IAmRei
Member
her look reminds me to my awful step sis
-
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.
Rumor: Sony leadership feels that Bungie is a failed investment
- Thread starter xBlueStonex
- Start date
- Rumor
Strictly in the realm of software, has there been a more mutually destructive divorce than Bungie / Halo? Bungie has been trying to swim against the tide with an economic model that Fortnight blew up right around the time Destiny 2 shipped, and 343
Like, what is the reasonable expectation at this point beyond Marathon being a GAAS nightmare and the next Halo having absolutely fucking nothing to do with what I played in Infinite?
Harsh times.
kills off central antagonists between games in... comic books?
Like, what is the reasonable expectation at this point beyond Marathon being a GAAS nightmare and the next Halo having absolutely fucking nothing to do with what I played in Infinite?
Harsh times.
Jack Package
Member
I had to take a few hours because this is the dumbest thing I've read in the internet in 2024.
I hate Bungie because I'm a Bungie fanboy?
That's not how that works.
I absolutely want them to be better. That leak showing they want to "avoid over delivering" in order to manage fan expectations is everything you need to know about the current management.
They have succeeded despite that management. There's a reason they've skipped between big publishers, and both MS and Acti have let it be known that they found Bungie management hard to work with. Now we are seeing the same with Sony - regardless of this email is real or not, these are known issues with the company. I don't understand why you're so determined to defend them, I can only assume you're a paid shill at this point and won't waste forum space or my time answering you again. Sort your life out. Touch grass. Breathe fresh air. Realise corporations of every size are not your friend and do not give a shit about you, even if you are being paid to defend them online.
Good luck to you, you need it.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
This is a really weak rumor.
It essentially focuses on everything we've heard publicly and tries to reinforce that by suggesting that this is an internal development.
As a result nothing in this rumor is likely to ever be confirmed or refuted by fact.
It essentially focuses on everything we've heard publicly and tries to reinforce that by suggesting that this is an internal development.
As a result nothing in this rumor is likely to ever be confirmed or refuted by fact.
DonF
Member
Im no Sony leadership but I too feel that Bungie was a failed investment. Specially how they worded it when it was announced. They kept their independence and a lot of rights, its like they only changed the entrance lock.
You cant give that freedom to a company that has just pumped Destiny for 10 years.
Its like they forgot what a shit show launch destiny 1 was.
You cant give that freedom to a company that has just pumped Destiny for 10 years.
Its like they forgot what a shit show launch destiny 1 was.
SkylineRKR
Member
Bungie is a waste of time and money. For the last decade they created 2 shit games: Destiny 1 and Destiny 2. And instead of improving like Warframe did over the years, Destiny is actually going downhill at a quite steady pace.
Mortisfacio
Member
If it weren't for the PvP, I'd 100% forget Destiny existed. The PvP is fun, but then I remember I can just play Halo without spending money to buy all the crap expansions Destiny has.
Bernardougf
Member
So you are saying that a company that is worried with coocking and knitting classes and multi-culture inclusive woke bullshit is not very good anymore in doing games ? ...Im shocked.. shocked I say.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Minecraft was a big successful one. I'm sure there's others.
problem with gaming acquisitions is that the price paid is enormous, IPs can be fickle among gamers, and the core staff are extremely important to keep those franchises going. If they leave or get fired, the new batch of employees might fuck it up taking it over. They might not have the skill or heart put into the franchise.
Other industries are different because the link between person and product is less. If a company bought a cookie brand off another company along with the office staff and factory crew with it, it likely makes much less difference if a lot of these people get fired or quit. Train new factory staff for a couple months and it's back to normal. And all the office staff who leave and are replaced by new office staff I dont think new sales, marketing, finance or supply chain people give a shit if they are selling cookies or kayaks. Just brush up on the business strategies and pricing and how many cases to forecast and it's the same kind of process at any company.
