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[nelchaar]

Jesus Christ Sony...

How the hell are they expecting to put out games for PS4, VR and Vita when they keep culling their studios?

Granted, they don't give two shits about Vita and are just going after indie games for that, but putting out games for PS4 and VR with cut studios is going to be tough.

Shut down the divisions that are hemorrhaging money instead, like the TV, instead of destroying one of the few profitable departments.

 

[Amentallica]

Jesus Christ Sony...

How the hell are they expecting to put out games for PS4, VR and Vita when they keep culling their studios?
Granted, they don't give two shits about Vita and are just going after indie games for that, but putting out games for PS4 and VR with cut studios is going to be tough.

Shut down the divisions that are hemorrhaging money instead, like the TV, instead of destroying one of the few profitable departments.

If they wanted to close these studios by now they would have. They're trimming these studios so that they can still be efficient while saving money, because after all, Sony isn't fairing well financially.

If I remember correctly they said they were getting rid of their TV division.

And you mention these 'few profitable departments', but that's what they're trying to do, keep them profitable.

 

[viveks86]

Damn… end of this fiscal year has been a bloodbath!

 

[Doran902]

I think the moral of the story here is when you are dealing with millions of dollars you need to deliver in sales / reviews and ship the games when they are supposed to be shipped. If not the people giving you the millions of dollars will think that there is a problem and they will make changes in order to fix that problem.

 

[Nightengale]

How the hell are they expecting to put out games for PS4, VR and Vita when they keep culling their studios?

Because they're still hiring.

SP added ~40 people to their team since E3 last year.
ND added like... 20 in the past few months, I think. They were 220-230 a while back, now they're 250~.
SSM is still hiring, even after laying off 50 people.

There's definitely room for some concern on the status of WWS right now, but it's not like they're at the stage where they're cutting funds to everything. There's positive growth in some areas, though it's clear that for the time being, there's going to be more of a negative headcount by the end of the quarter compared to whatever they add.

 

[LegendofDragoonLives]

Jesus Christ Shu, is this restructuring or just making the studios generally smaller and smaller? Not exactly what you would think WWS would do after the success of the PS4, but rather the opposite.

 

[RoboPlato]

Damn… end of this fiscal year has been a bloodbath!

End of fiscal year is when we get all bad news. Looking forward to getting good news again.

 

[Pound_lb003]

Jesus Christ Shu, is this restructuring or just making the studios generally smaller and smaller? Not exactly what you would think WWS would do after the success of the PS4, but rather the opposite.

The PS4 coming to fruition is the end of an awful lot of investment. They are at their leanest at the start of the generation. No software to get any money from, hardware investment still at a loss.

It's a brilliant start, and it feels safe to say in 2 years time, they'll be very comfortable. But this is not an easy time.

But right now, the PS4 market isn't huge, and neither isn't PS3 market. Lean, lean, lean.

 

[MaDKaT]

Always sad to hear people getting laid off but these things happen so often that it really should be a non issue. Many places I have worked have seem similar 'layoff/restructuring' and it is generally for the better. Lots of times project teams just got so big that trimming is necessary to improve productivity and efficiency(not to mention costs). Sometimes to inject new personnel if things may have gotten stale.

 

[kyser73]

TBH I'm amazed they've got permanent staff payrolls this big anyway - I wonder if a lot of these are contractors who aren't being renewed.

I mean yes, same difference for them, but if you're a contractor you know that you might not be renewed - being made redundant from a permanent job is a different matter altogether.

 

[LegendofDragoonLives]

End of fiscal year is when we get all bad news. Looking forward to getting good news again.

I don't remember studios getting slayed this way beforehand to be honest. From several key figures leaving to a ton of studios "restructuring"...

 

[Wildarmsjecht]

If you haven't been paying attention, They both have been delayed heavily. Santa Monica is supposedly now working on/fixing Last Guardian. Drive club was supposed to be a ps4 launch title, that supposedly had everything scrapped in the last few months and is being rebuilt from square one.

So they are both in a limbo of development hell right now.

Where in the fuck is this info coming from/why is it spreading so willy nilly?

 

[viveks86]

End of fiscal year is when we get all bad news. Looking forward to getting good news again.

Yeah. I really hope we get some good news between now and E3. Been waiting and waiting and waiting…

 

[ZeroMaverick]

Damn....my prediction came true


http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=98119682&postcount=159

I remember reading this. I'm here too often.

