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Sony officially cuts ties with Superbot; All-Stars DLC now handled by Santa Monica

vg260

Member
It's a bummer this games seems to have been such a mess. Believe it or not there are some of us that wanted a Brawl-esque game, but are sick to death of Mario and co. I want to like Brawl, but I don't see myself getting a Nintendo console, and the characters do nothing for me anymore, even though I grew up on Donkey Kong and Mario. This was probably the only alternative. I'd love to see something with Sega characters, as the cast of Sonic Transformed I find much more appealing than Mario Kart. I guess it's not really dead yet, though.
 

VICI0US

Member
Just a heads up to the gaming industry: Do not put DmC Dante in your game, it wont do so hot....

dante-dmc-fuck-you.jpg
 

Loofy

Member
I guess that was the problem. Sony called it All Stars but didnt put an All Star developer on the project. You have to wonder if Square and Activision might have been more responsive if Naughty Dog or SSM were on the task

Maybe we will be icky enough to see SSM continue the franchise
ND and SSM would have asked to have longer than a year to make this game. Pretty sure it was budget that killed it.
 
You mean "Senko no Ronde"? Never played it/don't know much about it. Apparently it is very good. "Versus Shooters" is a sort of a genre, not a very populated one though.

EDIT: Unless you mean some Touhou fighting game. I've never heard of such a thing existing, yet I know with 100% certainty it exists.

There are two "official" Touhou fighters. One is very good, and one is very bad.

Immaterial and Missing Power is the good one. It is extremely projectile heavy, and you can dash through all projectiles without taking damage. When you dash you can't block, and perhaps moreso than any other fighting game, it's all about controlling space; getting your opponent to dash towards you and then opening up with melee moves. There's really nothing like it.
 

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
It's a bummer this games seems to have been such a mess. Believe it or not there are some of us that wanted a Brawl-esque game, but are sick to death of Mario and co. I want to like Brawl, but I don't see myself getting a Nintendo console, and the characters do nothing for me anymore, even though I grew up on Donkey Kong and Mario. This was probably the only alternative. I'd love to see something with Sega characters, as the cast of Sonic Transformed I find much more appealing than Mario Kart. I guess it's not really dead yet, though.

The core of the game is pretty awesome, but various netcode problems, balancing, and a few glitches have been a pain in the ass. If you're a fan of fighter though, do yourself a favor and get the game./
 

FyreWulff

Member
It's not just that Nintendo's characters are better known, although they are, a lot so. It's that they work within the same game. Nintendo whore out their characters all the time, they're happy to reinvent them visually for any artistic direction a product takes. They're not distinct personalities either. You can make them visually play together well because they're not a fixed image in the players head. You see two wildly different depictions of Mario, and they're both Mario, the way two wildly different shades of green are still green, you see Nathan Drake look anything other than like Nathan Drake as rendered in Uncharted, and it's really stupid.

Nintendo also did a better job converting all the characters into a middle-ground similiar look for 64, Melee and Brawl. Better art direction.

Superbot probably had to juggle so many third party branding interests that pulling something together at the art level like that was probably not very possible. Such is the flexibility when you own almost all the characters in your game.
 
So bomba also?
I guess so, depends on how much time you want to give. The marketing push was considerable and it didn't really amount to a huge success. I don't think they struck gold with this one.

Much less then that for both combined.
Ouch, that's even worse than I expected.

Cutting all ties. Ouch. I know it bombed, but not unexpected. SSM doing DLC, what is SuperBot gonna do?
Hope that a publisher hooks them up with a deal. They have an award winning team!
which only game bombed hard
 

spwolf

Member
it is simple business really... either you make desirable product and make a lot of money or you dont and you dont :). Console gaming is turning a lot like Hollywood, big hits are big

people will move to other projects and good ones will always surface somewhere else.
 

shink

Member
Wow I didn't expect this so suddenly. I thought they'd might finish DLC and then never speak of PSASBR again.

Hope the studio finds its feet.

