digoutyoursoul
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[Kotaku]: Sony’s PS5-Era Studio Acquisition Spree Has Been A Disaster
- Thread starter adamsapple
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FoxMcChief
Gold Member
Or the higher ups that let it all happen. But no one ever holds those types accountable
xanaum
Member
I've worked in management and business for over 20 years, and this is basic stuff.
The problem wasn't buying the studios. The problem was handing them all over to a clueless, incompetent central leadership with zero strategic backbone to control projects, filter bad ideas, and demand real results.
This soft European babysitting culture mixed with Hermen Hulst's low-energy cuckhold leadership is actively rotting the legacy Sony spent decades building under the Japanese model.
Sony needs to fire the entire top first-party leadership and rebuild something like Shuhei Yoshida's SIE Worldwide Studios. It's so painfully obvious that the fact they haven't done it yet is beyond pathetic.
The problem wasn't buying the studios. The problem was handing them all over to a clueless, incompetent central leadership with zero strategic backbone to control projects, filter bad ideas, and demand real results.
This soft European babysitting culture mixed with Hermen Hulst's low-energy cuckhold leadership is actively rotting the legacy Sony spent decades building under the Japanese model.
Sony needs to fire the entire top first-party leadership and rebuild something like Shuhei Yoshida's SIE Worldwide Studios. It's so painfully obvious that the fact they haven't done it yet is beyond pathetic.
diffusionx
Gold Member
This is what happens when you have a CEO who doesnt play games making these decisions. And then replace him with a total dipshit retard. We should have all seen them falling for Jade Raymond's latest scam as a flashing warning sign.
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splattered
Member
I agree hasn't gone well but they aren't exiting the market. Not yet. Maybe someday soon. Next gen may be their last gen depending on how things go.
RafterXL
Gold Member
Yep, which makes the shuttering of Bluepoint even more ridiculous. Sony has a half a dozen bloated ass development teams that could have lost a few people, or this, dead in the water, development team, or even waited a couple of months until they need to restructure the massively failed acquisition called Bungie. But, no, they closed a 70 developer studio that's responsible for, easily, one of the best first party games they've released in years.
OMG, don't remind me of the "organic growth" vomit that used to get tossed around all the time.
Loomy
Thinks Microaggressions are Real
Is this really a disaster though?
Almost every tech company has been laying off people the last 4 years.
Let me give it a try:
Almost every tech company has been laying off people the last 4 years.
Let me give it a try:
Not sure why these ones are on the list
Firesprite I'm legit surprised are still open, but they're probably also the only first party studio with VR experience.
This is still somewhat unclear. I'm expecting a Schreier article in a few months detailing what happened
Always been a support studio. I doubt anyone is expecting them to ship anything
Here's some perspective: They likely didn't start development on Fairgames at least 2 years after Bungie started development on Marathon.
Bungie was a mess before the acquisition. Let's see what happens after the integration.
These are the only 2 duds on this entire list.
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Made my favorite of the Sony games to be ported to PC - Ratchet and Clank. But they seem to be stuck now pumping out very similar branded superhero games. Hopefully Wolverine lets them stretch their legs and isn't just a reskin of spiderman.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Bungie is still 50/50. It's up in the air.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Sony did also make alot of smart moves during the PS5 Gen too. There success isn't due to MS failures. It's not like people had to buy a PS5. They could have just bought a PC or purchased nothing.
![L*][*N*K](/data/avatars/m/842/842515.jpg?1779351226){kind=avatar}
Tobimacoss
Member
MS acquisitions haven't been a disaster, nothing compared to Sony.
Their acquisitions were smart and strategic, even if some releases may not have been as good as they wanted. They now own some of the biggest IPs in gaming.
Call of Duty, Diablo, OverWatch, Fallout, Warcraft, Doom, Elder Scrolls, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Wolfenstein, Candy Crush.
Only IP Sony ended up getting was Destiny, Sunset Overdrive, and Marathon.
ZehDon
Banned
Sony's smart moves are basically making another PlayStation and launching with games for it. Man, what a revolutionary vision. That sits in stark contrast to Microsoft who launched an Xbox and basically forgot to make any games for it whilst telling people to stop buying games on their platform altogether. Sony's success in the PS5 generation comes down to a decent piece of kit - Cerny doesn't miss - and competitors who didn't bother to show up, handing Sony the market.