FF:Enhanced_Reality
Member
Oh, absolutely it was. For $3.6 billion, I would have expected far better. They were sold from Microsoft, left Activision, I don't think anyone was desperate to buy them. In fact, I think they needed a sugar daddy to keep investing in them - and this is one of the many reasons I believe Jim Ryan is being given the golden handshake. (I.e. leave gracefully with a beautiful legacy before we fire you for fucking things up.)
Added to the many, now cancelled projects, including Twisted Metal and Factions to my complete and utter fucking dismay, Sony really have shit the money bed.
A lot of my friends and people online seem to think I'm being hyperbole, but Sony have been very awkward for years, even if they are market leaders. Dropping out of trade shows. Massively reducing outreach to gamers. Releasing sporadic State of Play videos that sometimes are an indie show case for a AAA title at the end. They've invested in the wrong projects, invested in the wrong studios. Haven and FireWalk are not going to be successes. You can see it a million miles off. FireSprite is a very worrying situation as it seems once again that Psygnosis/Studio Liverpool (because that's effectively what it is) are going down the shitter with exactly the same problems they had before. PS VR 2 has not been a success at all and at this point, feels like the PS Vita. It's going to be dropped in the next two years, I can see it. Money spent in the wrong places and a focus on GaaS has upset a few internal studios and it's chasing a dream that isn't always a dream you want to chase. Profit margins at an all time low. You could see this was ineviatble.
But then you have Bungie, creators of the HALO series and the former success, that was Destiny, who are now missing deadline after deadline and target after target. It feels like rats leaving a sinking ship. I think they sold Sony a bit of a dream, or Sony leadership were so in love with the studio and their relationship that they were too drunk on the stuff to smell to oncoming decline. Either way, it's contributed to Factions getting cancelled which massively pissed me off. They aren't really adding any real value to PlayStation at this moment in time. Certainly being multi-platform. Expertise in GaaS goes by the way side when it looks like your product is declining to the point that it's time to call it a day. All in all, I don't think I'd be too unfair if I called it for what it was, a knee jerk reaction to the Bethesda acquisition. Sony effectively saying, "Hey if you can do it, we can do it too." Then when Microsoft acquired ABK, which Jim handled very poorly, it was like, "Oh damn. That's a lot of money"
For $3.6 billion dollars, I would have acquired Konami and Kojima Productions or SquareEnix. I'm sure they could have accepted a price that was too good to turn down, especially if Sony let Kojima at Sony Pictures with an open chequebook. Hell, I think you could have bought more than that. Sony could have massively invested in their internal teams and acquired teams more closely related to them that make sense. That money could have done a whole world of good. But if Sony completely take over the studio, it'll be closed within a few years. I don't think Bungie can be sold on name alone these days and when the golden payments have been made, I bet most of them are off anyways.
All the time, when they're done correctly. This is why I liked the Sony strategy. Which is work with a developer incredibly closely. Learn each others culture. See if they compliment each other and if it looks like it works, acquire them. Naughty Dog, Polyphony Digital, Sucker Punch, Guerilla Games etc. They've all been great successes.
Sometimes the lack of success is down to the owner though. Constantly cancelling Bend's projects didn't help them and Days Gone was kind of a fuck you with it's success because it showed they can make great games. Sony London, likely has been mismanaged and run to a point where they are an experimental studio (in fact, I know they were as I know people who worked there.) but how far do you let it go before you have to do something about it? Sony have given Media Molecule far too much respect. Punished Evolution and Cambridge Studio too harshly. They let Japan Studio run so amok that it was easier to close it down than to keep it going and the same for Studio Liverpool. They didn't manage Manchester Studio at all as they closed that before it even did anything. I think Zipper and Cambridge Studio were pushed into a corner where their AAA titles didn't seem to make Sony happy and Sony then put them in a position to fail by telling them, you've got one more chance, you can make a Vita game and it better be good. Like Sony actually made the Vita successful enough to make that a possibility.
