Support NeoGAF

[Bluekaveli]

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.

And now you see why I have a blunt opinion on the FPS genre. I won't even elaborate, just check my post history.

I just wish puppeteer and rain were released on the PS4 since my PS3 sounds like a rocket. It intimidates me.

 

[BloodMoney]

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

That's news to me as well.

 

[Dusky]

That's news to me as well.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/02/21/sony-santa-monica-helping-with-the-last-guardian/

 

[viveks86]

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

Oh I assumed he/she was referring to dead nation 2, which is what people believe to be the next housemarque game. That can't go on the list until it's confirmed.

 

[7DollarHagane]

I think that the success of the indie focus really has Sony questioning how many big studios thy really need. Their budget may be better used propping up and supporting excellent indie projects that pop up and they can find and support.

At least for b-tier, lower budget and staff titles, relying on the plethora of indie studios and using money to support them and get them on your platform may make more business sense than having b-tier studios of your own in the future.

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

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.

What is obvious is that Sony isn't satisfied with game series that constantly review at 8. They are just trying to improve their studios just like EA and Activision who do this yearly. The reactions just don't fit the facts and Colin needs to investigate more before doing an editorial on this. Personally I would try to interview them in a video to get the whole story.

 

[Prototype Viktor]

Isn't this still part of the mandatory Sony layoffs company wide they planned awhile ago for the fiscal year?

 

[viveks86]

Isn't this still part of the mandatory Sony layoffs company wide they planned awhile ago for the fiscal year?

Most likely

 

[Oppo]

I have two hunches about these latest stories of Sony studios layoffs.

One, is that they are probably all part of the same "wave" of restructuring, coming as they are, in close succession.

Two, it is possible that, upon seeing mostly positive responses to their VR headset at GDC, this has prompted some team reorganization to accelerate development of VR based games. Just a guess. But remember what Shu said: they are anti-port for VR. They know those games need to be made from scratch.

 

[Prototype Viktor]

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

That's news to me as well.

The drive club thing is from the explanation for the late delay of it as a launch title. Realistically it wouldn't be scrapped enough for the amount of times it's spread that it was

 

[Darksol]

Layoffs always suck for those affected, but this strikes me as a necessary move from Sony.

 

[Endo Punk]

I think all these layoffs prove one thing, that there was a lot of bloat within Sony WWS. They need to become a well oiled machine for this gen and I suppose the layoffs are part of the process to achieve that goal. Sony have been synonymous with over-promising and under-delivering in the PS3 era. They can't afford to repeat that this gen, so they need fine tune every studio for the better. I hope those affected can get back on their feet too.

 

[Totobeni]

well..

-SCE London failed with Wonderbook and SingStar is not the big name anymore.
-Guerrilla Cambridge got screwed up working on a troubled system (Vita) and to be fair they never made a successful game.
-Evolution Studios lost their successful series when Sony didn't renew WRC licnese, Motorstorm didn't do well on PS3.

Guerrilla Cambridge need to leave Vita. SCE London Studio need to leave the casual realm and make real games (sport, action like what they used to make before) as for Evolution Studios it's really hard situation because racing market is declined big time (arcade and sim, even NFS, Forza and GT are in big decline) maybe they need to switch genre and make other sort of games.

 

[viveks86]

I think all these layoffs prove one thing, that there was a lot of bloat within Sony WWS. They need to become a well oiled machine for this gen and harsh as it sounds this needs to happen. Sony have been synonymous with over-promising and under-delivering in the PS3 era. They can't afford to repeat that this gen, so they need fine tune every studio for the better. I hope those affected can get back on their feet too.

Agreed

 

[dragonbane]

I'm still here. I can't give any updates on DRIVECLUB other than:

Good to hear. Sorry for confusing your role on DC :/

 

[Vilam]

Sony, what are you doing?

This damn industry...

 

[viveks86]

I'm still here. I can't give any updates on DRIVECLUB other than:

Whoa! Look who showed up. Glad you remember us

 

[Stampy]

just covering my back since I don't see what goes on in all of them

umm, 2 erased as far as I'm aware

So (conjecture)...? (this is listed in no order, I was just filling the blanks)...

Am I missing something?

