This is my biggest concern, the WipEout games were some of the most consistantly good that were coming out of a Sony first party. I can only hope they plan to merge the studio into another for this reason.
This, to me, isn't like Zipper, where their games had been underperforming, WipEout was selling, it was still of high quality and the game was reference points for how good games on PS3 and Vita could look.
Sony Liverpool has undergone several restructuring. Sony is looking at relocating staff/talents at Sony Liverpool to other parts of the business to strengthen them.
Alot of Liverpool's duties included helping developers....akin to SANTA MONICA But if you remember, Sony's supposed to be consolidating their "split off" and segregated workforce.
Because Liverpool's actual games of late have all been Wipeout(s), most of which are PSN games, Liverpool's duties become redundant.
The only thing that sort of bothers me, is it seems like Sony has been cutting and trimming everything except for Japan......and there's plenty amongst Sony's entire Corp in Japan that can be cut. I may be wrong, and maybe they have cut or laid off some Japanese based jobs, but I haven't heard of it.
I would imagine, TEAM ICO might be next, unless THE LAST GUARDIAN is either a Super smash hit, or has such high critical acclaim....that could possibly save it, but we'll have to see.
Surely with how much talent was in that studio they would move some of them around. I get that closing a studio usually means it has simply grown too large and isn't producing enough sales...but wipeout on the PS3 and vita both look pretty damn amazing and I'm sure they're capable of making more great games.
Agree , but make games that appeal to the audience. If Sony makes a Good RPG or JRPG i would throw money at them. Give me a game like dragonquest or Ni No kuni on the vita :D
Eh, they hit billions of USD losses each year since the PS3 is introduced, when sales in the end aren't making up for the costs, you gotta cut the costs to get a better result on the balance sheet....
Good point but I guarantee that Liverpool was more profitable than Team ICO, even down to "dollar per employee".
And I think you're also right about them closing down ICO after Last Guardian (if it ever comes out).
Edit: From GAF What in the world? Bigbig Studios releases Vita game, Sony closes them. Zipper Interactive releases Vita game, Sony closes them. Studio Liverpool releases Vita game, Sony closes them.
Team Ico is just that... a team(a group within a studio... so is Project Siren)... Liverpool is a whole studio... Unless Sony plans to get rid of SCE Japan Sudio then they will be around unless Last Guardian does super bad...
Sad days for gaming indeed. Such a shame when all of these studios have to close. This is part of the effect that I mentioned that got a ton of disagrees. You cant put out game after game, see it not sell to expectations and keep going like nothing happened.
I really enjoy Wipeout as well, got it for free after the PSN outage last year. Hopefully the workers will be merged or something, hate to see people lose their jobs.
Exactly, I don't go and say "Hey my game on my console outsold yours", but I do pay attention and hope that games I enjoy sell well enough to get sequels. So many quality games I've played this generation probably wont see a sequel due to poor sales or sales below expectations.
I hope they get a new job soon but this is the kind of thing Sony need to do to save £ as they are losing money left right and centre at the moment.
A lot of people slag MS off for not having many exclusives ect any more but what MS have done is started the Gen with a lot of exclusives and seen what has sold well and what has not and then kept the ones that sell well going as this is what people want. Sony on the other hand have given exclusive after exclusive of games like resistance Motor Storm ect and even though I have really enjoyed them they have not sold that well.
Its a sad day for them to close the studio but it is another must to keep Sony alive and kicking in the long run.
Cambridge Studio = Medievil, Primal, Ghosthunter to name 3 PS2 classics were closed after not even been given a chance on PS3, as well as Team Soho who made the awesome The Getaway 1st game also not given opportunity to create PS3 games....& to add insult to injury they were both made to work on Home & Singstar crap.
Now Liverpool Studios is shutdown after making the awesome WipeoutHD, the add on Fury, & the awesome PSP verions....what a suck, surely these guys don't have to go.
They merged Cambridge Studios & Team Soho, which was an unforgiveable offence within itself, now again they are messing with London Studios, another one of there best. The way they are going, Sony will have no U.K. based developers left, if they already haven't after these guys are axed.
If they had of allowed Cambridge to give us more Medievils in PS2 & PS3, as well as a Primal sequel on PS3 that had half decent marketing, they may have helped Sony's losses just a little, as well as Team Soho releasing The Getaway 3 & the awesome looking & ridiculously media hyped & followed 8 Days.
