Sony Assigned Over 150 Employees to Aid The Callisto Protocol's Production

We already know that Sony contributed to the development of The Callisto Protocol, but the extent of its support may surprise you. Images of the credits – posted on ResetEra – reveal that around 150 employees from the platform holder’s Visual Arts Services Group and Malaysian team aided developer Striking Distance Studios on the project.

PlayStation often supports the creation of third-party titles by loaning out its state-of-the-art motion capture studios, and assisting on things like audio mixing and cinematics. But this looks like one of its biggest assignments on a non-first-party game to date, with the aforementioned 150 employees credited as contributing to the title.

[Sonyslave3]

Sony did the same for Capcom and Ea with Resi 8 and The last Order.

🤣 I guess people owe Matt Booty an apology for saying nothing out the ordinary for AAA studio getting hired to help each other.

[VersusDMC]

Exept Perfect Dark got help from Crystal Dynamics because people were leaving in droves. That's why it was brought up.

https://www.google.com/amp/...

We all know outsourcing happens. Kudos to Sony for helping out that much a Multiplatform game though.

[InUrFoxHole]

So it's why they got the help... not the help it's self. Gotcha

[jznrpg]

@wiz7191 it looked like it had the power of Xbox 360 but was billed as having 13 Xbox ones ! 13 times the power was said . Just like16x the detail

[FyBy]

Sony doesnt do it for being nice :-)

[CR7JUVE1897]

Yeah, except that unlike Crystal Dynamics, Sony did not Co-Develop the title with a presumed AAAA Studio. In fact, they did not co-develop this title at all.

[HyperMoused]

If only his parents changed his T's with X's, Maxx Booty would be an epic name

[SaveFerris]

Maxx Booty sounds like a name for a porn star.

[lodossrage]

there is a BIG difference here Sonyslave3

When Sony helped with Callisto project, it wasn't because the studio was losing developers.

Crystal Dynamics helped with the new Perfect Dark because the Initiative (Microsoft's AAAA studio) had developers leaving left and right.

There's nothing bad about outsourcing, but don't sit here and act like the situations are they same. One company got help because their own in-house developers kept leaving the company

[Crows90]

big difference here. How many studios help sony studios make their games? Where with perfect dark's AAAA studio couldnt handle it and needed a 3rd party to take over.

[gangsta_red]

@Sonyslave

There's always a "that's different because...." excuse.

[generic-user-name]

How dare they call out his attempt to compare apples to rotten oranges.

[lodossrage]

@gansta_red

What excuse?

This is Sony helping an outside developer on a multiplatform project. Not the other way around. This isn't some outside source helping Sony on own of their own projects.

Microsoft however got help from Crystal Dynamics for one of their own projects because the Initiative keeps losing developers.

So you have one powerhouse assisting another company
And the other powerhouse needing outside help on one of their own projects despite buying a bunch of studios recently.

So go ahead and tell me you don't see the difference there.

[gangsta_red]

@lodossrage

So MS and the initiative got help on a project because they're a new development team that hasn't got off the ground yet and somehow that's different than Sony assisting another newly development team that hasn't fully staffed for complete development....

Gotcha.

And other Sony games have also have had outside help for their games. Just recently Sony aquired Valkyrie studios who were best known for co-developing big time powerhouse developers including God of War. Capcom and Namco routinely help Nintendo and just about everyone else in the industry has had some form of outside help from big third party developers.

And maybe the reason another MS studios isn't helping is because they're busy with current projects or maybe they are, unless you have actual proof that they aren't.

But yes, this is all different because reasons...

[Knushwood Butt]

The Initiative was formed more than 4 years ago, with a bunch a veteran talent.

How long do they need to, 'get off the ground'?

[lodossrage]

Ok first off, let's not sit here and act like the Initiative doesn't have a ton of Veterans from all over the industry on it. In fact, that was one of the bragging points. They have people from all these studios: BioWare, Naughty Dog, Respawn Entertainment, Santa Monica Studio, Blizzard Entertainment, Insomniac Games and Rockstar. And their original head came from Crystal Dynamics. So I don't want to hear this "amateur" excuse.

And it's funny you mention Valkyrie Entertainment and I'm glad you did. Because this brings me back to another convo I had with someone here. When they were helping with God of War, Sony was cultivating them for an eventual purchase. Do you really think they "needed" them for God of War? Giving an untested company a small portion of responsibility is common. Keep in mind Valkyrie was a support studio that worked mainly with Sony in the first place.

With Microsoft, can you say the same? Can you say they're cultivating to buy Crystal Dynamics? I doubt it seeing that Embracer Group just bought them and want them as a cornerstone of their own growing empire. If developers stayed at the initiative, they wouldn't have even bothered to reach out to Crystal Dynamics in the first place.

"And maybe the reason another MS studios isn't helping is because they're busy with current projects or maybe they are, unless you have actual proof that they aren't. "

I don't have proof they aren't. But we don't have proof they are either considering they hardly put anything out for release

[notachance]

lol an excuse MS should be familiar with

[shinoff2183]

gangsta_red

And

this is a videogame website that allows us to comment.

