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[Men_in_Boxes]

Four years of silence after being branched out from TLOU2, radio silence on any other projects (they announced TLOU2 six months after U4 came out), talked about how they expanded it to be much bigger than they thought it would be, then canceled out of nowhere while releasing some crappy remaster of the last game they made, no word on any other project that was in "full production" while F2 was being developed (presumably a game that would be near release now), it's pretty obvious what happened. Companies are never going to go into detail on their bombs and major failures, we figure it out later.

Really poor logic here.

Games now take 6+ years to make. The bulk of Naughty Dog went to work on their next big single player IP right after 2020's TLoU2. The people who didn't expect radio silence in the four years after TLoU2 are low information gamers.

Low information media goes after low information gamers by creating clickbait narratives such as "Why haven't we seen TLoU 3 yet?! Naughty Dog imploding!" This works on some people for some reason.

Factions 2 started development as a small team within Naughty Dog. The fact that it never entered full production and never released any promotion outside of two drawings suggests the team failed to reach specific benchmarks required to grow in size.

I could be wrong. You could be wrong. We'll know more convincingly if we don't see the A team of Naughty Dog's next project in the next year or two. If that happens, then we can draw the conclusion that Factions 2 absorbed a large amount of resources from Naughty Dog over the previous 4 years...but I'm confident we'll see that big game in the next 24 months.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Factions 2 was arguably the easiest slam-dunk GAAS title SIE could have produced this gen. In fact just a remake of Factions 1 to tide over would've done great.

The fact their most surefire GAAS (potentially) was canned (alongside the 2nd most surefire success in that Spiderman one, tho we don't know details of how it eventually got axed)...yeah, easy to see there are head proverbially rolling over at SIE for that one.

Meanwhile they are kind of haphazard with Helldivers 2, and Concord looks like it'll be DOA, with the fate of games like Fairgame$ and even Marathon up in the air. Hundreds of millions potentially down the drain on a rushed pursuit into GAAS chasing trends.

Oops.

Low information media goes after low information gamers by creating clickbait narratives such as "Why haven't we seen TLoU 3 yet?! Naughty Dog imploding!" This works on some people for some reason.

Are you calling Jason Schreier "low information media"? He's probably the most consistent 'insider' in the industry, or at least among them. Though he's more about affirming things through detailed reports and expose pieces; not really one to do the "I heard a thing about the thing" nuggets and teases people like Grubb like to go on about.

That part just seemed a bit funny to me

The original Factions mode was a tacked on thing that was well designed and much better than it should have been. If ND had just done that and maybe beefed it up a little and threw it in with TLOU2, they could have had a genuine thing like SP did with Ghost of Tsushima. But ND got really arrogant and stupid and Sony leadership (Jim Ryan etc.) was so in love with the accolades they were getting that they gave them too much rope. Sad!

This. They could've remade Factions 1 with TLOU2 characters and assets even, and release it as an add-on mode for TLOU2, bridging it to TLOU1 Remake where changes could be implemented, for what'd eventually become Factions 2.

Then rolled out Factions 2 this year for example for TLOU2, TLOU1 Remake & TLOU2 Remastered owners on PS & PC. Then a bit later, roll out a F2P version of Factions 2 while providing perks to TLOU2 & TLOU Remake owners (purchased before a cut-off date, of course) over the course of a few seasons like various free cosmetics, MTX discounts, free loot & gear etc.

And then just iterate on Factions 2 over the years while ND works on TLOU Part 3. With some of these GAAS-orientated teams SIE picked up, makes you wonder why none of them were just tasked with upkeeping Factions 2 content production in-house. In what world is something like Concord going to take off and be a bigger hit than a TLOU Factions, or even reach a fraction of that?

 

[diffusionx]

Really poor logic here.

Games now take 6+ years to make. The bulk of Naughty Dog went to work on their next big single player IP right after 2020's TLoU2. The people who didn't expect radio silence in the four years after TLoU2 are low information gamers.

Low information media goes after low information gamers by creating clickbait narratives such as "Why haven't we seen TLoU 3 yet?! Naughty Dog imploding!" This works on some people for some reason.

