entremet]

I think you are being too emotional about this - when did any of Sony's UK studios have a game bigger than KZ? They are being slimmed down because their projects have not been successful...

I'll put the question back to you, how many other UK studios have games that cost as much as KZ?

 

[Moobabe]

So the studio should face layoffs because of your subjective opinion? Sorry, but the game had huge sales given the install base and a fair number of people think the MP is amazing. On top of that, the studio has a great policy regarding new maps and they make themselves available to fans via the official forums, Reddit and Twitter.

In fairness it was a launch title AND it was bundled with consoles.

Plus it just wasn't that good. For THE flagship title at the consoles launch the reviews were pretty damning.

 

[Tripon]

People should start realizing that Sony doesn't start and end with PlayStation. Just because PS4 is doing well doesn't mean Sony as whole is well. Just because PS4 is doing well doesn't mean that PlayStation sector couldn't be more cost efficient or in other words it could compensate for other areas more than it is doing now.

But yeah sad news. Those studios have made some quality games.

Pretty much, these layoffs are a response of how other parts of Sony Corporate are not doing well.

You just wish corporations in general understood the destruction layoffs cause, but few can resist their lure just so their financials can look just a little better come quarterly and yearly review.

 

[Doran902]

This industry is so bad. It's amazing to me that anyone new tries to get into it. Full of unemployment, bad work life balance, sexism, and awful "journalists".

Sad to see these people lose their jobs.

I'm realizing this, I have been layed off twice and thinking about going back to uni. Problem is all my friends say that its basically every industry that's like this.

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

i wonder if sony execs are looking at the advantageous position the PS4 holds with multiplats and have decided that first party IP gambling is a bet they don't have to take. you don't need risky break-even prestige projects if people are going to buy your console to play the next call of dutyfield anyway. that's opportunity cost better spent plugging one of the sony ship's many leaking holes.

I'm sorry, but that's terrible logic/business sense, and I hope they're better than that. "Because we have an advantage, let's totally make it a crutch?" It seems pretty clear that since Sony (in it's whole) is in bad shape, they want every team to be as lean as possible. The line about "redundancy" should have given away that they're cutting jobs that they believe are already being handled efficiently by the staff.

It's a different matter entirely, however, how the remaining staff and studios feel about these cuts. Seems like it could really muddle the office culture.

 

[fuzzyreactor]

I don't see why anyone would ever want to work for a Sony studio. Seems to be no job security with them.

 

[entremet]

i wonder if sony execs are looking at the advantageous position the PS4 holds with multiplats and have decided that first party IP gambling is a bet they don't have to take. you don't need risky break-even prestige projects if people are going to buy your console to play the next call of dutyfield anyway. that's opportunity cost better spent plugging one of the sony ship's many leaking holes.

I would have to agree with this. Sony spent a lot of money 1st party support to see only a few games actually get major traction based on the investments they made. Also seeing how MS was successful with a smaller exclusive portfolio, focusing on the bigger games and letting 3rd parties fill the void.

Sony now has the price and tech advantage. It makes sense to not spend too much on risky yet unique 1st party IP.

I'm sorry, but that's terrible logic/business sense, and I hope they're better than that. "Because we have an advantage, let's totally make it a crutch?" It seems pretty clear that since Sony (in it's whole) is in bad shape, they want every team to be as lean as possible. The line about "redundancy" should have given away that they're cutting jobs that they believe are already being handled efficiently by the staff.

It's a different matter entirely, however, how the remaining staff and studios feel about these cuts. Seems like it could really muddle the office culture.

Well Sony also invested a lot of money on expensive yet failed games--Motorstorm PR/Apocalypse, Twisted Metal, Heavenly Sword, The later Ratchet and Resistance games barely caught on they way they wanted to, SCEJ was basically a non factor. You would think after seeing that they will try to focus on a smaller amount of titles.