• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The hell is going on with Sony game studios?

Ishan

Junior Member
Yep. Spend more money on their big franchises and end their less profitable ones. Almost every single other big publisher is doing this as well. AAA gaming is getting more expensive. Gamers expectations are increasing. So team sizes and budgets have to go up in size as well. Sony is shifting to larger games, and smaller downloadable titles.

sonys risk taking strategy is what gave us last of us ... otherwise nd would be a uncharted studio like bungie was a halo studio for ms. so thanks but no thanks. I prefer sony taking risks as a first party dev. IF that means I'll get 3 games instead of 4 a year . I am okay with that. We have enough "mega franchises" ... or they run the risk of becoming like nintendo where every new idea is shoehorned into some existing franchise ... again not what I want.
 

Sacrimoni

Banned
All of these talks will die down once Sony shows some more reveals at E3.

I'm curious what they could show though, given the layoffs, exodus of talent and their ongoing financial troubles

They haven't maintained their first and second party studios like Nintendo and they haven't got the third party initiatives of Microsoft

More indies? Possibly something from one of the handheld-oriented studios?
 

TheLight

Member
All of this just seems pretty consecutive. There is definitely something we don't know.

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is curious.
 
sonys risk taking strategy is what gave us last of us ... otherwise nd would be a uncharted studio like bungie was a halo studio for ms. so thanks but no thanks. I prefer sony taking risks as a first party dev. IF that means I'll get 3 games instead of 4 a year . I am okay with that. We have enough "mega franchises" ... or they run the risk of becoming like nintendo where every new idea is shoehorned into some existing franchise ... again not what I want.

tlou is risky?

last i checked, the number 1 tv show in north america is the walking dead.

let's not pretend tlou is not like the walking dead. it is a lot like it.

now, if they made tlou like "the road", the movie they seemed to point out the most all the time (instead of walking dead, which they barely mention), would it have sold the way it did?
 
I'm curious what they could show though, given the layoffs, exodus of talent and their ongoing financial troubles

They haven't maintained their first and second party studios like Nintendo and they haven't got the third party initiatives of Microsoft

More indies? Possibly something from one of the handheld-oriented studios?
Troll post?
 

daman824

Member
sonys risk taking strategy is what gave us last of us ... otherwise nd would be a uncharted studio like bungie was a halo studio for ms. so thanks but no thanks. I prefer sony taking risks as a first party dev. IF that means I'll get 3 games instead of 4 a year . I am okay with that. We have enough "mega franchises" ... or they run the risk of becoming like nintendo where every new idea is shoehorned into some existing franchise ... again not what I want.
They let naughty dog make a new ip. That's not really a risk.
 

Shinta

Banned
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is curious.

We're up to at least FIVE now, just counting project leads. Not even counting other lay-offs and restructuring. Lead of inFamous SS, lead of Uncharted 4, 2nd lead of Uncharted 4, lead of Drive Club, lead of God of War.

Like I said, if this was MS, people would be going completely ballistic.
 

StoopKid

Member
I'm curious what they could show though, given the layoffs, exodus of talent and their ongoing financial troubles

They haven't maintained their first and second party studios like Nintendo and they haven't got the third party initiatives of Microsoft

More indies? Possibly something from one of the handheld-oriented studios?

Some of these post just make me smh
 

Bundy

Banned
I'm curious what they could show though, given the layoffs, exodus of talent and their ongoing financial troubles

They haven't maintained their first and second party studios like Nintendo and they haven't got the third party initiatives of Microsoft

More indies? Possibly something from one of the handheld-oriented studios?
Thank god for SONY having more Tripple A teams than MS or Ninty.
 

TheLight

Member
We're up to at least FIVE now, just counting project leads. Not even counting other lay-offs and restructuring. Lead of inFamous SS, lead of Uncharted 4, 2nd lead of Uncharted 4, lead of Drive Club, lead of God of War.

Like I said, if this was MS, people would be going completely ballistic.

Something is definitely going on or something bigger is coming.
 

Lingitiz

Member
I'm curious what they could show though, given the layoffs, exodus of talent and their ongoing financial troubles

They haven't maintained their first and second party studios like Nintendo and they haven't got the third party initiatives of Microsoft

More indies? Possibly something from one of the handheld-oriented studios?

Off the top of my head, there's quite a few of their internal studios that have yet to show off what they're making that could realistically show up.

Guerilla's new IP
SSM Cory Barlog's team
Polyphony Digital - GT6 PS4 port or something else
Sony Bend's horror game
Japan Studio's newest games (they make smaller titles now so the turnaround will be fast).
Media Molecule is due to show something off. Probably VR heavy.
The Order 1886, Driveclub, Uncharted, and the indie collabs from Gamescom last year will probably show up too.