[generic-user-name]

I must've missed Striking Distance's tweet where they officially revealed that Sony studios would be helping them out with the rest of the development. Because that's normal.

[Eonjay]

Again with the misinformation. It says Sony employees not PlayStation devs and the help is coming from Sony's visual arts studio not from developers. This includes artwork, cinematography, mocap, and other performance art. They are a Sony visual arts studio, not PlayStation first party studio.

[IRetrouk]

Va are developers and have worked on most of sonys games since the ps2 era..... and they most certainly are a first party studio, support or not, they build a lot of the tech that the other studios use, even started the development on some and then pass it on, like the last of us part 1 for example, they are making a new game with naughty dog and a new team as we speak.

[Andy_Dee]

The last Order? Never hear of this in EA.

You mean the Star Wars game?

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order?

[jznrpg]

Totally different story .

Phil has taught you the spin well .

Clearly Perfect Dark was in development hell and that was the first year .
Phil had to find some outside team willing to latch on to it to bail them out .
Helping a studio complete a project is normal .
Having most of your top devs leave within the first years and more leaving after and having an outside company go produce a game after claiming you made a AAAA studio is nothing more than a massive failure and totally abnormal .
Also I hear they bought a publisher and hear bragging of more studios then Sony so why couldn’t they get one of their own studios to help them make it ? Why Crystal Dynamics ?

[Bathyj]

So where's the reviews? I'm a bit concerned about that. Also concerned about the combat getting boring quickly. The game releases tomorrow.

[Charlie2688]

Apparently the review embargos lift the release day :/

[GamingSinceForever]

I’m a little concerned about the late reviews too. Also to think that Sony putting 150 employees behind this but not striking a timed exclusivity deal makes me wonder. 😳

It’ll likely be a good game still.

[SonyStyled]

Not really sure of your concern. ND has (had now?) a mo/cap studio that was often used by other third party developers. Iirc Remedy used it for Controls development. I don’t think this is worthy of news. PlayStation did expand their studios for aided development, which is old news. It’s not a big deal if other studios use another for motion capture, a 3rd part engine, etc.

[Eonjay]

Sony got marketing rights. Plus it not being exclusive is great so more people can now experience what real quality actually looks like.

[Crows90]

You this concerned about all games?

[Bathyj]

Seems justified now doesn't it?

[Binarycode]

Could say the same about dead space, but that game was fantastic.

[InUrFoxHole]

Yo what?!?!? Releases tomorrow? Yeah that is a bit sketch then.

[Jimneous]

Got my copy yesterday from Shopto in the UK. It's good so far, very much Dead Space in everything but name, not finding it particularly scary so far though.

[anast]

Sony likes games.

[Ninver]

Apparently MS doesn't

[Lightning77]

What happened to all the funding a development of Ori? Giving dev more time and resources for psychonaughts? Funding and helping with Cup head?

Aw those are AA games so they don't count right

[thesoftware730]

And Money...don't forget Money.

[Aloymetal]

Yeah of course but at least they try their best and spend some of that money back on awesome new games and Ip's for their new gen.

2nd year of this new gen and PS has already released a bunch of goty contender games.

[anast]

With MS your money will get you a refrigerator, some mobile games, subscription services, and a KFC controller...

With Sony you get games.

[thesoftware730]

@anast

The Xbox fridge is Awesome!!

If i'm not mistaken most big companies are getting into Mobile games, Sony recently announced they were as well...right back to my point about.....Money.

btw, the sub services is for games, 100s in fact.

[HyperMoused]

The season pass maybe?

[SyntheticForm]

I can't wait to play this; I love space horror and survival. Alien Isolation 2, you can announce yourself any time now.

[Vengeance1138]

Good guy Sony! You'd never catch a Microsoft studio doing this, they are alot more focused on taking away 3rd party games from others rather than helping them out.

[Orchard]

"You'd never catch a Microsoft studio doing this"

Xbox does the exact same thing. They have a group called the 'Advanced Technology Group' that they effectively loan out to games that are big enough to warrant it, and then they'll help out with pretty much anything - tech art, optimization, etc.

The sad reality is though, it's not that common to credit 1st party engagement teams in games - so kudos to Striking Distance and Krafton for crediting them.

[GamingSinceForever]

ATG should prioritize staying in house to help MS launch some of their own games. Wouldn’t you agree?

[Orchard]

@GamingSinceForever

Why not both? Third party revenue is important for MS/Sony too - in fact, it's bigger than all first party games combined.

They are helping with first party too though - Todd Howard mentioned Xbox helping out in his Starfield interview this week.

[GamingSinceForever]

Yes eventually they could do both but ,unlike Sony, MS has a bad reputation for the lack of 1st party output. Let’s be honest here it has been barren for years now.

[Tacoboto]

The Coalition was heavily credited for improving UE5 due to their optimizations for Xbox which benefit the engine as a whole.

[Vengeance1138]

PS5 had the largest impact to UE5 as they had to go back and rework the engine to get up to speed with PS5's Super SSD. The engine is built around the PS5.