List of first party PS4 exclusives

• New God of War
• Naughty Dog's second team game (LoU2?)
• Quantic Dream's new IP
• Guerrilla Cambridge game (any hints what this could be?)
• Guerrilla Games RPG
• Media Molecule's new IP
• DriveClub
• Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
• Giant Sparrow's new art game
• GT 7
• Last Guardian
• inFamous: Second Son
• Killzone: Shadow Fall
• Knack
• Some quirky SCEJ game
• SCE Bend Studio - horror game
• SCE London VR game
• MLB 14
• The Order: 1886
• Resogun
• Rime
• Shadow of the Beast
• ???
• Uncharted (PS4)
• CANCELLED
• CANCELLED

 

[Citizen_Insane]

I think all these layoffs prove one thing, that there was a lot of bloat within Sony WWS. They need to become a well oiled machine for this gen and I suppose the layoffs are part of the process to achieve that goal. Sony have been synonymous with over-promising and under-delivering in the PS3 era. They can't afford to repeat that this gen, so they need fine tune every studio for the better. I hope those affected can get back on their feet too.

This is what I've taken away from these layoffs. It's terrible for all the people affected that lost their jobs, but having all of their studios focused and streamlined to make the best possible games can only be for the best. All this means is that Sony wants to stick around for the long run, and the only way to do that is to completely buckle down and get focused on this gen. People seem to forget just how bad of a financial situation Sony as a company is, and they've been getting rid of dead weight for a while now to stay afloat. I truly am sorry for all the people at these studios losing their jobs, though. Hope they find work somewhere soon.

 

[Elios83]

Restructuring is restructuring. I'm sorry for the laid off people but when you're working in the gaming industry you know how it unfortunately works and you implicitly accept it. You know that your work is not safe and relies on constantly meeting time deadlines and quality milestones and on the commercial success of your past project.
These teams have been asked for the past two years to come up with new ideas for the next gen, now it's the right time to review these ideas and decide what's working and will go forward becoming a retail product and what not.
Creating high quality games which can be profitable is clearly the focus. Wasting money in projects that you know are not coming up really well and won't make money is useless, you're just scattering your resources. It happened last gen with The Getaway, Eight Days, Eyedentify and others.
My only complaint is that this ''review'' seems to be affecting mainly the western studios, while the biggest mess is within the japanese studios.

 

[dragonbane]

Must hurt morale at all Sony studios knowing that Sony can't go more than a few days without laying off someone else.

Tough buisness to be in when you're in danger of layoffs when you don't sell 5+ million copies of your game. What a broken industry.

A lot of Sony's games don't sell 5+ million and the studios are still fine. It's probably about general competence and management.

Naughty Dog and Sucker Punch aren't sweating. Santa Monica was much bigger than those 2 which is probably primarily why it was hit with layoffs.

ND is bigger than SSM for a while now.

 

[Citizen_Insane]

My only complaint is that this ''review'' seems to be affecting mainly the western studios, while the biggest mess is within the japanese studios.

Japan studio was actually the first to be rebooted and restructured. Read up about Allan Becker being sent there.

 

[Vire]

Drive Club delayed, layoffs at Evolution and yet development remains "unaffected"?

Bullshit.

Why haven't you shown the game in 4 months then?

 

[boingball]

Not surprised by this. Well, I expected the layoffs at Sucker Punch instead of Evolution (I assumed that they at least waited until Drive Club is finished).

I feel that Sony's strategy has shifted. With the PS3 they had to bring out great first party games to turn the ship around. This might be needed for the Vita as well, but none of their internal devs was interested in the Vita in the first place and Sony has now shifted focus for it, it is just an Indie machine. Indie means of course no first party games. For the PS4 no first party games are needed, it is selling without them. And I believe that will be Sony's strategy for VR as well. Either it sells with third party support or it will be an indie supported VR or maybe not released at all.

tl;dr: The success of the PS4 is destroying the first party studios.

 

[ksdixon]

I heard a rumor of a possibly Syphon Filter PS4 reboot. Has the studio which was supposedly working on that game suffered layoffs/been shut down, or has that project been cancelled outright?

 

[sono]

Why Sony Why ?

 

[JayEH]

I'm betting Evolution gets shutdown after #DRIVECLUB is released.