That's a pretty solid lineup IMO.

We're up to at least FIVE now, just counting project leads. Not even counting other lay-offs and restructuring. Lead of inFamous SS, lead of Uncharted 4, 2nd lead of Uncharted 4, lead of Drive Club, lead of God of War.

Like I said, if this was MS, people would be going completely ballistic.

That already happened a few years ago when MS closed FASA and Ensemble, Rare lost all their original talent, Bungie went independent, Molyneux and others left Lionhead, etc.
 

Mr. X

Member
They took too long to can people and games.

ND has a couple people gassed up.

And multiple job offers that couldn't be refused during a time where Sony mostly can't match or better the offer.
 
We're up to at least FIVE now, just counting project leads. Not even counting other lay-offs and restructuring. Lead of inFamous SS, lead of Uncharted 4, 2nd lead of Uncharted 4, lead of Drive Club, lead of God of War.

Like I said, if this was MS, people would be going completely ballistic.

image.php


You know me. I don't see the connection between two dead cats and a murdered woman... But I'm from Texas...
 
We're up to at least FIVE now, just counting project leads. Not even counting other lay-offs and restructuring. Lead of inFamous SS, lead of Uncharted 4, 2nd lead of Uncharted 4, lead of Drive Club, lead of God of War.

Like I said, if this was MS, people would be going completely ballistic.

I want to respond to this, but not the "MS vs Sony" bit, which always sounds ridiculous.

But we know a little about the situations for each

inFamous is a completed game.
Driveclub is nearly complete, and we know from a friend on GAF the person left for personal reasons.
GoW dude, we know was part of an unsuccessful project.
The only one is Uncharted which sounds like artistic differences. And given the near "rock star" status of Naughty Dog suddenly, those differences can occur.

In creative fields people move around, you're only young once.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
The world isn't falling apart like some might think and I couldn't really say it much better than mortimer did. Some are looking into things as if there's trouble there but these things happen.

We're up to at least FIVE now, just counting project leads. Not even counting other lay-offs and restructuring. Lead of inFamous SS, lead of Uncharted 4, 2nd lead of Uncharted 4, lead of Drive Club, lead of God of War.

Like I said, if this was MS, people would be going completely ballistic.

I got news for you, people are going ballistic over this and it's not some end of the world drama. Take your persecution approach elsewhere.
 

AniHawk

Member
going from famousmortimer's posts, it sounds like there's awful management at sony wws. those things shouldn't actually be problems. especially all at once.
 
They haven't maintained their first and second party studios like Nintendo and they haven't got the third party initiatives of Microsoft


Microsoft has a great track record of maintaining developers.. an example would be Rare, right? What third party initiatives can you name?
 
I'm curious what they could show though, given the layoffs, exodus of talent and their ongoing financial troubles

They haven't maintained their first and second party studios like Nintendo and they haven't got the third party initiatives of Microsoft

More indies? Possibly something from one of the handheld-oriented studios?

What?

Sony has more than enough 1st and 2nd party studios
 

Bundy

Banned
Off the top of my head, there's quite a few of their internal studios that have yet to show off what they're making that could realistically show up.

Guerilla's new IP
SSM Cory Barlog's team
Polyphony Digital - GT6 PS4 port or something else
Sony Bend's horror game
Japan Studio's newest games (they make smaller titles now so the turnaround will be fast).
Media Molecule is due to show something off. Probably VR heavy.
The Order 1886, Driveclub, Uncharted, and the indie collabs from Gamescom last year will probably show up too.

That's a pretty solid lineup IMO.
You're gonna see Cory's game in... 2 or 3 years maybe.
 

Sacrimoni

Banned
Guerilla's new IP
SSM Cory Barlog's team
Polyphony Digital - GT6 PS4 port or something else
Sony Bend's horror game
Japan Studio's newest games (they make smaller titles now so the turnaround will be fast).
Media Molecule is due to show something off. Probably VR heavy.
The Order 1886, Driveclub, Uncharted, and the indie collabs from Gamescom last year will probably show up too.

That's a pretty solid lineup IMO.

That is pretty good, although it's a bit of a shame that sony seem to have abandoned handheld gaming

They've got some catching up to do so more power to them
 
They let naughty dog make a new ip. That's not really a risk.

I really don't get this. If Neil and Bruce had just made another Uncharted people would've just said that Sony was playing it safe and just continuing to bank on an existing IP. But they allow them to make a new IP and that's somehow not a risk. Making a AAA new IP is risky no matter what. Then you throw in the fact that they did it at the tail end of an already long generation.