 

[RoboPlato]

I don't remember studios getting slayed this way beforehand to be honest. From several key figures leaving to a ton of studios "restructuring"...

There's a lot of factors at play this year. Sony's studios have had pretty strong growth the past few years with minimal layoffs and closings compared to other publishers. With the PS4 off to a good start Sony is probably taking the current success to restructure to prepare for the future where the least amount of development will be disrupted. SCEE has been due for a restructuring for a while now. I've been expecting it ever since the same happened at SCEJ.

Yeah. I really hope we get some good news between now and E3. Been waiting and waiting and waiting…

VR was cool!

 

[Vizzeh]

Where in the fuck is this info coming from/why is it spreading so willy nilly?

It was originally from an article by IGN, that was completely taken out of context, they were discusing "when" it went back to the drawing board, not that it did again.

Layoffs suck, I wish all affected goodluck. People may need reminded this is normal, lay offs happen, especially after projects or when loose ends are found, it could also be for making room for more talent.

 

[B.O.O.M]

What is up with Sony lately? I know it's probably business-as-usual, but still...we've been getting a ton of bad press recently about Sony staff leaving / projects getting shut down...

Jack Tretton resigns, the excellent Amy Hennig resigns, SSM project cancelled, two projects cancelled here and studios get shuffled about with layoffs, DriveClub delayed again and again...it gets a bit concerning after a while, you know? Just what IS going on at WWS, guys?

It's only bad press because the media in this industry doesn't seem to understand this is pretty standard practice. I honestly don't understand what's so concerning..hell I was surprised we hadn't heard of layoffs at GG's yet for example. Restructuring and layoffs happen..it sucks but it's the reality. Wouldn't be surprised if other studios get layoffs before the quarter financials release as well

However I wish those who were affected the best of luck and hopefully they will find new employment asap

 

[viveks86]

VR was cool!

Sure! But that's not out for a year at least, if not more. Need to know how many of the promised "20 games in the first year" are actually going to make it. So many are yet to be announced! Hope none of those were canned

 

[Chamber]

If you haven't been paying attention, They both have been delayed heavily. Santa Monica is supposedly now working on/fixing Last Guardian. Drive club was supposed to be a ps4 launch title, that supposedly had everything scrapped in the last few months and is being rebuilt from square one.

So they are both in a limbo of development hell right now.

Oh, I've been paying attention. The Last Guardian was announced in 2009 and hasn't been heard from since. DriveClub was announced in 2013 and will be out in 2014. The comparisons are such a gross over exaggeration I don't even know how they started.

 

[LegendofDragoonLives]

Sure! But that's not out for a year at least, if not more. Need to know how many of the promised "20 games in the first year" are actually going to make it. So many are yet to be announced! Hope none of those were canned

The 20 number seems like a joke at this point in time. We have 3 months into the year and only 1 exclusive has come out in that time. I guess add Resogun, Killzone and Knack to the list to make 4. There's nothing coming until Helldivers which is summer, so 6 months to release 15 games of which we only know 1 is coming out (1886) and possibly Driveclub.

 

[RoboPlato]

Sure! But that's not out for a year at least, if not more. Need to know how many of the promised "20 games in the first year" are actually going to make it. So many are yet to be announced! Hope none of those were canned

That number probably includes a lot of indies that are on PC as well. Never take the first year number PR announcement at face value.

 

[Dysun]

Every Sony layoff doom and gloom thread is filled with the same moronic hyperbole about Guerrilla Games. Their games sell well enough (2+ million), you might not like the games but deal with it.
Their production line is reliable, and are probably in the top 4/5 studios of the entire company

 

[Nightengale]

The 20 number seems like a joke at this point in time. We have 3 months into the year and only 1 exclusive has come out in that time. I guess add Resogun, Killzone and Knack to the list to make 4. There's nothing coming until Helldivers which is summer, so 6 months to release 15 games of which we only know 1 is coming out (1886) and possibly Driveclub.

MLB : The Show 14 & Hohokum.

Demonite also said that there are unannounced titles for release this year, ( I expect HD remasters/ports or something like Resogun again ).

Besides, I would take that '20' with a grain of salt. IMO, those 20 probably included Rime/Rapture, which seems to be 2015 at this point.

 

[Famassu]

That number probably includes a lot of indies that are on PC as well. Never take the first year number PR announcement at face value.

It involves "indie" games like Resogun. It doesn't involve indie games like Hotline Miami 2. Shu was extremely clear about that.

