ForAcademicPurposes
Member
I just want to know who shut down Studio Liverpool.
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Sony spent five years building a new PlayStation VR studio, then abruptly shut it down
- Thread starter IbizaPocholo
- Start date
- Drama Game Dev VR
Bryank75
Banned
The issue is that they are cutting and cutting and cutting over the past decade and there is little to no expansion and a dilution of the brand through putting games on PC.
There needs to be some big acquisitions soon. It cannot be all regressive.
Xbox isn't doing as well as PlayStation yet they have expanded massively in their 1st party. Sony need to show they are building the ecosystem, building the vision of PlayStation.
We did our part as customers...they have never been so profitable and recently it's all been take, take, take with them.
There needs to be some big acquisitions soon. It cannot be all regressive.
Xbox isn't doing as well as PlayStation yet they have expanded massively in their 1st party. Sony need to show they are building the ecosystem, building the vision of PlayStation.
We did our part as customers...they have never been so profitable and recently it's all been take, take, take with them.
Topher
Identifies as young
Sounds like Sony and the studio never committed to proper milestones and deadlines. As someone in the creative field, I'll have to admit that you need to give us a deadlines. You need to give us a schedule to follow. We need milestones that we need to aim for cause baby Jesus knows we can spend forever on iterations and trying to make everything "perfect"... don't leave us alone
That's good to know. So....
Oddvintagechap
Member
5 years in preproduction? Bring all the employees back and tell them they should have closed 3 years ago.
CamHostage
Member
Whatever with all those "hit pieces", but this article is basically right on time, if not a little late.
The Manchester closure went down with little chatter, which makes sense given that they never shipped a game so there's not a lot for common commenters to say their thoughts about "something they didn't know about not happening", but this was a significant group founded for a reason (producing VR titles.) When Sony started early talks about PS5 VR a year later (just a few days before closing Japan Studio, the team that produced five of its PSVR games and was also involved in the previous PS Move product cycle,) questions about Manchester's role in Sony's VR future came back up. Getting people to go on record about a closure is tough (the people in the know don't want to burn a bridge, and the people down below who are eager to speak are not great witnesses for a story,) but everybody should have another job by now and there's less to be afraid of as far as looking back at what happened.
Getting caught up in a shitstorm isn't pleasant (especially given that Sony is coming up a little dry at the end of the year with delays, after having a bang-up launch and support through the summer, which is understandable but still not a great look against the competition finally turning on the tap...), but this is a story that should be told. And readers can digest headlines and snippets as fodder for their side of the console wars, but in reading the whole thing, it feels to me like a fair piece on the state of the industry for projects of this scale and why things that seem like they're needed for a publisher (Sony is going to need some studios signed on to make VR games soon, so far there's no sign any of its SIEWWS teams are making anything for it except for maybe 2D/VR combo games) sometimes still don't work out.
itsjustJEFF
Member
That's good to know. So....
You got me LOL nah, I'm good with my deadlines! I'm on the internet looking for "inspiration"
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SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
+1.
Great Hair
Banned
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Dick Jones
Gold Member
It looks like a Bluepoint shaped hole in the Sony lineup. Complaining about lack of pressure is hilarious. Jason needs to write an article on this unfair staff practice.
Bryank75
Banned
I'd be incredibly, incredibly disappointed if Bluepoint is all they are going to buy.
There needs to be something substantial bought. We need something exciting.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
In this case, Herman is probably justified. Probably.To me, this reads as :
But this isnt the only time he's come in and started cancelling and moving projects. He did that with the VSG TLOU remake and then decided not to greenlight Death Stranding 2 and Days Gone 2. The question is why? Why the urgency to cut costs and kill projects? They are making more money than ever so why was this guy going around gutting games left and right? It's not like Sony has a surplus of games right now.
Secondly, if Shu was indeed asleep at the wheel then do you blame the devs or the leadership? Why not give them a chance? Maybe one more year? You've amassed a bunch of talent over the course, now lets see what they can do, no? I get that 5 years of pre-production is nonsense, but maybe shake things up at the top instead of just cutting the studio?
I dont get it. It screams like one of those Bain Capital moves where cutting losses and filing bankruptcy is considered the best way to run a company. Where is their VR AAA masterpiece? Why is Naughty Dog wasting time making a remake that Herman didnt want a cheaper support studio making? Why is it ok for Sony Bend to waste 2 years pitching stuff he kept rejecting, but these guys who were actually doing some work thinking the top brass was perfectly fine with it were let go without warning? Clearly Sony were ok with the 5 year pre-production until a new boss came in.