We're up to at least FIVE now, just counting project leads. Not even counting other lay-offs and restructuring. Lead of inFamous SS, lead of Uncharted 4, 2nd lead of Uncharted 4, lead of Drive Club, lead of God of War.

Like I said, if this was MS, people would be going completely ballistic.

Are you telling me people aren't going ballistic?

What the hell is going on with Sony studios?

March 2014 has been a bad month for Sony World Wide Studios

There are two more threads along the same theme that were made (one of which was locked), but I can't seem to find them.
 
We're up to at least FIVE now, just counting project leads. Not even counting other lay-offs and restructuring. Lead of inFamous SS, lead of Uncharted 4, 2nd lead of Uncharted 4, lead of Drive Club, lead of God of War.

Like I said, if this was MS, people would be going completely ballistic.

Two of those leads failed badly (one of which was replaced and the other Sony tried to put on a project in a lesser role), one left for better money who wasn't the studio's best director to begin with, one left after a brief stint with the studio, and one who had creative difference with the team.

How many leads have left Bungie? Are people crying about the end of Bungie?
 

Shinta

Banned
Take your persecution approach elsewhere.
You're not a mod, so just post what you want and I'll post what I want, thanks.

And you really misread my intentions completely. I'm not at all a MS fan, and I have zero intention of ever buying an Xbone.

Are you telling me people aren't going ballistic?

That was part of my point, yes. I see a lot of people rationalizing this as not even being anything more than routine housekeeping. That seems pretty ridiculous to me to downplay it to that degree.
 

Gestault

Member
sonys risk taking strategy is what gave us last of us ...

I need to be completely frank here, underlying quality aside: Very little about the make-up of Last of Us was "risky" in terms of the mass market. A high production-value, third-person shooter set in a post-apocalyptic zombie universe is not risky. Action framework evolved from games like Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War, in the form of the Uncharted action and climbing mechanics is not a risky venture. Gritty, conflict-torn settings with prominent, traditionally attractive male leads shooting guns is not a risky venture.

What this that team managed to include alongside that framework is to be commended, but to say the presented elements of that game are anything but common market-pandering is mis-remembering the product.
 
two threads and 400 posts on the recent state of sony wws doesn't seem outrageous.

Four threads, and that doesn't take into account all of the doom and gloom that goes on within the threads specifically about layoffs/departures. For example, I thought we moved past the "Sony doesn't have money" meme a long time ago.
 

Wartari

Banned
Four threads, and that doesn't take into account all of the doom and gloom that goes on within the threads specifically about layoffs/departures. For example, I thought we moved past the "Sony doesn't have money" meme a long time ago.

Sony is sooo poor they sold their own buildings.

lol don't take this post seriously
 

AniHawk

Member
Four threads, and that doesn't take into account all of the doom and gloom that goes on within the threads specifically about layoffs/departures. For example, I thought we moved past the "Sony doesn't have money" meme a long time ago.

it seems pretty tame compared to a lot of doom and gloom that gets spread around here. seems natural people would be curious as to the poor management of sony wws at a time when marketing management has hit every note.
 

StevieP

Banned
it seems pretty tame compared to a lot of doom and gloom that gets spread around here. seems natural people would be curious as to the poor management of sony wws at a time when marketing management has hit every note.

I'm sure this won't be the last. Obviously I mean both layoffs and threads. People tend to panic with change, as you've noted
 
We're up to at least FIVE now, just counting project leads. Not even counting other lay-offs and restructuring. Lead of inFamous SS, lead of Uncharted 4, 2nd lead of Uncharted 4, lead of Drive Club, lead of God of War.
As has been said previously, if you jam this all into one sentence and ignore context, you can make it sound ominous. But the reality is:

1. After Second Son shipped, a lead left for another job.
2. When Driveclub wasn't ready in time for scheduled release, and got delayed at least half a year, the director was removed.
3. When a director (who was not working on God of War) couldn't get his new IP in good shape after almost four years, his entire team was let go and the project canceled. He then decided to leave the company.
4. Two directors on Uncharted 4, now about two-thirds of the way through development, have left on uncertain terms--possibly removed.

The first three are unfortunate, but not unusual in any way. They're exactly what you'd expect, given the situations. Only the last point is troubling; to my mind, that really does indicate issues with development. But the coincidence of these events really is just that (with perhaps some non-randomness involved in the last 3 happening at the end of the fiscal year).
 
it seems pretty tame compared to a lot of doom and gloom that gets spread around here. seems natural people would be curious as to the poor management of sony wws at a time when marketing management has hit every note.

