Sony Studios Need Tough Love

Sony have a good selection of studios but not all of them are constantly good like ND,MM and PD, they should do better quality control and improve on the shortcoming that some of their studios have, for example..

Guerrilla Games: need better stories/writing in their games, they never got this right, I did some checking on the credits of Killzone game and didn't find a "creative director", this position is responsible for the overall writing/ characters/ embedded storytelling/ world feel/immersion/ pacing.

SSM: they need to take GOW to the next step in both game play and story, after 6 games, gamers want to move on, they must find a way to recapture that sense of amazement we felt with the early games, they should have done what Jeff planed to do and evolve it into a non-liner inter connected game world like Zelda/ Batman Arkham.

Japan Studio: they should be more ambitious, they have been making small scale games for a while and they have the talent to do better and bigger, now lets look at how the studio can improve..

- Gravity rush is a great fun game with originality, the challenge mission were well done and made me come back for more, but the limited budget for the game held it back, they did try to compensate using creativity by implementing comic book style story panels, but the experience would have been much better with voiced and animated cut scenes and more interaction with in the world.

- Soul Sacrifice: the game is great on both SP/MP, the dark story is fantastic, but like Gravity Rush it is held back by presentation, this time only using narration and some illustrations, also the game has huge franchise potential and should not be tied to only the Vita, Sony should seriously bring this to the PS4 and recreate the wold using next gen graphics, this game has the potential to replace GOW.

Evolution Studios: with PD already making the worlds biggest driving franchise Evolution have a crises of relevancy, they should just be restructured to assist on GT development or try making another genre, maybe take a crack at a Twisted Metal reboot.

Quantic Dream: yes I know they are an independent 2nd party, but it wouldn't hurt to give them constructive advice and a bit of needed hindsight, Beyond was a very well acted and presented game that kept me intrigued throughout, BUT! the game design that was intended to make the game simpler actually made it cumbersome, walking from one place to the next ended up being a chore and ended up breaking immersion many times, Telltale Games do these adventure games better and ironically they were influenced by Heavy Rain, no shame in QD taking inspiration in return.

now lets talk about the man in charge, I think Shuhei Yoshida is a great guy and good at developer relations but I have to say he misses many things when it comes to actual game production and supervision, sometimes being very hands off with games like StarHawk and Twisted Metal, they were good but could have been great. SASBR could have done with better presentation and less self indulgence, filing it with b-list 3rd party characters didn't help, the MP for GOW:A was out of place, a co-op titan hunting game like Monster Hunter would have been more fitting IMOO.

So sometimes Sony 1st party games end up great and sometimes they are a miss, they are not as consistent as Nintendo because they don't have a legendary game designer like Miyamoto supervising overall. I think Sony should put together a production supervision team selected from ND and MM and also bring in Keiji Inafune full time, he did a great job producing Soul Sacrifice.

Also Yoshida infamously passed on publishing Daemon Souls because he thought it was "crap", he also has a bad "hands off" policy when it comes to matters of publishing exclusive 3rd party Japan games like Tales, Yakuza, Suikoden, Valkuria Chronicls3 and left gamers alone begging publishers without doing things to help on PS gamers behalf, I know it can be done because MS(in the good old days) worked with Namco to publish Tales of Visparia in the west only months after the Japan release. now Sony have a "3rd party production" team so I hope addressing this issue is part of their mandate.

one last wish I have is for Sony to make a SP expansions for DCUO, people want to play as Superman/Batman/GL/Flash, make them based on Classic DC events like Crisis/ Blackest night, this would really be awesome and will very likely bring new players to the online game.

[ABizzel1]

I agree about Guriella Games.

SSM; however, I disagree with. THEY DO EVERYTHING. They've worked on Uncharted, StarHawk, Killzone, Journey, inFAMOUS 2, basically anything exclusive they work on. Now it seems they've turned into 3 teams with 3 different directors supposedly working on 3 different games (I think they may be a 2 team game developer and 1 team assist). They are right at the top with ND, PD, and MM.

Japan Studio: Needs to release games more frequently and not 1 - 2 every 4 - 5 years.