Factions 2 started development as a small team within Naughty Dog. The fact that it never entered full production and never released any promotion outside of two drawings suggests the team failed to reach specific benchmarks required to grow in size.

I could be wrong. You could be wrong. We'll know more convincingly if we don't see the A team of Naughty Dog's next project in the next year or two. If that happens, then we can draw the conclusion that Factions 2 absorbed a large amount of resources from Naughty Dog over the previous 4 years...but I'm confident we'll see that big game in the next 24 months.

You don't know what "full production" means. It could be anything. Naughty Dog could say 200 people was full production but they had 199 working on it.

I agree we will see what happens and revise as necessary, but what Schreier here is saying lines up with what I have been saying since they canceled it.

 

[Ozriel]

Nope. They said it in their cancellation post. They never entered full production.

Jason Shrchrier is just playing low information people like fiddles.

This is untrue. They never said it hadn’t entered full production.

I suggest you re-read their blog post. The part you’re confused about is this

In ramping up to full production, the massive scope of our ambition became clear. To release and support The Last of Us Online we’d have to put all our studio resources behind supporting post launch content for years to come, severely impacting development on future single-player games. So, we had two paths in front of us: become a solely live service games studio or continue to focus on single-player narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog’s heritage.

The bolded does not explicitly say they weren’t in full production, and seems to insinuate that the scope became really challenging in full production mode.

They started pre-production before 2020. Unless you’re imagining they spent 4 years in pre-production, this is a baseless claim.

Druckmann made it clear that Factions was going to be their biggest, most ambitious game ever. That implies a major focus from the studio with tons of manpower and resources thrown at it.

 

[SlimySnake]

Heads should be rolling, and no, Cuckmann should not be spared simply because he uses L’Oréal shampoo and allows other people to make love to his wife whilst he watches.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

You don't know what "full production" means. It could be anything. Naughty Dog could say 200 people was full production but they had 199 working on it.

I agree we will see what happens and revise as necessary, but what Schreier here is saying lines up with what I have been saying since they canceled it.

I sincerely doubt that full production means 200 employees after they have 199 working on it.

These incubation projects start small, then they ramp up employee count after they reach specific milestones. The fact that they were never confident enough to release a CGI teaser, which would have cost a minimal amount of money, suggests they were a small team the entire time. Hell, Fairgame$ got a CGI teaser and that studio was only around 120 employees in 2023.

Jason Shchreier is full of ****. When Police interrogate suspects, they look for specifics in their stories. The more specific someone is, the better chance they're telling the truth. That entire interview with Jason is nothing but vague statements. That should set off grain of salt flags for anyone paying attention.

 

[Solarstrike]

Fucking 4 YEARS!!?? Sounds like deliberate sabotage to me. Have those responsible investigated by the proper authorities.

 

[NonPhixion]

“made some heads roll at Sony“
Past tense my ESL friends.

 

[AJUMP23]

People are held accountable in business for not producing a return on investment. In Government you just get re-elected.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

This is untrue. They never said it hadn’t entered full production.

I suggest you re-read their blog post. The part you’re confused about is this



The bolded does not explicitly say they weren’t in full production, and seems to insinuate that the scope became really challenging in full production mode.

They started pre-production before 2020. Unless you’re imagining they spent 4 years in pre-production, this is a baseless claim.

Druckmann made it clear that Factions was going to be their biggest, most ambitious game ever. That implies a major focus from the studio with tons of manpower and resources thrown at it.

I think it's pretty clear that "ramping up" to full production means they didn't like what they saw at the end of the ramp. You don't commit resources to the next phase if you don't like what you see at the end of the ramp.

Incubation projects frequently take a long time in the oven. Hello Games released an ambitious game with 10 people. Having ambition starts in the seed phase of a project.

 

[DenchDeckard]

I sincerely doubt that full production means 200 employees after they have 199 working on it.

These incubation projects start small, then they ramp up employee count after they reach specific milestones. The fact that they were never confident enough to release a CGI teaser, which would have cost a minimal amount of money, suggests they were a small team the entire time. Hell, Fairgame$ got a CGI teaser and that studio was only around 120 employees in 2023.