There's no problem with being curious about it. Obviously when major people leave studios there's going to be speculation about why that may have been. But it's not as if they're shutting down studios, which is something that they've done in the past. They're laying off people and trying to get teams in gear. And considering some of the delays we've seen with the PS4, I don't see why this is surprising or even a bad thing.
 

daman824

Member
I really don't get this. If Neil and Bruce had just made another Uncharted people would've just said that Sony was playing it safe and just continuing to bank on an existing IP. But they allow them to make a new IP and that's somehow not a risk. Making a AAA new IP is risky no matter what. Then you throw in the fact that they did it at the tail end of an already long generation.



Are you telling me people aren't going ballistic?

What the hell is going on with Sony studios?

March 2014 has been a bad month for Sony World Wide Studios

There are two more threads along the same theme that were made (one of which was locked), but I can't seem to find them.
Making a new game in a drastically different genre would have been risky. Was the last of us somewhat risky? Sure I suppose. But it was no more risky than something like titanfall.
 

Shinta

Banned
As has been said previously, if you jam this all into one sentence and ignore context, you can make it sound ominous. But the reality is:

1. After Second Son shipped, a lead left for another job.
2. When Driveclub wasn't ready in time for scheduled release, and got delayed at least half a year, the director was removed.
3. When a director (who was not working on God of War) couldn't get his new IP in good shape after almost four years, his entire team was let go and the project canceled. He then decided to leave the company.
4. Two directors on Uncharted 4, now about two-thirds of the way through development, have left on uncertain terms--possibly removed.

The first three are unfortunate, but not unusual in any way. They're exactly what you'd expect, given the situations. Only the last point is troubling; to my mind, that really does indicate issues with development. But the coincidence of these events really is just that (with perhaps some non-randomness involved in the last 3 happening at the end of the fiscal year).

Agree with this, a lot of insight into connections that together form a bigger, fictional smear across SCEA.

I just don't see how its fictional. Let me try and link all those 4 points into one sentence that's undeniably accurate, with no fiction at all.

"Several major Sony first party studios are in varying states of substantial turmoil and/or serious mismanagement."

Agree, disagree? How is that not accurate?

Drive Club in varying states of development for 10 years suddenly sheds its director who has stuck with it for a decade so it can try and get out the door months after its original release schedule. God of War, a series that has been consistently criticized for lack of gameplay evolution, has a project lead that can't create an original game after trying 3x with nearly $100 million dollars. Uncharted 4, Sony's flagship franchise, shedding 2 directors including Naughty Dog's premiere director. And the lead of inFamous leaving, for potentially benign reasons. This isn't even counting the restructuring at Sony Japan that culminated in Knack, a game with a mixed reception to say the least; or The Last Guardian which no one even wants to mention.

I'm all about Sony, but right now, they're looking like they've collectively shit the bed. And that doesn't seem like fiction at all. It's not clear that The Order is going to live up to anyone's expectations either, besides graphics.
 
There's no problem with being curious about it. Obviously when major people leave studios there's going to be speculation about why that may have been. But it's not as if they're shutting down studios, which is something that they've done in the past. They're laying off people and trying to get teams in gear. And considering some of the delays we've seen with the PS4, I don't see why this is surprising or even a bad thing.

They are cancelling major projects, laying off people and key people are leaving. They've released two poor launch games and one good but not great sequel. One game has been delayed and another received lukewarm previews. Doesn't inspire much confidence.
 
i know mortimer is an insider, but does he work for Sony? whats with this damage control

I wondered that too, earlier today. He seems to go by his real name (Pete Dodd) on Twitter which gives him some credibility in my eyes. Dunno, his "well, 100 mill is pretty close to 50 mill!" kinda makes me think he has the capability to be just as hyperbolic as the people he's trying to set straight....
 

Gestault

Member
As has been said previously, if you jam this all into one sentence and ignore context, you can make it sound ominous. But the reality is:

1. After Second Son shipped, a lead left for another job.
2. When Driveclub wasn't ready in time for scheduled release, and got delayed at least half a year, the director was removed.
3. When a director (who was not working on God of War) couldn't get his new IP in good shape after almost four years, his entire team was let go and the project canceled. He then decided to leave the company.
4. Two directors on Uncharted 4, now about two-thirds of the way through development, have left on uncertain terms--possibly removed.

The first three are unfortunate, but not unusual in any way. They're exactly what you'd expect, given the situations. Only the last point is troubling; to my mind, that really does indicate issues with development. But the coincidence of these events really is just that (with perhaps some non-randomness involved in the last 3 happening at the end of the fiscal year).