Yoboman
Member
Uh no. If you outsource work in a project and they don't deliver, you cut them off, you don't keep trying and failing to deliver
Iced Arcade
Member
So was the studio closed or not?
If the studio was closed by Sony, a news article about it isn't disingenuous.
Azelover
Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
When a customer based company or product line starts doing exceptionally well, inevitably the "business" people come in or take it over in some way. And that's when shit starts to happen. I don't know much anything about Sony internally, but I'm assuming it's the same phenomenon, or similar.
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Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
This is the thread for you:
Tin foil hats not included. What if all these negative Sony articles are just to lower expectations for an eventual resurgence story for Sony?
I have been thinking recently about why Sony has seen such negative press recently. It seems, almost arbitrarily, like recent articles tend to address some glaring issues with the state of PS5 and Sony as a whole but also pepper in small annoyances that wouldn't really matter too much to many...
Gamerguy84
Member
They will literally be showing PSSVR2 soon-ish. Im sure they have games and plans in the pipe line.
Dick Jones
Gold Member
I'm okay with the partnerships with the start ups so far. There is huge potential in the partnerships announced so far. Build a relationship and bring them in once it's known they work well together.
I'd like Sony to buy Arc System Works for fighting games. I'd love them to reboot PS All Star Battle Royale to have released for the 30th anniversary.
Never say no to Kojima or Konami IP acquisitions either though.
Bryank75
Banned
Arc would be fantastic, I have been playing GG: Strive and love it to bits....dunno why I didn't try it out sooner.
I think they have the Konami thing likely done.
However I'd like something a bit more monumental..... Kadokawa or something on that level.
I was just looking at Ubisoft and since they had all that trouble and loads of delays, they are pretty cheap for a company of that size right now too..... though I doubt it would be on the table.
They really need a great shooter exclusive to the platform and I hope Firewalk can rise to that.
Solarstrike
Gold Member
Onironauta
Member
Sounds like they were first and foremost a R&D studio. Not having delivered a game in 5 years doesn't mean they "didn't do anything", they may have developed plenty of tools and designs that could have been used in a lot of future VR games.
Marty-McFly
Banned
Ur right on the money. Sony should take no responsibility whatsoever in building a new studio and appointing one of their teams to create unacceptable work over a five year period. It's that pesky Sony Manchester and those meddling kids at it again!
Topher
Identifies as young
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BattleScar
Member
Not all new studios will be a success. Especially if they're given freedom and autonomy - something that developers love to complain they lack in big AAA Studios. They gave them a long rope to try and deliver and they failed.
I mean even Nintendo has a shithouse studio in their midst in GameFreak.
Do they need to buy studios? Why not just make new studios? Why does it always come down to "Take something popular and successful and assimilate it into your ecosystem".
That depends on the operating model. A studio can have its own internal hierarchical structure, including producers, directors, project managers, lead developers, game designers and so on right down to the engine programmers. In that case, the Publisher marks out a goal and trusts the studio to handle its affairs and deliver on the project.
You'll notice that Sony has a lot of studios like Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog, Insomniac who basically operate independently and have the freedom to do as they please, so long as they deliver a quality project.
Sony might have given the same freedom, and then it failed so they binned them as they should. No point in carrying around dead weight.
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Bryank75
Banned
That's just what I want....
Sony are not doing it. Lucky for many that play on other platforms.
I think they are acting like pussies and it won't get them anywhere being so charitable...
Back in the day, PS leadership would have gone for the neck...now Jim Ryan just milks the PS users and jacks off about PC, cloud and mobile all day...he's a fucking joke of a leader.
Marty-McFly
Banned
Ur trying to tell me Sony went though the trouble of building a new VR studio, appointed a team, and had 5 years to make sure everything was running smoothly and to right the ship if things went of course, but instead left them to their own demise until it was too late and they had to scrap the whole thing? That sounds like some brilliant strategic planning.
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The real question, studio Manchester sounds like a cheap carbon copy of the legendary Psygnosis, only without the passion and drive, no wonder they flopped, they should've gave that money to studio Liverpool instead.I just want to know who shut down Studio Liverpool.
BattleScar
Member
So you think they should have shuttered the studio earlier?
You think that they did absolutely nothing of value in the last 5 years that could be useful going forwards (development of game engines, VR development tools etc.)
You open a studio, if they don't deliver a game in ....what's considered an acceptable time to make a game? 1 year? 2 years? 3 years? 4 years? 5 years? And then once that time has elapsed you just....fire them?