Jason Shchreier is full of ****. When Police interrogate suspects, they look for specifics in their stories. The more specific someone is, the better chance they're telling the truth. That entire interview with Jason is nothing but vague statements. That should set off grain of salt flags for anyone paying attention.

Cmon dude, they had footage leaking of the multiplayer. They officially announced it and it was due out 2 to 3 years after announcement. There's no way that production wasn't in full fledged swing.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Are you calling Jason Schreier "low information media"? He's probably the most consistent 'insider' in the industry, or at least among them. Though he's more about affirming things through detailed reports and expose pieces; not really one to do the "I heard a thing about the thing" nuggets and teases people like Grubb like to go on about.

Schrier is the best insider in gaming when he gives specifics. IE: "They're going to show X game at the next event."

When he uses vagaries and muddy language, his reliability is less consistent.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Cmon dude, they had footage leaking of the multiplayer. They officially announced it and it was due out 2 to 3 years after announcement. There's no way that production wasn't in full fledged swing.

Yeah, that footage made The Day Before look polished and complete. That footage could have been scrapped together by a five person team at Naughty Dog as nothing about it looked labor intensive. It was nothing more than a super early prototype.

 

[Jesb]

Doesn’t make any fucken sense not to release something at that point than nothing.

 

[Solarstrike]

*Cancelled for the PS5 but not the PS6

 

[SlimySnake]

He end up hurting ND even more lmao.

I legit think ND wouldve been better off had Neil been allowed to go to hollywood and make tv shows. Thats what he wants to do anyway. There was enough talent at ND to simply let him go and continue making amazing games.

What's happened now is that talented ND directors like Shawn Escayg had to resort to overseeing a fucking remaster instead of working on a new game let alone a new IP. All because Neil has made himself the main director while he's off making tv shows leaving his studio to make gaas trash and remakes that pale in comparison to bluepoint and capcom's RE remakes. ND should be making even better remakes than those studios because ND is simply more talented than those studios with a lot more of Sony's dollars. But nope, TLOU1 featured not only last gen visuals but also didnt include any of the cool gameplay mechanics from TLOU2. The level design was literally identical whereas the RE games changed every single encounter and boss fights.

It's such a shame to see ND digress in just a short amount of time since Neil became president in 2020. he's a great director. One of the all time greats even, but hes no studio head and him abandoning his team at the start of the gen is simply inexcusable. What CEO does that? Let alone the main director at your firm.

Lets hope he's learned and the next game from ND is directed by someone else while he works on TLOU3 or some other new IP of his own. Either way, ND went from being an industry leading studio to literally being a no-show for 4 years. They have never gone 3+ years in between games. he's been a miserable failure as studio head.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

People really think Jimbo retired ? ...

He made this the most profitable generation in Playstation history despite launching during a pandemic and he retired shortly after closing the 10-year COD deal with Xbox ABK acquisition, which led to the Xbox Business Update back in january

You think he got fired over Factions 2?

 

[midnightAI]

Ohhhhh, now I get the nickname Cuckmann, sorry, brain fart moment on my part I finally understand..... he cucked some of your wives

I wondered why he got so much hate

 

[yurinka]

What did he contribute to any of that? Covid made demand go to insane levels across the board. We don't know how much he actually contributed. Anyone could have potentially rode that wave. We have no way of knowing whats going on behind the scenes. Sony were coming off their most successful console since the PS2.

He did many things as the CEO.

Had to manage a console launch in times of global pandemic lockdowns difficulting manufacturing, shipping and selling consoles on retail shops and malls plus not being able to promote it with presential events.

He achieved it breaking sales records for any console in gaming history, with a marketing campaign that broke all time gaming history records for any company in most social media networks. That was after he overhauled their marketing team unifying the different region/country specific teams that previously had each one their different strategies, messagings and campaings and now follow a global and unified, more optimized and effective vision and messaging.

Soon after launch also had the issue of lack of components that highly reduced the units being able to be produced (other than the related issues of covid). Also had to face insane inflation and component prices increase that didn't allow them to make price cuts and instead forcing them to increase console, game and services pricing.