I don't believe Cambridge Studio was closed as such, but is now a part of Guerrilla Games? As far as I understand they are making Killzone Mercenary, which looks outstanding. But perhaps I am wrong.
and mcstorm, MS really had only a bare minimum of exclusives to there name that were created by inhouse developers, & MS shut down good developers (like the Halo Wars dudes) without even giving it the opportunity to sell...They closed them down before Halo Wars even went to retail, which was totally sucky, given the ammount of cash MS has, they should have allowed them to get there money back (which they did).
MS has always damaged more developers than they have nurtured. I will agree that Sony is in fairly deep financial strife, & that is in large part to the fact that many gamers don't support anything outside the big usual suspects, and/or really don't have a clue how great a game is until years down the track, as shown with Ico, BG&E, Psychonauts, Okami, etc,etc.
It sucks, & one of the greatest developers on PS1 & Xbox 1 were eaten up by the industry in Oddworld Inhabants, as the 1st mistake they made was go from PS1 were it had an awesome name among PS gamers, & of which there was a demograph of over 120million in the end, & moving onto a start up console that came out over 18months after PS1's successesor PS2, which was also sharing great early success & already had a massive headstart on MS's new console before Xbox launched.
Suffice to say, MS dropped them like a hot rock after there 1st game, Munch's Odysee failed to make an impact, they were then picked up by EA & made the infinately better Strangers Wrath, but poor marketing, again Xbox exclusitivity limiting there reach, & the weird failure for the game to be letterboxed into one particular genre really hurt the developers newest games success, & EA dropped them too. Disheartened, disallusioned (understandably), & probably broke, Oddwaorld Inhabants from my understanding just left the games industry & I'm not sure whether they have yet returned.
Ms has opened many studios as of late and have around 20 now. Ms is hiring talent all oved the place. Ms may have shut down ensemble but they kept most of the staff. That said sony allready has less studios then ms and they are shutting down more and will continue to as the company is not profitable. Im surs ms who is currently hiring for several of there new studios will take some good talent that sony cant afford. Sony needs to learn to pace there games and not show them years in advance as they become ovedhyped and hurts there sales and there bottom line. Both sony and ms have some excellent games and a great backlog but you cant keep putting out sequels to the same games if they dont sell if you want to remain profitable and compettive.
Lol M$ has no studio that comes close to Sony Santa monica,Media molecule,Naughty dog or Suckerpunch. All the studio's they own are subpar like Lionhead and Rare, studio's destroyed by microsoft. Only good studio they had was Bungie and they bought themselves out to escape from microsoft.
@ majiebeast your opinion of what M$ studios come close to $ony studios is very subjective. you may not have liked any of the games released by M$ studios or thought thay was worth a damn. doesn't speak for the many that do.
also yes bungie bought their freedom. but they did so to keep their IP's which honestly is no different then Insomniac Games leaving sony as a publisher to make games so they could also keep control over their IP's.
So it seems this is an industry situation, and not MS only.
Very troubling indead.
However, I am sure wipout will survive somehow. At least I hope it does. Wipeout has always been awesome. One of the first games i remember playing when the first playstation came out.
ehm, where are the MS problems you talk about? MS makes more money than ever. If you come up with the last Q, that was a one time write off of an acquisition made in 2007 I guess. The overall busines is highly profitable.
Many fanboys are talking about their last loss they showed. Which was an incidental one. They had to write off 6.2 Billion USD on this advertisement company they once bought. It didn't generate billions of loss like Sony seems them year after year, and its a one time write off.
Man that sucks i was praising these devs for bringing wipeout hd and fury, 3 games in one with full campaigns as dlc. Most content packed ever. Thats real fan service. Hope they get a new team and continue working with Sony
Most likely. It's pretty obvious Sony has a keen eye when it comes to quality, especially after the acquisition of Sucker Punch last year and Gaikai this year. They are probably looking to acquire Quantic Dream. At the cost of Liverpool, BigBig, and Zipper. They get Sucker Punch, Gaikai, and hopefully Quantic Dream.
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This, to me, isn't like Zipper, where their games had been underperforming, WipEout was selling, it was still of high quality and the game was reference points for how good games on PS3 and Vita could look.
Sony Liverpool has undergone several restructuring. Sony is looking at relocating staff/talents at Sony Liverpool to other parts of the business to strengthen them.
But if you remember, Sony's supposed to be consolidating their "split off" and segregated workforce.