I get the impression that your your outline (as a retort to someone pointing out the impact of these events) may miss the forest for the trees. The way you describe each event misses that the effect of all these things happening in such a short period of time, no matter the individual causes, is disruptive even if it weren't happening at the head of a new hardware generation. This certainly isn't a "doom" scenario, but I'd hope we could agree that a structural transition among so many major projects like this is among the worst scenarios a platform-holder could expect.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
You're not a mod, so just post what you want and I'll post what I want, thanks.

And you really misread my intentions completely. I'm not at all a MS fan, and I have zero intention of ever buying an Xbone.
I suppose you should have typed your post up differently then. I will leave my remarks the way they are. I don't care if you're a fan or not though so I only respond to how I read the statements. As I said before, the other thread has over 1200 responses. That's pretty ballistic over news that isn't a big deal. Other than that, moving along.
 

AniHawk

Member
There's no problem with being curious about it. Obviously when major people leave studios there's going to be speculation about why that may have been. But it's not as if they're shutting down studios, which is something that they've done in the past. They're laying off people and trying to get teams in gear. And considering some of the delays we've seen with the PS4, I don't see why this is surprising or even a bad thing.

and i think the response to it has been absolutely normal, especially considering the timing of it. it's not like people are also bringing up the absurd dev times for gran turismo games (well not 6, i guess) or the beyond absurd soon-to-be decade-long wait for team ico's next game every week and making 1000-1200 post threads out of them.
 

Gestault

Member
I suppose you should have typed your post up differently then. I will leave my remarks the way they are. I don't care if you're a fan or not though so I only respond to how I read the statements. As I said before, the other thread has over 1200 responses. That's pretty ballistic over news that isn't a big deal. Other than that, moving along.

These cancellations, delays, lay-offs and departures from prominent studios in the gaming industry would be newsworthy individually. Having them happen within months of each other under the same umbrella, just as that parent-company has launched a platform of unprecedented success is perfect justification for that discussion.
 
i know mortimer is an insider, but does he work for Sony? whats with this damage control

He has solid connections on the Sony and MS side. He isn't damage controlling just providing context which is certainly nice of him

I wondered that too, earlier today. He seems to go by his real name (Pete Dodd) on Twitter which gives him some credibility in my eyes. Dunno, his "well, 100 mill is pretty close to 50 mill!" kinda makes me think he has the capability to be just as hyperbolic as the people he's trying to set straight....


50? Wasn't it a number between 75-90?
 
I get the impression that your your outline (as a retort to someone pointing out the impact of these events) may miss the forest for the trees. The way you describe each event misses that the effect of all these things happening in such a short period of time, no matter the individual causes, is disruptive even if it weren't happening at the head of a new hardware generation. This certainly isn't a "doom" scenario, but I'd hope we could agree that a structural transition among so many major projects like this is among the worst scenarios a platform-holder could expect.



inFamous is a completed game, shipped, finished, done. I don't understand why it is part of the conversation? We always see new job applications on here for positions in game projects beginning, how do you think people fill those roles unless they leave other roles from games that are finished?

I would personally put Driveclub with inFamous too. I don't get carried away with speculation of horror surrounding that game. It's nearly complete, if not complete, in my opinion.

Stig's project is sad, and then there's uncharted a huge multi-million juggernaut that loses 2 employees from the half a dozen we know by name within an organisation of over 500 ... and that's the "exodus of talent" from Sony's World Studios.
 

WARP10CK

Banned
These cancellations, delays, lay-offs and departures from prominent studios in the gaming industry would be newsworthy individually. Having them happen within months of each other under the same umbrella, just as that parent-company has launched a platform of unprecedented success is perfect justification for that discussion.

Uncharted 4 Game Director Justin Richmond Leaves Naughty Dog

Neogaf thread link below

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=792044
 

sörine

Banned
For example, Studio London hadn't shipped a major game in years and had the largest headcount of all first parties. As somebody that covers the business side of things this was badly needed.
Largest headcount among European studios perhaps. Turn 10 is the same size and 343, SCE Japan Studio and Nintendo EAD are all larger.
 
Unless you're Nintendo. That they escape this "normal cycle" unscathed is pretty fucking amazing, outside that major Retro shakeup shortly after their acquisition. Even when someone leaves like Sakurai, they don't actually leave.

But in the West especially, this is pretty normal-ish. I think people are alarmed just by how it all seems so tightly clustered together.

Why must you bring Nintendo up in every thread?
 
Top Bottom