I collect VHS tapes
Gold Member
We will know in a few weeks
bender
What time is it?
It's kind of a weird take anyway. Sony's been successful since their original console and even with their biggest missteps still outsold Microsoft's most successful console who has always had their ceiling limited because they can't make any hay in Asian regions. Nintendo's home consoles have struggled since Sony decided to come on the scene with the exception of the Wii which captured an audience who was never likely and do not stick around beyond that system and even then was a zig to Sony's and Microsoft's zag. However you want to define the Switch (hybrid, console, portable), I'd still consider it a zag.
fallingdove
Member
Jim Ryan was absolute rubbish. Sony promoting him to head of PlayStation was a massive fuck up.
Thebonehead
Gold Member
Source: Kotaku
KOTAKU
KO-TA-FUCKING-TU
KOTAKU
KO-TA-FUCKING-TU
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Unknown Soldier
Banned
It all started going bad after Sony acquired Bungie, I wonder why???
Bojji
Gold Member
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
I play this at work a few times a week
So yeah, I'm not going to act like they've done nothing. Some of yall miss the details.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
How is that a bad post? Whatever happened to authenticity mattering in games? Devs fly 5,000 miles to a remote island to get 10,000 photos of the landscape, animals, and insects so that it looks and feels real in the game. Yet, do something similar to black people's hair is a problem?
TheThreadsThatBindUs
Member
The acquisitions were not a problem (outside of Bungie whose leads literally lied to get a payout).
Neither is their GaaS ambition on its own a problem. The problem has been the alienation of their core playerbase with their big GaaS investments.
Sony is a company known for making great SP games. So quite why they thought exclusively PvP GaaS games were the correct thing to gamble almost all of their new GaaS studio acquisitions on, is beyond me.
Their biggest GaaS game, HellDivers 2 is an exclusively PvE game. That pretty much tells you all you need to know about where Sony shot themselves in the foot and what they should have been investing in.
Neither is their GaaS ambition on its own a problem. The problem has been the alienation of their core playerbase with their big GaaS investments.
Sony is a company known for making great SP games. So quite why they thought exclusively PvP GaaS games were the correct thing to gamble almost all of their new GaaS studio acquisitions on, is beyond me.
Their biggest GaaS game, HellDivers 2 is an exclusively PvE game. That pretty much tells you all you need to know about where Sony shot themselves in the foot and what they should have been investing in.
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lughnasadh123
Member
I don't see Sony and Xbox's acquisition wars in a post-covid retraction would end anything but badly. What is even sustainable in an industry where casual players only buy a few games a year, big studios need massive margins to cover their bloated production, indies are popping out faster than wet gremlins, and live service games just keep retaining players for years or even decades.
midnightAI
Member
Oh, yeh, Sony is definitely responsible for the GaaS push, in a way I cant blame them though, all you need is one huge GaaS game and you have a real money maker, the problem is most fail, but to have that many on the go was a little weird but at least they appear to be course correcting (at the expense of studios unfortunately)
Sony are in a bit of a rock and a hard place with several 'gamers' though, on one hand they don't want them making the thing they are good at; single player third person action adventure movie like games, but at the same time berate them when they at least try to do something different. Me, I love single player movie like games so I can't wait for the likes of Intergalactic and whatever Corey is working on, but if you go on YouTube or even on here and they get slaughtered as soon as a teaser is released (when the games are eventually released luckily sense usually prevails as was seen with Yotei but even then you have stragglers/grifters telling people the game is woke or whatever)
ZehDon
Banned
I remember doing that with my PS Vita and my PS4. Good times. Some of y'all have the memory of gold fishes.I play this at work a few times a week
So yeah, I'm not going to act like they've done nothing. Some of yall miss the details.
alabtrosMyster
Member
You're nuts if you think Phil's legacy even compares to anything going on at Sony.
I mean, how many studios did they close without them even being able to make a single game? Right after they bought them... not only that, but games being released unfinished, etc.
There is nothing like Xbox since 2013.
Fbh
Gold Member
Current Sony leadership is completely clueless. You could have 10 studios pitch games to Hermen Hulst and my grandma and they'd probably have about the same chance of actually picking something good.
