Bloomberg Wrote:

Sony’s focus on exclusive blockbusters has come at the expense of niche teams and studios within the PlayStation organization, leading to high turnover and less choice for players. Last week, Sony reorganized a development office in Japan, resulting in mass departures of people who worked on less well-known but acclaimed games such as Gravity Rush and Everybody's Golf. The company has informed developers that it no longer wants to produce smaller games that are only successful in Japan, Bloomberg has reported.

This fixation on teams that churn out hits is creating unrest across Sony's portfolio of game studios. Oregon-based Sony Bend, best known for the 2019 open-world action game Days Gone, tried unsuccessfully to pitch a sequel that year, according to people familiar with the proposal. Although the first game had been profitable, its development had been lengthy and critical reception was mixed, so a Days Gone 2 wasn’t seen as a viable option.

(Apr 10th, 2021, 08:22 PM)Karo Wrote:

Honestly I'm not surprised, but I also feel like this is kind of what triple a gaming company want. They want cheap projects that will bring in the sales with minimum effort and risk. I'm sure they'll probably still support the occasional project that they think will bring in big money, but other than that I'm not expecting much.

(Apr 11th, 2021, 10:56 PM)Maniakkid25 Wrote:

Welp, there goes my dream of a Legend of Dragoon remake. Right shame; was looking forward to it. Hopefully the fanbase can pull through for content before getting Cease and Desist'd.

(Apr 16th, 2021, 04:18 AM)Metallix Wrote:

That said, I don't really see them focusing on AAA being any different from what they did with PS4. Outside of a few smaller games, most of their focus and marketing was on stuff like Uncharted 4, Horizon, and Spider-Man. Plus they have plenty of games that aren't surefire moneymakers on PS5 already with Sackboy, Destruction Allstars, and Returnal. Those games directly conflict with this "only games that are sure to deliver" mentality. As far as TLOU remake, I think it's dumb they didn't can it when that team couldn't remake it without a bloated budget that cost more than any other remake they've ever done. I can see why they wanted to remake it, so Sony would greenlight it but their original plan of remaking the first Uncharted was a MUCH better idea.

(Apr 20th, 2021, 11:46 PM)Moonface Wrote:

Sackboy, Destruction All-Stars, and Returnal aren't first party endeavors though. Although Sony is publishing those games, I doubt they're spending anywhere as much money on those games compared to those that are developed by first party studios that they own. If they don't want to take on a third party game, that game just goes to somewhere else if it isn't using any Sony IP. Sony can't stop it being made like they can with a first party developer. The report could mean that Sony is focusing on blockbusters for only their first party studios, and the only small games that can stand a chance are those developed by third parties where the investment is going to be less for Sony.

Something to consider would be how Sony has handled the LBP series. In 2008 they supported an independent Media Molecule for the first game, and it was such a critical success that Sony proceeded to purchase that company two years later, and LBP2 knocked it out of the park. However, LBP3 was made by a third party, and just the reveal for the game alone shows Sony was not backing it as much as they had backed the previous games. They seemed more focused on Dreams, but the marketing for that game has become basically zero from Sony ever since the early access release, and I think it's because they saw that it won't reach the sales heights that LBP did under MM. On the flip side though, Sony likely manage the servers for LBP and if so, are allowing those servers to be worked on to have them come back online since they went down back in March. If money was their sole goal, they could just decide to only work on the online for Sackboy and just let the LBP levels stay nuked to save on server costs.

I agree with your take though that the article may not necessarily mean Sony is just going to put profit over creativity like companies such as EA and Activision, but it's tough to tell if they're only going for certain games because like any company they won't just back everything and the kitchen sink because if money isn't being made or going to be made, no one would really jump into that headfirst and especially not in every case. Days Gone 2 could have been turned down because of how the initial game performed just as much as it could be that the pitch for the sequel simply wasn't good enough to make Sony want to go for it.

(Apr 21st, 2021, 04:27 AM)Metallix Wrote:

However if they're willing to fund smaller games with other studios I don't see why that's any worse than funding smaller games with their own studios.