Ok, so lets take Metroid Prime 4 as a different example. Currently in development for 4 years (it was announced in 2017 so you can expect it to have begun development in earnest before then, but lets ignore that for now), and in a few months time it will have been 5 years. Still nothing. By your logic, I guess Nintendo should have just thrown that development team in the bin by now and cancelled the project. Heck if they don't have a product out by Christmas 2022, then its a certified failure in publisher management and a sign of project management ineptitude from what I imagine you would say is the finest publisher in the world.
Its been nearly 5 years, and there is nothing tangible. No footage, nothing. What would your verdict be for this specific case?
How do you know they're doing nothing? Do you have an insider ear into the PlayStation board room that you know exactly what they are doing or are planning to do?
Relax man, we're 8 months deep into this generation and there's a whole lot of time we must wait before we can draw conclusions as to what will happen.
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Double standards... old Sony let the Last Guardian guy spend nine years developing his 10 hours game that ran at 15 FPS. The GT guy also can do whatever he wants. He earned it in a way as GT games are still big, but I am not sure if the new Western leadership will let him get away with that much.
DeltaPolarBear
Member
Sony had to release The Last Guardian, because they wanted to keep their promise.
This studio never announced anything. So no promises were made. Thus, when it wasn't working, they shut it down and move the resources elsewhere. Not all studios end up working, neither does all new game IPs. Most likely, the people they hired to manage it were incompetent, and it was easier to start from scratch than to fix the studio. It didn't have a legacy to rescue.
Marty-McFly
Banned
Bad example. Ninty saw that shit was going south with MP4, and sent Retro in there within 2 years to right the ship. They didn't scrap the project or any of their own studios, or build a defunct studio. They gave Bandai Namco a fair chance until they realised they were not talented enough to pull it off. This is an example of how things should be handled in the event a game doesn't pan out.
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EDMIX
Writes a lot, says very little
Agreed. I don't even get the " lack of pressure from Sony leadership. " , so they suppose to force them to ACTUALLY work or? I feel they leave them alone to peacefully build, I think it makes sense to check in on a team at key points, but if its not working out, its not working out.
5 years as more then enough time.
I'm saying lol This is normal for not only business in gaming, but business in general. ie R.I.P Zune mp3 lol (before the end of that MP3 era, that was one of my favorite devices, had a 30 GB model and almost filled up too, but I digress)
Business is about making as much money as you can, where you can, while you can. Its not about keeping the same shit going for feelings or anything weird like that.
Its why I don't get all this shit when people crying when EA closes studios or MS or Sony etc. That FUCKING BUSINESS! If I only bought games from publishers based on feelings alone, I'd own zero games. Who the fuck we really saying out here fires no one, closes zero teams etc? I feel its just too cringe for me and too out of touch with reality and just too exaggerative for my taste. I'm willing to disagree with a publisher for many things, but not for common business practices.
Marty-McFly
"Good business would be putting together studios that are going to deliver in the first place." lol just stop man. Might as well fucking say good business is making money or something like that. Its unbeknownst to them who will or won't "deliver" .Business is built on trust. Some times it works out, some times it doesn't, but a risk must be taken from time to time. So if everyone fucking knew who would deliver or not, no team would close down lol
I mean shit, you said "going to deliver" as if a guarantee was made on all games by all publishers or something lol nah bud, that is wild as fuck and just a unrealistic view on basic business.
Be like "Good business would be putting together studios that are going to move 20 million units in the first place"
and or "Good business would be putting together studios that are going to deliver the highest Metacritic score in the first place"
Thats not "good business" that is a fucking wish, that is a dream, its something you WANT to happen, that isn't some fucking concept where you can just say it and it MUST be real and it MUST happen or anything odd like that. Its not saying one shouldn't strive for this, its saying its a moot point to say it as if that wasn't the goal in the first place.
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Bryank75
Banned
There seems to be zero effort...all I see is cost-cutting and cash grabs. No media outreach or positive PR, ridiculous taxes and treatment of PS5 owners, no answer to Zenimax or any of the other studios that were taken, nothing about the MLB ordeal, shutting down Japan, Shutting down manchester, San Diego making multiplats, games going to PC, no show yet this year, no excitement.... etc etc etc.
There's only so much patience I can muster.
Ever since Jim and Hermen took over it's been a downer, they fucking suck and it's on them to prove me wrong. Sorry but that is how I feel, I feel no passion from them. NONE.
Jigsaah
Member
I made a thread about this, kinda sorta in jest, but with a hidden agenda of actually discussing this very trend. I have noticed this as well and I'm not a Sony fanboy by any stretch.
kyliethicc
Member
Andrew House.I just want to know who shut down Studio Liverpool.
He took over as CEO and shutdown 5 studios - Liverpool, Big Big, Zipper, Cambridge, and Evolution.