 

[Nightengale]

That number probably includes a lot of indies that are on PC as well. Never take the first year number PR announcement at face value.

It doesn't. Shu doesn't even include their own first-party indy ports as part of the twenty. ( he excluded Sound Shapes, flow, Escape Plan and Flower as part of the 20 when asked on Twitter )

 

[5amshift]

Good bye Evolution! Thanks for..Drive Club.
Sucks that Sony is losing it's first party devs so quickly.

 

[RoboPlato]

It involves "indie" games like Resogun. It doesn't involve indie games like Hotline Miami 2. Shu was extremely clear about that.

It doesn't. Shu doesn't even include their own first-party indy ports as part of the twenty. ( he excluded Sound Shapes, flow, Escape Plan and Flower as part of the 20 when asked on Twitter )

I didn't know that. Still, I wouldn't put any faith it it. It was probably just thrown out to trump MS' 15 number.

 

[viveks86]

That number probably includes a lot of indies that are on PC as well. Never take the first year number PR announcement at face value.

Nope, they specifically said they are PS4 exclusives from WW studios (published and/or developed, I believe). It is PR, but people can't just throw around such numbers without anyone asking for it.

I didn't know that. Still, I wouldn't put any faith it it. It was probably just thrown out to trump MS' 15 number.

That doesn't get Sony off the hook. Shu made a public announcement to set expectations. I do believe that he made it based on what is actually in the pipeline. If that isn't the case, then it deserves to be called out.

 

[Dusky]

Where in the fuck is this info coming from/why is it spreading so willy nilly?

It's known that SSM were lending a hand with TLG's development at some point, not sure if that's still the case any more though. The DriveClub stuff is just bs.

I didn't know that. Still, I wouldn't put any faith it it. It was probably just thrown out to trump MS' 15 number.

This. I doubt Sony will live up to that promise.

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

Because they're still hiring.

SP added ~40 people to their team since E3 last year.
ND added like... 20 in the past few months, I think. They were 220-230 a while back, now they're 250~.
SSM is still hiring, even after laying off 50 people.

There's definitely room for some concern on the ystatus of WWS right now, but it's not like they're at the stage where they're cutting funds to everything. There's positive growth in some areas, though it's clear that for the time being, there's going to be more of a negative headcount by the end of the quarter compared to whatever they add.

The fact that they are still hiring cannot be emphasized enough in this thread.

 

[mcw]

I came here to post this.

What is this from?

 

[fuzzyreactor]

Microsoft has been pretty quiet since last year too. You new to games or something? Companies sometimes like to keep quiet when they're this close to E3.

They have been keeping quiet since last E3 and even there they didn't announce much. Y'all just wishful thinking

 

[ricen-beans]

Good bye Evolution! Thanks for..Drive Club.
Sucks that Sony is losing it's first party devs so quickly.

Laying people off from the studio does not mean closing the whole Studio down.

 

[LegendofDragoonLives]

MLB : The Show 14 & Hohokum.

Demonite also said that there are unannounced titles for release this year, ( I expect HD remasters/ports or something like Resogun again ).

Besides, I would take that '20' with a grain of salt. IMO, those 20 probably included Rime/Rapture, which seems to be 2015 at this point.

I do take it with a grain of salt, or should I refer to it as PR bullshit. Remasters being counted as exclusives is beyond laughable though, that would give me a headache just listening to that nonsense if Shu or some other Sony exec mention it in that manner. It's looking like a pretty average year for Sony this year in terms of exclusives for the PS4 unless The Order absolutely kills it and Uncharted 4 comes out.

Thank Goodness for 3rd party teams which seem to be rocking this year. Shame about the Witcher 3.

 

[viveks86]

The 20 number seems like a joke at this point in time. We have 3 months into the year and only 1 exclusive has come out in that time. I guess add Resogun, Killzone and Knack to the list to make 4. There's nothing coming until Helldivers which is summer, so 6 months to release 15 games of which we only know 1 is coming out (1886) and possibly Driveclub.

I'm going to keep my hopes up till E3. If they don't get close to the number by then, I will have to agree with you. Pretty sure some of those games are smaller ones that wouldn't have too much marketing time. We might even get some announcements at Gamescom. But there should be at least 4 - 5 titles that need to be announced by the end of E3.