Because Liverpool's actual games of late have all been Wipeout(s), most of which are PSN games, Liverpool's duties become redundant.
The only thing that sort of bothers me, is it seems like Sony has been cutting and trimming everything except for Japan......and there's plenty amongst Sony's entire Corp in Japan that can be cut.
I may be wrong, and maybe they have cut or laid off some Japanese based jobs, but I haven't heard of it.
I would imagine, TEAM ICO might be next, unless THE LAST GUARDIAN is either a Super smash hit, or has such high critical acclaim....that could possibly save it, but we'll have to see.
I think we started to see a positive turn around for SCEJ at Gamecom.
More to come I hope.
Eh, they hit billions of USD losses each year since the PS3 is introduced, when sales in the end aren't making up for the costs, you gotta cut the costs to get a better result on the balance sheet....
I can't imagine "Team ICO" existing after the Last Guardian comes out.
And I think you're also right about them closing down ICO after Last Guardian (if it ever comes out).
Edit: From GAF
What in the world?
Bigbig Studios releases Vita game, Sony closes them.
Zipper Interactive releases Vita game, Sony closes them.
Studio Liverpool releases Vita game, Sony closes them.
I really enjoy Wipeout as well, got it for free after the PSN outage last year. Hopefully the workers will be merged or something, hate to see people lose their jobs.
A lot of people slag MS off for not having many exclusives ect any more but what MS have done is started the Gen with a lot of exclusives and seen what has sold well and what has not and then kept the ones that sell well going as this is what people want. Sony on the other hand have given exclusive after exclusive of games like resistance Motor Storm ect and even though I have really enjoyed them they have not sold that well.
Its a sad day for them to close the studio but it is another must to keep Sony alive and kicking in the long run.
Now Liverpool Studios is shutdown after making the awesome WipeoutHD, the add on Fury, & the awesome PSP verions....what a suck, surely these guys don't have to go.
They merged Cambridge Studios & Team Soho, which was an unforgiveable offence within itself, now again they are messing with London Studios, another one of there best. The way they are going, Sony will have no U.K. based developers left, if they already haven't after these guys are axed.
If they had of allowed Cambridge to give us more Medievils in PS2 & PS3, as well as a Primal sequel on PS3 that had half decent marketing, they may have helped Sony's losses just a little, as well as Team Soho releasing The Getaway 3 & the awesome looking & ridiculously media hyped & followed 8 Days.
Sad, sad stuff.
MS has always damaged more developers than they have nurtured. I will agree that Sony is in fairly deep financial strife, & that is in large part to the fact that many gamers don't support anything outside the big usual suspects, and/or really don't have a clue how great a game is until years down the track, as shown with Ico, BG&E, Psychonauts, Okami, etc,etc.
It sucks, & one of the greatest developers on PS1 & Xbox 1 were eaten up by the industry in Oddworld Inhabants, as the 1st mistake they made was go from PS1 were it had an awesome name among PS gamers, & of which there was a demograph of over 120million in the end, & moving onto a start up console that came out over 18months after PS1's successesor PS2, which was also sharing great early success & already had a massive headstart on MS's new console before Xbox launched.
Suffice to say, MS dropped them like a hot rock after there 1st game, Munch's Odysee failed to make an impact, they were then picked up by EA & made the infinately better Strangers Wrath, but poor marketing, again Xbox exclusitivity limiting there reach, & the weird failure for the game to be letterboxed into one particular genre really hurt the developers newest games success, & EA dropped them too. Disheartened, disallusioned (understandably), & probably broke, Oddwaorld Inhabants from my understanding just left the games industry & I'm not sure whether they have yet returned.
your opinion of what M$ studios come close to $ony studios is very subjective. you may not have liked any of the games released by M$ studios or thought thay was worth a damn. doesn't speak for the many that do.
also yes bungie bought their freedom. but they did so to keep their IP's which honestly is no different then Insomniac Games leaving sony as a publisher to make games so they could also keep control over their IP's.
Who was telling me financials do not matter and won't affect the gaming business?
That is the brutal reality right here.
I hope these guys land on their feet.
Very troubling indead.
However, I am sure wipout will survive somehow. At least I hope it does. Wipeout has always been awesome. One of the first games i remember playing when the first playstation came out.
Many fanboys are talking about their last loss they showed. Which was an incidental one. They had to write off 6.2 Billion USD on this advertisement company they once bought. It didn't generate billions of loss like Sony seems them year after year, and its a one time write off.
:(