But even Microsoft are guilty of this. Look at Lionhead. I bet people never thought they'd close.
Added to the many, now cancelled projects, including Twisted Metal and Factions to my complete and utter fucking dismay, Sony really have shit the money bed.
A lot of my friends and people online seem to think I'm being hyperbole, but Sony have been very awkward for years, even if they are market leaders. Dropping out of trade shows. Massively reducing outreach to gamers. Releasing sporadic State of Play videos that sometimes are an indie show case for a AAA title at the end. They've invested in the wrong projects, invested in the wrong studios. Haven and FireWalk are not going to be successes. You can see it a million miles off. FireSprite is a very worrying situation as it seems once again that Psygnosis/Studio Liverpool (because that's effectively what it is) are going down the shitter with exactly the same problems they had before. PS VR 2 has not been a success at all and at this point, feels like the PS Vita. It's going to be dropped in the next two years, I can see it. Money spent in the wrong places and a focus on GaaS has upset a few internal studios and it's chasing a dream that isn't always a dream you want to chase. Profit margins at an all time low. You could see this was ineviatble.
But then you have Bungie, creators of the HALO series and the former success, that was Destiny, who are now missing deadline after deadline and target after target. It feels like rats leaving a sinking ship. I think they sold Sony a bit of a dream, or Sony leadership were so in love with the studio and their relationship that they were too drunk on the stuff to smell to oncoming decline. Either way, it's contributed to Factions getting cancelled which massively pissed me off. They aren't really adding any real value to PlayStation at this moment in time. Certainly being multi-platform. Expertise in GaaS goes by the way side when it looks like your product is declining to the point that it's time to call it a day. All in all, I don't think I'd be too unfair if I called it for what it was, a knee jerk reaction to the Bethesda acquisition. Sony effectively saying, "Hey if you can do it, we can do it too." Then when Microsoft acquired ABK, which Jim handled very poorly, it was like, "Oh damn. That's a lot of money"
For $3.6 billion dollars, I would have acquired Konami and Kojima Productions or SquareEnix. I'm sure they could have accepted a price that was too good to turn down, especially if Sony let Kojima at Sony Pictures with an open chequebook. Hell, I think you could have bought more than that. Sony could have massively invested in their internal teams and acquired teams more closely related to them that make sense. That money could have done a whole world of good. But if Sony completely take over the studio, it'll be closed within a few years. I don't think Bungie can be sold on name alone these days and when the golden payments have been made, I bet most of them are off anyways.
All the time, when they're done correctly. This is why I liked the Sony strategy. Which is work with a developer incredibly closely. Learn each others culture. See if they compliment each other and if it looks like it works, acquire them. Naughty Dog, Polyphony Digital, Sucker Punch, Guerilla Games etc. They've all been great successes.
Sometimes the lack of success is down to the owner though. Constantly cancelling Bend's projects didn't help them and Days Gone was kind of a fuck you with it's success because it showed they can make great games. Sony London, likely has been mismanaged and run to a point where they are an experimental studio (in fact, I know they were as I know people who worked there.) but how far do you let it go before you have to do something about it? Sony have given Media Molecule far too much respect. Punished Evolution and Cambridge Studio too harshly. They let Japan Studio run so amok that it was easier to close it down than to keep it going and the same for Studio Liverpool. They didn't manage Manchester Studio at all as they closed that before it even did anything. I think Zipper and Cambridge Studio were pushed into a corner where their AAA titles didn't seem to make Sony happy and Sony then put them in a position to fail by telling them, you've got one more chance, you can make a Vita game and it better be good. Like Sony actually made the Vita successful enough to make that a possibility.
But even Microsoft are guilty of this. Look at Lionhead. I bet people never thought they'd close.
Last edited:
Pop
Member
FullMetalx117
Member
I just think it's kind of funny that some are pointing to Microsoft management's dislike of Bungie management. Come on...this is Microsoft management, if I were a studio I wouldn't take the Xbox people seriously either.