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BattleScar
Member
Treatment of PS5 owners? What treatment of PS5 owners? Seem to be getting treated perfectly fine to me. Unless you mean that, continuing to treat PS4 owners well in a time where PS5's are difficult (and expensive) to obtain is a slight to PS5 owners and a sign of mistreatment. Damn the PS1 to PS2 and PS2 to PS3 transition periods must have sucked for you.
If you're expecting an acquisition on the same scale as Zenimax, then you're going to be waiting for a long time. Even if Sony were to make that move as counter to Microsoft, deals that large aren't made in just a few months. Mergers and acquisitions are hilariously complicated. Just look at AMD trying to acquire Xilinx and Nvidia trying to acquire ARM. I guarantee the Zenimax deal would have been at least a year, if not 18 months or longer in the making. And until there is firm movement it would be spectacularly incompetent to start talking about a deal months or years down the line - imagine if it falls through, imagine how fucking arrogant and stupid they would look for smugly bragging about it.
Why would they talk about the MLB deal? Why would they draw attention to something negative? Doesn't make for "Positive PR" to talk about that shit .
How many games has Studio Japan made recently? Since they helped out with Bloodborne way back in 2013/14. Their output has been poor to say the least. Sony apparently gives a lot of studios plenty of time to make something, as evidenced by Studio Manchester, but at what point do you cut your losses and get rid of a mediocre development team? I suppose you could gut it completely and restaff it, but at that point its not even the same studio any more. Team Asobi seem to have promise, makes sense to give them the resources instead of keeping a faltering studio on life support.
I grant you, the lack of presentations and keynotes is a surprise, but the past year hasn't exactly been spectacularly good for in person events and keynotes as I'm sure you might have noticed. And in the wake of Tokyo 2021, Japan isn't having a great time with COVID either.
The PC gaming shit is such a non-issue, but I'm not going to convince you otherwise.
If all of this stuff bums you out, I guess who am I to tell you otherwise. But I'm not seeing it right now.
Right so, just get one of your established studios to sweep in and bail out an experimental VR game development studio. I suppose that would work, assuming those established development studios weren't working on their own major projects and had the spare resources available to dedicate to helping out.
I imagine there is a reason they opened a new studio to work on experimental games/technologies, rather than bog down their premier development studios who likely have their own timelines and project schedules to contend with - not to mention getting familiar with HDK/SDKs for the new console they likely had early access to.
The actual answer is that its not that simple. Sony didn't handle it in a perfect way. But there is no perfect answer to a problem like this.
Nintendo also mishandled Metroid Prime 4, because they shouldn't have got Bamco to handle a long awaited sequel to one of their most iconic properties. Whether or not a proper Prime 4 is shat out by 2022 (if it even launches that early, given Nintendo's love of long development cycles), they still lost 2 years of development time and that has a cost.
These things aren't black and white. Business management isn't that easy.
Heimdall_Xtreme
Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
Same thing with Japan Studio.I just want to know who shut down Studio Liverpool.
We must find the bastard
White-fire
Member
I just wanna highlight this comment for being exceedingly bad. Not only are you listing neutral events and trends (games going to PC, San Diego making multiplats, no event this year).
But you are actively attributing them as utmost negatives that are somehow harming the brand. Japan studio has attributed almost nothing to the success of the current PlayStation brand, Japan’s studios output has consistently been the least valueable in the entire company. Every other studio outputs more valuable IP and games than Japan Studio. The most valueable portion of Japan Studio is being spun off into a Japanese arm of X Dev.
Sony could never counteract a Zenimax type deal. But they have been preparing for such a move for years through a massive expansion of their studios and workforce. You can achieve similar gains through increasing hiring and growing into multiple teams. Also they are increasing their 2nd party investments to fill gaps.
I could go on and on about these ridiculous points (ridiculous treatment of PS5 owners???? Are people dying to buy a PS5 to be treated terribly? Lol) but the gist of what I’m seeing is that you hate change even if it might be necessary. PlayStation is expanding and honing in on what it does well. There will be changes but the way you attribute any change as negative even if they are sometimes positives is just wild.
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CamHostage
Member
It's not clearly outlined in the article (it briefly talks about "the uncertain future of PSVR",) but I think that was a factor, that they were a VR studio spun up at ultimately the wrong time.