Edit: Please give Bluepoint studios something to do. They made an excellent Vita version of Battle Royale.
 

Mael

Member
Looking from afar, I can tell you that the game was panned for the lack of content here.
Seriously from what I've seen the interface was barebones.
The game part is important in Smash games but seriously it's not the n64 era anymore and that little content didn't even fly that high at the time.
I'm not talking about the game content but the art bonus and all the stuffs they cram into the game as well as the interface.
Could have been successful but not like that clearly.
 
The game seemed like it didn't have a big budget and that largely falls on Sony. However, the budget becomes irrelevant when they couldn't flesh out their roster with classic Playstation icons like Lara Croft, Crash, Cloud, Snake, etc.
 

Bojanglez

The Amiga Brotherhood
wow, fuck you Sony

Why?

They didn't own the studio, they simply didn't have any plans to make another game with them. I really loved PSABR, but one game is not enough to justify a whole studio. I would assume Superbot will have known that too and would have other irons in the fire.
 

leroidys

Member
I eventually came around on PSASBR, but it really was a pretty epic fuckup. The game is just nowhere near where it could have been.

I really wish sony/superbot would have tried to do their own thing. Look at what SE managed to do with Dissidia. Smash is up there in my top franchises of all time, but its such a high bar to try and compete with. Using the playstation characters in a 3D environment, I think, would have led to much more natural gameplay.

As far as the closure goes, I sincerely hope that all those affected land on their feet. Really. I don't find myself being angry with sony over this though, the game simply didn't sell at all, and they are a business.
 

NBtoaster

Member
I see a lot of talk about the roster being the problem, but really it came down to this: They made a game no-one wanted.

Plenty of people have wanted a Playstation smash, but with Crash, Spyro, Lara Croft, Snake, Cloud, actual (former) icons. Not new Dante, Big Daddy, or two Coles.
 

V_Ben

Banned
So... Do we know if any of the DLC characters Superbot was working on have been canned? If they were still working on characters...
 

Drencrom

Member
So... Do we know if any of the DLC characters Superbot was working on have been canned? If they were still working on characters...

Kat, Emmett and the new stage are still coming feb 12th

Dunno about DLC beyond that, hopefully some more from SSM
 

Endo Punk

Member
Next Gen:

1. Sony Santa Monica developing.
2. Must be 3D because Playstation paved the way for 3D console games.
3. Priority to get characters people actually associate with PlayStation like Snake, Crash and Cloud.
4. Plenty of meaningful nostalgia driven content and videos.
5. Lots of fun modes and easter eggs like PS1 filter mode where everyone looks blocky lol.

I am not going to give up on a PlayStation Battle Opera!
 

Fersis

It is illegal to Tag Fish in Tag Fishing Sanctuaries by law 38.36 of the GAF Wildlife Act
Maybe they can join Lab Zero. I think Seth could be a really good game designer.
S-kill is a GD in Santa Monica so he probably is going to work on the DLC characters.
 

Mognet

Member
Next Gen:

1. Sony Santa Monica developing.
2. Must be 3D because Playstation paved the way for 3D console games.
3. Priority to get characters people actually associate with PlayStation like Snake, Crash and Cloud.
4. Plenty of meaningful nostalgia driven content and videos.
5. Lots of fun modes and easter eggs like PS1 filter mode where everyone looks blocky lol.

I am not going to give up on a PlayStation Battle Opera!

One can only wish...
 

Twinduct

Member
Pretty sad to see it coming to this. Oh well, Sony slowly cutting the fat I guess. This coming Gen is gonna be brutal.

Which reminds me, didn't someone close to Garnett Lee work at Superbot? (Swore it might be his GF). Weekend confirm should be fun this week.
 

Zen

Banned
Why?

They didn't own the studio, they simply didn't have any plans to make another game with them. I really loved PSABR, but one game is not enough to justify a whole studio. I would assume Superbot will have known that too and would have other irons in the fire.

'Cutting all ties' with them while there was still upcoming DLC planned for the game beyond the feb 12th stuff seems a bit more than just having completed the project.
 