 

[TomShoe]

Why Sony Why ?

Efficiency. It's cold, but it's business.

 

[1.21Gigawatts]

Drive Club delayed, layoffs at Evolution and yet development remains "unaffected"?

Bullshit.

Why haven't you shown the game in 4 months then?

Because Sony Santa Monica had a game slated for fall 2014 and it was cancelled. The Ps4 is dominating now so it doesn't need Driveclub now.
So they pushed it back to fall. Thatswhy the whole marketing campaign for the game was stopped. Will probably pick up again in a few months.

 

[NullPointer]

as for Evolution Studios it's really hard situation because racing market is declined big time (arcade and sim, even NFS, Forza and GT are in big decline) maybe they need to switch genre and make other sort of games.

This seems like a weird statement to make in general. The latest versions for each of those games came in undercooked and lacking in content. Unless there was a decline when looking at Forza 4 and GT5 and well, I guess NFS: Most Wanted? That one wasn't that great of an NFS either.

I'm betting Evolution gets shutdown after #DRIVECLUB is released.

They always described it as a service oriented game - something that would evolve through updates over time. If they're designing that stuff away now, well then yeah, I'd be worried.

 

[Freeman]

Not surprised by this. Well, I expected the layoffs at Sucker Punch instead of Evolution (I assumed that they at least waited until Drive Club is finished).

I feel that Sony's strategy has shifted. With the PS3 they had to bring out great first party games to turn the ship around. This might be needed for the Vita as well, but none of their internal devs was interested in the Vita in the first place and Sony has now shifted focus for it, it is just an Indie machine. Indie means of course no first party games. For the PS4 no first party games are needed, it is selling without them. And I believe that will be Sony's strategy for VR as well. Either it sells with third party support or it will be an indie supported VR or maybe not released at all.

tl;dr: The success of the PS4 is destroying the first party studios.

They would have to be the most clueless people in the world for this to be true. A successful console should strengthen first party output by the simple fact that they will have a larger install base than previous gen.

 

[RoboPlato]

Because Sony Santa Monica had a game slated for fall 2014 and it was cancelled. The Ps4 is dominating now so it doesn't need Driveclub now.
So they pushed it back to fall. Thatswhy the whole marketing campaign for the game was stopped. Will probably pick up again in a few months.

No way SSM's cancelled project was scheduled for 2014.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

I think all these layoffs prove one thing, that there was a lot of bloat within Sony WWS. They need to become a well oiled machine for this gen and I suppose the layoffs are part of the process to achieve that goal. Sony have been synonymous with over-promising and under-delivering in the PS3 era. They can't afford to repeat that this gen, so they need fine tune every studio for the better. I hope those affected can get back on their feet too.

Good post

 

[RoboPlato]

I think all these layoffs prove one thing, that there was a lot of bloat within Sony WWS. They need to become a well oiled machine for this gen and I suppose the layoffs are part of the process to achieve that goal. Sony have been synonymous with over-promising and under-delivering in the PS3 era. They can't afford to repeat that this gen, so they need fine tune every studio for the better. I hope those affected can get back on their feet too.

I think this is the unfortunate reality as well. Hopefully the culling is done for a while and now they can focus on getting games done.

 

[kinoki]

It's cruel but it's something that happens. Today, at work, we had a meeting about ending a contract with a client because they can't deliver on a product. This will basically put them out of business. But, we can't really factor in that in our choice. They under-delivered. I can only imagine that game studios get bloated too. It's terrible but some times it's needed. Regardless I do hope the people affected land on their feet.

 

[ShinMaruku]

Times are changing. Efficiency is key in AAA games survival.

I think it would be key in all games not just AAA.

These guys should land on their feet since the industry is so incestuous. Or they could make a new studio and up the studio count. Many things can happen.

 

[1.21Gigawatts]

No way SSM's cancelled project was scheduled for 2014.

What do you think? The project started after GoW3. They probably estimated a 4 year dev cycle.
But they knew for quite some time that there will be problems, we would've seen an annoucement last year if the project would've been coming together well.

 

[StealthGoblin]

No way SSM's cancelled project was scheduled for 2014.

Twas March 2015. Their usual slot.