They started in 2015 (the year before PSVR released) and were given free reigns to make a big new thing on the emerging sub-platform of VR. So it's an exciting go-ahead they start with, but they're already late to the VR game (though they did start with an essentially greenlit concept to work towards,) and they're not set up to be a quick-release team, they were built as a "AAA VR studio" making quality over quantity. They go through ups and downs prototyping versions of a helicopter game with a little 15-30 person team for the next few years. Then, they run out of runway: PSVR only lasts 3 years before Sony backs out of internal support (either to focus on PS5 VR or to cut their losses, you pick your side of the numbers game, but aside from the delayed Iron Man VR game, Sony was done producing by the end of 2019 and switched to doing some third-party VR focus but mostly turning all attention towards PS5.)
So now Manchester is stuck in between. Do they finish their PS4 VR project and hope Sony still wants it on the market even though it's a new IP for a VR platform they've shifted away from? Or do they switch it to PS5 VR and wait who knows how much longer? (If CSAR had been great and was done already and could have been easy to port up to PS5 VR, maybe they could have chilled it and switched to a second game with that experience so that they could hit with multiple products at PS5 VR launch, but the project wasn't at that state.) The studio was founded in 2015, and its first games would ship in maybe 2022, maybe 2023, that's a hard sell. And in the end, Sony made an easy decision, and it sucks, but the die was basically cast when they couldn't get a title out in 2018/2019, even though they were not established with that kind of time-target edict.
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RoyalLaFlame
Banned
5 years of a studio that doesn't have anything to show? Close that shit. It makes sense. 5 years if a lot of time and a lot of money.
Are people supposed to be upset about this?
Are people supposed to be upset about this?
Stuart360
Member
Imagine if you were an Xbox fanboy, and having to put up with these kind of articles near daily for the last 8 years.
Jesus lol.
bitbydeath
Member
Japan got split into three.
- Asobi (Astrobot)
- Bokeh (Silent Hill / Siren / Gravity Rush)
- Xdev (Demons’ Souls)
It was an incredibly bloated studio.
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Bryank75
Banned
Things do not happen in a vacuum, San Diego and MLB are not bad things taken on their own, Japan Studio could even be spun positively if the surrounding landscape and PR was different to how it went down.
However things do not happen in a vacuum.... Jim and co raised prices exclusively on PS5 while Xbox offered games at the same price and then offered many launch games including MLB for no added cost through Gamepass, he also spouted that bullshit about 'believing in generations' and then made all the big titles crossgen, while he will also charge the extra amount for the privilege of playing on PS5........ it is this all out greed of wanting to put the games on PS4, PS4 and then PC on top of that AND charging the PS5 tax that is unacceptable. Not one thing in isolation.
Zenimax happened, maybe they couldn't counter it.... but that also did not happen in isolation. They shut down Manchester and Japan Studio, lost exclusives left and right such as Yakuza, Kingdom Hearts, MLB and several others and Xbox got Octopath Traveler before PlayStation, which is downright insulting.
This is after Xbox gobbled up Obsidian, Ninja Theory, Double Fine and many other decent studios.
Mm is not working on anything new... so count them out too.
Maybe you got confused on who is expanding??? It is Xbox that have expanded their offering.... PlayStations has only shrank since Jim and Hermen took over and I like PlayStation too much to lie to myself and others.
These things are just the tip of the iceberg..... I mean, the PR has been disastrous and words cost nothing. It doesn't cost anything to show your passion and it would come a cross in an instant if the person was authentic.
PC is NOT PlayStation, it is a competing platform, heavily aligned with Xbox / Microsoft.
I posted on another thread..... That PlayStation now dont care about the details.... they dont care about losing a few million customers in Japan, they Dont care about losing a few million due to Zenimax, they dont care about losing a few million due to Gamepass, they dont care about losing customers due to MLB going multiplat, they dont care about losing customers because they dont put on a show to create anticipation and excitement, they dont care about the hardcore fans and they dont care about losing a few million customers to PC since if you buy a PC, you have PC games, Xbox games, Gamepass and potentially most PS games if they go ahead....
How many will it add up to in the end???? How many are they willing to lose?
Competition is good and exclusives increase competition. If competition is so low that PlayStation doesn't need REAL exclusives anymore then it paints a very poor picture of the state of the industry. But I always suspected that the meeting between Ken Yoshida and Nadella had something behind it....... and it really looks like Sony are trying to throw this generation in MSFT's favor.
Either that or Jim and co are so incompetent that I think that is a possibility.... you decide which is worse!
I'm almost sick of these pricks and I'll just go back to Nintendo only if this bullshit keeps going on, where they have real fucking exclusives and they don't lead you on to buy hardware promising exclusives and them do the bait and switch later.
Edit: Then when it came to acquisitions, they buy Nixxes to further devalue what we buy a PlayStation for..... an absolute insult, nothing but a slap in the face.
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