This game was sent to die, it's creation still baffles me I mean let's analyze this :

They made it to be their equivalent of Super Smash Bros, but here is the thing, SSB's success based entirely on nostalgia, people play as these characters because they appeal to all the masses, it's all about choosing your own lovable character and kickass, everybody knows and loves characters like Mario, Link, Samus, Sonic etc, and they threw some rather less known characters like the Earthbound characters.

However in PASBT, nobody cares about characters like Radec, Sly, Jak, Fat princess, Nariko and Cole. Almost all the roaster is characters that either new and had little impact, or old but failed to resonate to people. Sony overestimated the power of their IPs.
 
Just out of curiosity has there been any externally developed Sony published games over the last 2 years that didnt bomb and then Sony cut all ties with the developer after?


Eat Sleep play, lightbox, superbot, Q games were all dropped

Sony also dropped Remember Me and it went to Capcom.

Are there any Sony published externally developed games for ps3/vita in the works anymore? Insomniac might have something in the works I guess.

I wonder if they are even working with any independent developers for ps4 exclusives since from the outside it seems they are trying to get out of any 2nd party deals as quick as they can.

I hope Sanzaru is planning for this now and has another deal with another publisher lined up.
 
Just out of curiosity has there been any externally developed Sony published games over the last 2 years that didnt bomb and then Sony cut all ties with the developer after?


Eat Sleep play, lightbox, superbot, Q games were all dropped

Sony also dropped Remember Me and it went to Capcom.

Are there any Sony published externally developed games for ps3/vita in the works anymore? Insomniac might have something in the works I guess.

I wonder if they are even working with any independent developers for ps4 exclusives since from the outside it seems they are trying to get out of any 2nd party deals as quick as they can.

I hope Sanzaru is planning for this now and has another deal with another publisher lined up.

QD's Beyond is the obvious answer. Heavy Rain was both a critical/commercial success. Supermassive is doing Until Dawn. Ready At Dawn is making a next gen game likely for PS4.

Saying that the last couple of years has been terrible for both 1st and 2nd party studios. Lots of closures and bombers.
 
This is an absolute shame. The game was great fun, and I was seriously looking forward to seeing how the second game would have expanded on it. Remember, Super Smash did not come into its own until Melee
 
However in PASBT, nobody cares about characters like Radec, Sly, Jak, Fat princess, Nariko and Cole. Almost all the roaster is characters that either new and had little impact, or old but failed to resonate to people. Sony overestimated the power of their IPs.

Speak for yourself. If Jak hadn't been in the game, it would have been a crying shame. I agree lack of Snake/Cloud/Lara/Crash is baffling though. Spyro I can understand in a way, it's not like Activision needs the exposure.
 
From everything I saw, it looked pretty crummy. I am willing to try it out for like less than $10, but anything more seems like a waste unless you have 4 people around all the time to play it with, and even that, it still seems like a crummy smash bros. It sucks because Sony was pushing this pretty hard along with that Seth from Capcom jumping ship for this company and hyping it up to the point where he had to know he was lying himself on how it was competitive tournament worthy and such.

Anyway, sorry to hear about the news. I love what Sony is doing by going out and finding these smaller dev teams and such and bringing them into the spotlight by funding them or giving them exclusivity to Playstation Network Store. I am just surprised that Sony couldn't find another fit for these developers or the developers themselves didn't have another project that they could get together and show them.
 
However in PASBT, nobody cares about characters like Radec, Sly, Jak, Fat princess, Nariko and Cole. Almost all the roaster is characters that either new and had little impact, or old but failed to resonate to people. Sony overestimated the power of their IPs.
Had Jak & Sly not been in the game, I wouldn't have even given the game a second look :/
 
And there have been so, so, so, so many. SonyGAF acted like the game was Third Coming of Christ, the Second being The Last of Us.

They act like that with every announcement, but in the end PS3 still has no games.

I am not serious in the slightest, I just felt like being cheeky
 
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