[Orchard]

@Vengeance1138

"The engine is built around the PS5."

I had to laugh at this. Lol, built around PS5... they did not rebuild Unreal Engine. Heck, lots of UE code dates back to UE3 (XB360/PS3 era).

[Hofstaderman]

@orchard I don’t know why you laughing the Unreal engine developers actually stated that it was developed and optimised in tandem with the PS5 when they released their tech demo.

[Orchard]

@Hofstaderman What they actually said was "we've rewritten our core I/O subsystems for Unreal Engine with the PlayStation 5 in mind"

That's not rewriting the engine or designing the engine for the PS5. That is a very small component of the overall engine - and is clearly optimized for Xbox, PC, Switch etc too.

People took the above statement and ran with it. Heck, people were even running around saying the PS5 demo wasn't possible on Xbox, when in reality, it turned it works just fine, all the way down to the Series S lol.

[Tacoboto]

UE5 runs well on SSDs half the speed of the PS5's, and now there are SSDs with even faster speeds. By the time real UE5-first games come out, DirectStorage as an API (that MS develops) will be further refined and start getting adopted.

Get off your anti-Xbox nonsense. All first party platforms provide third parties support. This is a stupid thing to argue.

[IRetrouk]

The core I/O subsystems are not a small part of the engine at all, I/O is a very important part of the engine, it's what gets all the info in, out and around the system, it's linking ssd, ram, cpu and gpu and talking to them all, I mean, xbox and playstation both mentioned how much better the I/O systems are and how much more they will allow devs to do when hyping up their product, even tim said how much more efficient the ps5 I/O is even compared to pc.
The downplay isn't needed.
Also epic never said the demo would run on xbox, they said lumen and nanite would be features the xbox supports, if your gonna correct someone, do it right.

[thesoftware730]

Yawn, how many times have you typed a similar comment? MS take away blah blah blah.

Where are they taking them? to a movie? A dinner maybe?

Oh, I know, to work at a company with trillions of dollars, and near unlimited resources.

Just to debunk your "You'd never catch a Microsoft studio doing this", how about Ori on the Switch? how about Minecraft tons of support on every platform, how about Psychonauts2? Just remember you said "Never"

[Orchard]

Pretty hyped to start playing this tonight, but also kinda concerned by the lack of reviews. I guess we'll see.

[tay8701]

review embargo lifts on dec 2nd, same day as release.

[Orchard]

Yeah... that always makes me a bit skeptical. But we've also seen a few games where the embargo date was release date and the games were totally fine.

My copy has already arrived it seems, so I'll be trying it out when I get home from work and will just make my own call on it ahead of the embargo.

[Eidolon]

No Day 1 patch?

[Orchard]

Looks like the patch is already out - it needed an update immediately.

But the game is good so far, definitely feels like DS1. I expect the reviews to be overwhelmingly positive and don’t think anyone here who has pre-ordered has anything to worry about at all.

[Eidolon]

Great. I'll be playing on the on the 5th, probably.

[Hofstaderman]

Sony showing their commitment in taking this industry forward. Not buying it out.

[wiz7191]

Lol Sony couldn’t afford to buy Bethesda let alone Activision even if they really really really wanted to .. but didn’t they just Purchase Bungie ??

[MrDead]

... yes because publishers are the same as a studio. Do you guys think before you come up with your insane comparisons?

[Hofstaderman]

Oooh boy. You must be one of those guys praying Starfield is going to be the promised saviour. As for the Activision buyout I think you need to refer to the current news. And even if that does go through, I don’t think it’s going to magically enhance MS capability to manage studios. But hey day one GamePass….

[SullysCigar]

To be fair, neither could xbox. Sadya "Daddy Moarbux" Nutella stepped in with the money for a bail-out plan. A plan that's currently hanging in the balance.

[BehindTheRows]

Uh, Bethesda was $7.5B. Sony absolutely could have afforded that.

[wiz7191]

@behindtherows then how come Sony didn’t buy them ??? Obviously they were up for sale because they got sold.

@MrDead or is it the truth and you Sony Pony’s are just upset your plastic box of choice company couldn’t make the purchase ??? I own all three so I’ll get to play all games released anyway.

@hofstaderman Nah not really I know of other games on Microsoft console that I will be playing so Starfield isn’t on my radar. Grounded just got a full release I’ve been playing that and it’s a amazing little game. Redfall coming out and a bunch of other stuff. It seems like Starfield is the only game y’all think is coming? Say what you want about Gamepass , at lease I get access to hundreds of games and some instantly without a download also play where ever I’m at. Can your PS5 do that ?? Nah it can’t with PSnow losing more subscribers then gaining. I can play Persona 5 , which say fans were so hype about for next to nothing. With the Activision buyout just exposed the fact Sony games aren’t as important as you think they are , with Sony excellent studio portfolio they shouldn’t have no problem with coming up with another quality FPS shooter.

[Orchard]

Sony sitting with their stable of acquired game studios reading your comment:

https://giphy.com/embed/cJM...