Evolution Studios: It was a second hand studio at first, because they're a car racing game studio, and GT is already Sony's flagship racing game. However, I think they'll shine better on the PS4 since they have talent from all the best known racing studios / games under one roof (former Burnout, Need 4 Speed, Gran Turismo, WipeOut, and Project Gotham devs. are all working at Evolution).

Quantic Dream: They need to focus on Gameplay and mastering their presentation. If you have a game that's HEAVY on acting and story then Presentation, Graphics, and Audio need to be top notch. They need some work there (graphics are there), but they need to eliminate those quick awkward pauses when dialog is suppose to come, have perfect voice actors and audio, and get traditional gameplay and controls, back by context sensitive QTE's.

Sucker Punch: They just need that overall boost in quality, everything else is there. inFAMOUS SS seems to be their moment.

Sony's first party is amazing, and they're among the best in the industry. It's just some of their studios need a bit of guidance and training in a couple of areas their weak in. Maybe have those teams with a weak point work with another team that's good at their weakness.

Example:

Guerilla Games + Quantic Dream = Amazing graphical masterpiece with a good story, cast, and gameplay. (GG picks up on story and writing, QD picks up on Gameplay and controls)

Japan Studio + SSM = Last Guardian finally gets release date. (SSM settles down to make new games, JS learns about meeting deadlines and working through projects)

[NewMonday]

SSM keep changing heads after every GOW game, don't think it was ever the same guy twice, the ongoing shifts made them loss focus on GOW:A, it felt they were following a formula, they need take the franchise to the next level.

also they are probably the biggest Sony studio based on staff, they assists in developing many games, they are the top candidate to bring Souls Sacrifice to the PS4.

[majiebeast]

Japan studio has 400+
London studios has 300+
Naughty Dog is at 250+(and growing)
Santa Monica is at 200+
Sucker Punch is at 100+
MM is at 50+
GG is at 160+

[NewMonday]

"Santa Monica is at 200+"

this is surprising considering they co-develop many many games, their could be more to the studio structure than we know.

"Japan studio has 400+"

and this doesn't include PD, what in the world where they doing over the last 8 years? Allan Becker better clean the mess up

[BitbyDeath]

Most Sony Japan games likely didn't leave Japan.

[majiebeast]

There are no teams in Santa Monica/Naughty Dog devs can choose what game to work or in SSM case help out indie devs/second party studios like RAD.

[NewMonday]

Santa Monica have only one great game on the PS4 and it's GOW3, they really need to get back in focus.

[Eyeco]

"they should have done what Jeff planed to do and evolve it into a non-liner inter connected game world like Zelda/ Batman Arkham. "

Do you have any sources to back that up, I to believe GOW should have gone that route, GOW1 was essentially one great big Zelda dungeon, just more streamlined, without the padding and emphasis on combat.

[NewMonday]

I was referencing from memory, a Google search did bring up the original comments..

http://www.playstationlifes...

[Vojkan]

SSM never worked on Uncharted and Infamous. Check your facts next time

[mechlord]

Dude, Miyamoto only has like 4 franchises to manage,
how many franchises, different people, different cultures has Yoshida to manage? Plus, i think you should really put things in perspective: Yoshida and the gang are making an amazing work of putting a quality standard over what WWS produces.

He didnt think DS was crap as SONY did publish it in Japan.
He thought the west wouldnt adopt it much.

Man, youre wrong is all sort of places...do you think that, because Keiji did a good work on a single game he should then be fit to oversee a dozen studios?

"
one last wish I have is for Sony to make a SP expansions for DCUO, people want to play as Superman/Batman/GL/Flash, make them based on Classic DC events like Crisis/ Blackest night, this would really be awesome and will very likely bring new players to the online game.
"

Think about it for a second: if they made it SP and based off those events, it would be gigantically unbalanced in the MP.

[NewMonday]

Miyamoto supervises quality on all 1st party games, some games he is very hands with, others he overseas as adviser.

"how many franchises, different people, different cultures has Yoshida to manage?"

all the more reason he gets experienced help, Sony WW studios are just to big, some studios like ND and MM have good self regulation but others need more hands on supervision.