 

[SwiftDeath]

Sad to hear for those people affected. Hope they land on their feet

Hopefully the culling will not affect future output from Sony. I don't think it will have too large an impact personally but hard to tell

I really don't want Guerrilla Cambridge to close though as from everything I've heard they did a stellar job with Killzone Mercenary

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

Where in the fuck is this info coming from/why is it spreading so willy nilly?

This is the first I have heard of it. The Last Guardian of War incoming haha.

 

[Wildarmsjecht]

The fact that they are still hiring cannot be emphasized enough in this thread.

Thank you.

The problem is the doom and gloom is easier to spread. Word of mouth from people who do not have the full story or who do not understand how commonplace this is or the industry/fanboys looking for anything and the media doesn't help it.

Hell Colin from IGN tweeted about it:

"Its pretty obvious things are not well at Sony WWS. maybe I'll pen an editorial. We shall see"

That? That doesn't do anything but insinuates and makes you wonder did he try and get further info and try to understand the situation and will he follow these steps if he chooses to do said editorial?

Lay offs suck. They do. There are various reasons why and if you look at history you'll see that it happens often, sometimes yielding fantastic results depending on the aforementioned reason.

 

[Bedlam]

I love videogames, I love 3d and graphics design but I would hate to work in this industry. The fluctuation of workforce is pretty crazy.

 

[Nightengale]

1. KZ: SF
2. Knack
3. Resogun
4. Doki Doki Universe
5. inFamous : Second Son
6. MLB 14
7. Helldivers
8. Driveclub
9. Hohokum
10. Pixeljunk Shooter
11. The Order
12. Playroom

(not part of the 20 : fl0w, Sound Shapes, Flower, Escape Plan )
( presumably part of the 20, but couldn't meet the schedule, Rime, Rapture, SoTB )

Seeing it all laid out like that, Sony's actually close to meeting its promised 20 if we exclude out the 3 games announced at Gamescom.

I personally expect one or two PS4 ports of a high-profile PS3 release last year, either Puppeteer, Beyond or TLoU... inFamous is apparently going to go the route of Festival of Blood for its DLC, so I expect Sony to treat as another game to its list instead of part of Second Son.

 

[ironcreed]

If anything, studios have been getting far too bloated across the board. Too many cooks with their hands in the pot can often lead to a Frankenstein clusterfuck of a game. Smaller, more focused studios and saving money to boot seems like a wise play to me. But I do send my best wishes to all those affected.

 

[Famassu]

1. KZ: SF
2. Knack
3. Resogun
4. Doki Doki Universe
5. inFamous : Second Son
6. MLB 14
7. Helldivers
8. Driveclub
9. Hohokum
10. Pixeljunk Shooter
11. The Order
12. Playroom

(not part of the 20 : fl0w, Sound Shapes, Flower, Escape Plan )
( presumably part of the 20, but couldn't meet the schedule, Rime, Rapture, SoTB )

Seeing it all laid out like that, Sony's actually close to meeting its promised 20 if we exclude out the 3 games announced at Gamescom.

I personally expect one or two PS4 ports of a high-profile PS3 release last year, either Puppeteer, Beyond or TLoU... inFamous is apparently going to go the route of Festival of Blood for its DLC, so I expect Sony to treat as another game to its list instead of part of Second Son.

It's too early in 2014 to rule out Rime, SotB and the rest from arriving in 2014. Lack of footage is no argument against it given how little there has been of bigger games like The Order and DriveClub as well. That would put 2014's games at 14 or 15. Then I think we could be fairly certain that we'll possibly get at least one game from Japan studios for 2014 (they have nothing announced), maybe one unannounced game from SCEA (possibly nothing too major) and possibly something unannounced from SCEE's side. Remember, they don't have to be massive Uncharted level games (although I am expecting something like Last Guardian being announced for this year). Dead Nation 2 could be one game, something else weird like Hohokum might be in the pipeline as well.

Also not sure if Pixeljunk Shooter is a part of that. Seems more like Flower, Dead Nation etc., just a quick port job to fill the release schedule/ps+ IGC.

 

[viveks86]

1. KZ: SF
2. Knack
3. Resogun
4. Doki Doki Universe
5. inFamous : Second Son
6. MLB 14
7. Helldivers
8. Driveclub
9. Hohokum
10. Pixeljunk Shooter
11. The Order
12. Playroom

(not part of the 20 : fl0w, Sound Shapes, Flower, Escape Plan )
( presumably part of the 20, but couldn't meet the schedule, Rime, Rapture, SoTB )

Seeing it all laid out like that, Sony's actually close to meeting its promised 20 if we exclude out the 3 games announced at Gamescom.

