Sony shut them down because they no longer fit playstation plans,
Yeah, not having anything lined up after 6 years will do that. More on this point later.
and not only that but they could have sold them easily to another publisher but decided not to do so
Ugh. This again. Armchair analyst outrage slop at its finest.
Ask yourself: How many times has that happened? I can think of 3 total examples:
Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal to Embracer
IO Interactive to studio management.
All Square Enix, both at very different times in the industry compared to now. CD and EM got sold in 2022, right in the middle of during the acquisitions race and after 2 major flops from both studios. IO was sold '17 after Hitman '16 flopped. For reference, Sony bought
Insomniac for less than 230 million 2 years later - after
Spider-Man.
Putting aside that the economics in 2026 are drastically different, the other key in each of these instances is that the
IP was also sold along with the studio. IO owns Hitman. Embracer owns Deus Ex and Tomb Raider. Even then, Embracer has had multiple rounds of layoffs for both studios.
Sony was never going to put up any IP for Bluepoint and no publisher or private investor was going to put up the money necessary to acquire them anyway. It's exactly like when WBD put WB Games up for sale. No one was ever going to acquire those teams (including the now closed Monolith) without getting MK, DC and HP.
And while I've argued for Hulst's ouster from PlayStation for years, not everything he said in his letter is bullshit. Actually, none of it is. He's managed these teams horribly, but the solutions to the problems are not fully in anyone's control and there are heated debates as to what the root causes to some of them are.