They are just raking in the profits because their predecessors did a good job while their main competitor was completely fucking up, so they inherited a products that's basically the default device in its category.
They can afford to constantly fuck up because they have the default home console platform to play COD, Fortnite, Genshin Impact, Roblox, EA sports games, etc. And soon GTA too.
Is it though? If their newly acquired studios can't give them the GAAS hits they so desperately want they aren't just going to give up. They'll put even more of their traditional single player studios working on GAAS.
They are just raking in the profits because their predecessors did a good job while their main competitor was completely fucking up, so they inherited a products that's basically the default device in its category.
They can afford to constantly fuck up because they have the default home console platform to play COD, Fortnite, Genshin Impact, Roblox, EA sports games, etc. And soon GTA too.
Is it though? If their newly acquired studios can't give them the GAAS hits they so desperately want they aren't just going to give up. They'll put even more of their traditional single player studios working on GAAS.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Dont get me wrong, but this is being a graded on a curve. Doing what they did with Bluepoint was so festively stupid that they deserve a failing grade.
Mr Moose
Gold Member
Bluepoint is the only stupid studio closure here. Stupid cunts at Sony chasing the GaaSlop is the reason they closed.
Has your opinion changed since Phil and Sarah have gone?
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PeteBull
Gold Member
One one side i gotta agree with kotaku, on the other i feel like once again they trying to create false narrative naming it as era-studio-aquisition- spree.
In reality it was modern audience(woke) GAAS games era, ND wasnt aquired recently yet them making GAAS resulted in same thing- wasted years of devtime and hundreds of milions of usd budget, other studios too.
Only solid GAAS if u can call it was helldivers2, and devstudio was smart enough to target 95% of the audience that plays this genre- males.
Same with GT7 which was xgen and being cars game, almost all of its audience are/were guys, if those 2 succesful games targeted modern audience(women) like all other sony failed gaas games- they would fail too.
Hell another succesful GAAS game, this time sports genre aka MLB again targetted male audience- since we- males actually buy games full price at launch, and guess what it didnt flop
in 3 weeks we will know if marathon can be salvadged which would mean not only attract but even more importantly retain some sizeable chunk of playerbase(since helldivers 2 with its playerbase was massive success maybe it only needs half or third of that to break even/be moderately succesfull? Total guess here since no clue about game's budget and how many ppl will keep working on it after launch).
If that fails too u know its modern audience target+ gaas combo being culprit, aka publisher/devteams flying to close to the sun/going full retard.
In reality it was modern audience(woke) GAAS games era, ND wasnt aquired recently yet them making GAAS resulted in same thing- wasted years of devtime and hundreds of milions of usd budget, other studios too.
Only solid GAAS if u can call it was helldivers2, and devstudio was smart enough to target 95% of the audience that plays this genre- males.
Same with GT7 which was xgen and being cars game, almost all of its audience are/were guys, if those 2 succesful games targeted modern audience(women) like all other sony failed gaas games- they would fail too.
Hell another succesful GAAS game, this time sports genre aka MLB again targetted male audience- since we- males actually buy games full price at launch, and guess what it didnt flop
in 3 weeks we will know if marathon can be salvadged which would mean not only attract but even more importantly retain some sizeable chunk of playerbase(since helldivers 2 with its playerbase was massive success maybe it only needs half or third of that to break even/be moderately succesfull? Total guess here since no clue about game's budget and how many ppl will keep working on it after launch).
If that fails too u know its modern audience target+ gaas combo being culprit, aka publisher/devteams flying to close to the sun/going full retard.
LavitzSlambert
Member
I've been saying it for a long time, Sony would have benefitted from a Phil Spencer. I wonder how his career would have went if he was working at an organization like Sony or Nintendo, and not Nadella's Microsoft.
splattered
Member
Not sure... I dont think they are exiting the market intentionally but I think they are on an Ai obsessed path to destruction.
If they do end up closing down or selling off the Xbox division to be able to allocate more resources to ai development I wouldn't be surprised at this point.
Mr Moose
Gold Member
I fucking hate this AI nonsense.
I think they are heading for the MicroSoft Gaming route without Xbox and I am not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, fuck Xbox and MicroSoft, but on the other hand, that's a lot of good IPs that could be ruined.
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