I personally expect one or two PS4 ports of a high-profile PS3 release last year, either Puppeteer, Beyond or TLoU... inFamous is apparently going to go the route of Festival of Blood for its DLC, so I expect Sony to treat as another game to its list instead of part of Second Son.

Pixeljunk shooter isn't published by WW studios is it? Rest of the list sounds about right. DemonNite did hint that Rime and Rapture were never part of the first year's schedule.

EDIT: You are right about Pixeljunk shooter. Just looked it up. Though I don't know if it counts, since it is a port like flower or sound shapes

 

[IAmRandom31]

People always yell and scream about redundancy in the gaming market today in terms of the genre of games. But look at Sony. They release Tearaway, Puppeteer, Rain, etc. late last year and I doubt with all of them combined they sold 200,000 copies. But, release some generic FPS shooter, no matter the quality, and you will likely sell 200,000 copies with proper hype / marketing with your eyes closed.

So is the way of the market today it seems.

But point being, Sony probably pumped a ton of money into those 3 projects and came away with a 95% loss from them all.

 

[KumaJG]

1. KZ: SF
2. Knack
3. Resogun
4. Doki Doki Universe
5. inFamous : Second Son
6. MLB 14
7. Helldivers
8. Driveclub
9. Hohokum
10. Pixeljunk Shooter
11. The Order
12. Playroom

(not part of the 20 : fl0w, Sound Shapes, Flower, Escape Plan )
( presumably part of the 20, but couldn't meet the schedule, Rime, Rapture, SoTB )

Seeing it all laid out like that, Sony's actually close to meeting its promised 20 if we exclude out the 3 games announced at Gamescom.

I personally expect one or two PS4 ports of a high-profile PS3 release last year, either Puppeteer, Beyond or TLoU... inFamous is apparently going to go the route of Festival of Blood for its DLC, so I expect Sony to treat as another game to its list instead of part of Second Son.

Probably could add DeadNation and BasementCrawl to the list.

Pixeljunk shooter isn't published by WW studios is it? Rest of the list sounds about right. DemonNite did hint that Rime and Rapture were never part of the first year's schedule.

It is

 

[viveks86]

Someone should tweet Shu asking if SCE WWS still plans to publish 20 PS4 exclusives in the first year. I doubt he'd respond, but worth a shot!

 

[viveks86]

Probably could add DeadNation and BasementCrawl to the list.


It is

Thanks! Just checked.

But dead nation 2 isn't confirmed (though it is almost certain). Basement Crawl is self-published by Bloober Team. So that doesn't count.

EDIT: Dead Nation 1 doesn't count, since it's a port just like Flower.

 

[Bluekaveli]

Maybe if they put out games and stop investing in silly ass gimmicks like Eyepet (EYEPET! READ THIS AGAIN EYEPET. And how could I forget about the Wonder Book?) then these cuts wouldn't have happened. When games that have been proven to sell such as Getaway get cancelled you don't make money, you waste it. Last gen was a lot of bull crap in my opinion but look where we are now. I hope things get better soon.

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

People always yell and scream about redundancy in the gaming market today in terms of the genre of games. But look at Sony. They release Tearaway, Puppeteer, Rain, etc. late last year and I doubt with all of them combined they sold 200,000 copies. But, release some generic FPS shooter, no matter the quality, and you will likely sell 200,000 copies with proper hype / marketing with your eyes closed.

So is the way of the market today it seems.

But point being, Sony probably pumped a ton of money into those 3 projects and came away with a 95% loss from them all.

Sad, and they were very different concepts. The market seems very narrow-minded today.

 

[Dusky]

Thanks! Just checked.

But dead nation isn't confirmed (though it is almost certain). Basement Crawl is self-published by Bloober Team. So that doesn't count.

I doubt Dead Nation is included if titles like Sound Shapes and Flower weren't.

1. KZ: SF
2. Knack
3. Resogun
4. Doki Doki Universe
5. inFamous : Second Son
6. MLB 14
7. Helldivers
8. Driveclub
9. Hohokum
10. Pixeljunk Shooter
11. The Order
12. Playroom

If we base the 20 off this list, although I wouldn't include Pixeljunk since the PS4 version has nothing to do with WWS, then there are 5 new IP's left to be released this year and 4 existing ones.