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

They would have to be the most clueless people in the world for this to be true. A successful console should strengthen first party output by the simple fact that they will have a larger install base than previous gen.

It is by far the dumbest narrative that has been gaining traction in this thread. What happens when you're no longer market leader and get all the third party support? Sony can't buy exclusives like Microsoft. They can't play that game.

It honestly just takes a little thought to see why that's a terrible idea.

 

[hodayathink]

No way SSM's cancelled project was scheduled for 2014.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was scheduled for late 2014/early 2015 before the whole rumored "too similar to Destiny, need to retool it" thing happened, which probably would have pushed development back at least 6 months even if it worked.

 

[1.21Gigawatts]

I think all these layoffs prove one thing, that there was a lot of bloat within Sony WWS. They need to become a well oiled machine for this gen and I suppose the layoffs are part of the process to achieve that goal. Sony have been synonymous with over-promising and under-delivering in the PS3 era. They can't afford to repeat that this gen, so they need fine tune every studio for the better. I hope those affected can get back on their feet too.

Well, Sony learned a lot last gen.
They will probably try getting all their studios to the effectivity of NaughtyDog.
Some of their studios were definitely to big. SSM for example.
Some of their studios just were a dead end.(As much as I love Wipeout, it just wasn't selling well...)

I think SCEA und SCEE will be even better this gen as they were last gen.

But Sony needs to get the Japan studios back on track. Last gen the basically weren't there. They released only very few titles compared to the resources they had.
Sony needs to fix this.


These layoff may sound like bad news, but in the long run I think the WWS will come out much stronger than they were.

 

[mreddie]

2013: Sony wins back the Game of Thrones.
2014: Sony's Red Wedding.

 

[Sid]

Now will they be rebooting Guerilla Amsterdam since Shadow Fall is a sub par game and sold well because of being a launch title?

 

[TIMtationX]

......As long as there is enough people left at Evolution to make a PS4 Motorstorm, then I'm fine.

 

[dragonbane]

If there's one thing that Sony could probably do better, it's technological synergy at really low-levels.

I may be wrong, but it really seems that outside of franchises being handed over to an external developer, Sony's first-party don't really share assets, or congregate around shared technologies at a very 'easily shareable level.'

Almost every Sony first-party pretty much run their own proprietary in-house engine for their games... Great for individuality, but that also means whatever ND makes can't be easily taken by another first-party to break/rebuild into something else easily.

They actually do this a lot. You can even find it in the Special Thanks of their games like GG thanking Quantic Dream in KZ SF.

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

That's all he does. He even wants to close studios just because he disliked a single game of them. He is serious too.

The lack of announced 1st & 2nd games could be seen as evidence

We know about a lot of stuff that is in development, but not announced yet. So nope.

 

[RoboPlato]

Now will they be rebooting Guerilla Amsterdam since Shadow Fall is a sub par game and sold well because of being a launch title?

Probably no layoffs since the game sold well but I bet there's a lot of internal pressure for the new IP to deliver.

 

[Bundy]

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.

If you haven't been paying attention: Both statements are completely false.
Good job, buddy.

 

[ShinMaruku]

Well, Sony learned a lot last gen.
They will probably try getting all their studios to the effectivity of NaughtyDog.
Some of their studios were definitely to big. SSM for example.
Some of their studios just were a dead end.(As much as I love Wipeout, it just wasn't selling well...)

I think SCEA und SCEE will be even better this gen as they were last gen.

But Sony needs to get the Japan studios back on track. Last gen the basically weren't there. They released only very few titles compared to the resources they had.
Sony needs to fix this.


These layoff may sound like bad news, but in the long run I think the WWS will come out much stronger than they were.

I agree. Sometimes you have to pare down studios so they become efficient. The workers can find other jobs and enrich those environments. They also could have folded them into a middle ware team for all the studios as well keeping that pool of workers in the loop as well.

 

[sirap]

On a personal level it sucks that so many of my fellow developers are getting shafted.

But from a business point of view this is good. Suckerpunch is a relatively small team and they came out with Second Son, so it's possible to create AAA games with a lean budget.

 

[eddfromtheriver]

Can I pm a mod so I can get clearance ? Don't wanna get roasted again.

Clear the birdie!!!