- the DCUO SP character progression and maybe even story would be separate from MP, it would basically be 2 games in one, the art assets are mostly already done Gotham and Metropolis are big and vast, many stories can be done.

[NewMonday]

"do you think that, because Keiji did a good work on a single game he should then be fit to oversee a dozen studios?"

this what he did at Capcom for many years, I'm not saying he should run the whole show, just be one of the producers, same thing big movie studios do.

[Eyeco]

I'm gonna say I agree with you're article, this was the kind of read I was looking for.

One problem that Sony had in the 7th generation is the prevalence of shooters, now while I do like Uncharted, there was huge increase in shooters among the, now this all fine and dandy but I kind of saw that as a neglect to the identity Sony had prior.

Historically PS has never been renowned for Shooters, RPG's, Racers fighters, action adventures were always synonymous with the brand. Where were they this generation ? Not saying there weren't any but they definitely were less of a focus. Where was the big AAA RPG's and fighters ? Sony needs to go back to what defined them in the PS1/PS2 era and just leave shooters for the PC/XB nothing they makes is ever going to eclipse the popularity BF/COD we're not in early 2000's anymore when they needed shooters, theres enough of them on the market already.

Sony also has strong ties to developers such Level-5, Atlus that they may have well be exclusive, so the question is why haven't they pursued in buying them, especially Level-5 that way they could give the talented dev more funding a big AAA exclusive RPG, Atlus was a missed opportunity.

Sony also needs to start pushing there exclusives more, a game like LBP should have sold 10 million copies, yeah it sold moderately well, but it could have been a system seller it should have sold more, the 40 million that went into developing Killzone 2, if that money was put into marketing LBP it would have far more beneficial.

[ape007]

super awesome read, agreed 100%

I was a bit disappointed with KZ SF, sure it's a decent game and looks stunning but feels uneven and lack the awesome aura, intensity, soundtrack and atmosphere of KZ2

hell even the death animation/shooting feel is better in KZ2/Kz3 and both from last gen

i don't understand how last gen KZ2/KZ3 have better death animation/bullet physics, these aspects are dependent on technology and the PS4 is a damn beast compared to ps3, definitely rushed, i hope they do KZ4

[g5bay]

Stop hating on killzone sf its better than any launch game.

[NewMonday]

it could have been great instead of just good, that's why we discuss what is missing from these studios.

[BitbyDeath]

I agree that God of War needs a shakeup.
GoW3 was brilliant but likely because of the story.
Ascension on the other hand just felt repetitive and didn't have a great story to fall back on.

Japan Studio need to make another Tokyo Jungle, maybe give it a much larger budget. That was one of the best new IP's to come out of lastgen... IMO

Evolution Studios need to make a new Motorstorm, it was unfortunate that the last title about apocalypse came out when Japan had their very own apocalypse, nobody could have predicted that.

Quantic Dream had a masterpiece with Heavy Rain but Beyond unfortunately did not live up. They do need to go back to the drawing board with almost every mechanic but the genre itself should definitely continue.

[NeloAnjelo]

I think sometimes these games are developed in a vaccuum... In that the story is not tested...

I am at a loss though as to why GG is judged negatively for story, when COD and BF have much worse and shorter singleplayers. As for multiplayer in KZ you either like the difference and the challenge, or you hate it... I for one love it. And I feel the game doesn't get a free pass on SP like the others. This is unfair.

Multiplayer is unique, different and a challenge. And YES the story can use work... But which of the big shooters have a great story?

[dark-kyon]

japan studio need to stop making games diferent for the sake of being diferent,they can do a sequel or remake of legend of dragoon and capture the genre jrpg what is niche,but is more requested for fans what the atypical games what the studio make.

[Picnic]

Sony could do with something off the wall that doesn't go down that well tread Japanese/European quirky sensibility.

It could do with a Jet Set Radio sequel , for instance, to counter Microsoft's Sunset Overdrive.

Sony sometimes needs to be more POW! Like Killer Instinct did for long time fans.