On the game side highly increased the manpower of their teams, acquired support teams to help them more and also acquired more gamedev teams. He also invested more in 2nd party games for this generation than they ever did before for a generation (according to Sony). They have more 1st party games under development they ever had before, and broke the fastest selling console exclusive for Sony with titles released in 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

He also signed more 3rd party exclusives to be released this generation than they ever did before in previos generaitons. Game sales+addon revenue in PS is making more revenue than ever.

PS5 users have an all time ARPU record, and the PS4 users have the highest ARPU than it had during its generation. PS also achieved its highest active userbase ever (12M MAU this December) on PS history, which may also be the highest MAU ever for any console brand in gaming history.

He continued and expanded the GaaS and PC strategies that were started before him having great success with GT7, MLB, Helldivers 2 and The Final Shape plus, plus releasing many late PC ports of old PS games that in all cases were profitable and many of them having a huge profit marging, so the PC revenue keeps growing a lot year after year to provide them now or soon above a billion of yearly profits from PC. And doing so with no negative effects on the console side, if something having a positive side effect there.

He also overhauled PS+ merging it with PS Now, highly improving the catalog and cloud gaming. As result SIE's game subs make more revenue than ever.

He also heavily invested on accesories like PSVR2, PS Portal, different controllers and headsets. SIE accesories make more revenue than ever.

He also revamped their movie/tv shows area, becoming way more successful than ever before and have many projects in the works.

He also started to work on a future mobile gaming strategy signing deals with many of the top mobile gaming publishers, developers and platform holders of Asia, region where they want to specially grow. Plus also acquired Neon Koi (who has top European talent from top mobile gaming devs plus Rockstar) and also started to work on the PS+ expansion to mobile (including cloud gaming, they've been working on it during many years).

So basically he did many important changes, improvements and investments in all areas and achieved record success. He has been the most successful CEO that console makers ever had in gaming history.

During the 50 years of gaming history tons of games got cancelled in all companies, including Sony. It's something normal, part of the creative process of making games. It's totally dumb and nonsensical to think the most successful console maker CEO ever is going to be fired because of the cancellation of a game.

BTW, regarding PS2 their most successful region by far was Europe (other than in PS this doesn't happen in any other gaming platform). And the guy in charge of promoting and selling it in Europe was Jim Ryan.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

People really think Jimbo retired ? ...

Forced into retirement

It took awhile but maybe Ybarra and Spencer sharing that glass of scotch when Ryan was promoted saying he would run Playstation into the ground were right all along as he differently was heading down that road

 

[SlimySnake]

People really think Jimbo retired ? ...

He was likely forced to resign after the disastrous $3.6 billion Bungie purchase.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Doesn't this coincide with the Bungie firings/restructuring, while Bungie was consulting Playstation Studuos/ND on Gaas projects?

 

[Hudo]

“made some heads roll at Sony“
Past tense my ESL friends.

are you a 4channer, by chance?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

One more thing to add here is that Naughty Dog has a long history of being a super competent studio. They're arguably the best run studio in PlayStations stable.

The idea that the leaders within Naughty Dog would waste an outsized amount of resources on a failed GAAS project just doesn't fit with what we know about Naughty Dog. Smart, accomplished people, generally make good choices.

As if Naughty Dog leadership got wasted and did cocaine while turning over half of their studio into a high risk GAAS project just doesn't jive with what we know from them. It's not how competent people operate.

I know everyone likes to think Neil Druckman is an idiot and they could run the studio better, but that's like reading a New England Patriots message board where morons are telling Bill Bellicheck how to do his job.

 

[fart town usa]

Sony hardware. Still Ballin.

Sony software. Flaming dumpster fire.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

He was likely forced to resign after the disastrous $3.6 billion Bungie purchase.

This is absolutely delusional lol

 

[ComputerBlue]

They should have just packed a normal multiplayer mode like they did with TLOU, that stuff was very fun and even original.

Don't know how the fuck you spend 4 years working on an mp mode only to end up not releasing anything.

Not only but likely as a result of the GAAS Factions they didn’t include the mp in the part 1 remake.

This gens output from Sony is trash.

 

[blastprocessor]

Please fire Hulst and Druckmann, thanks.

Hulst hasn't done well has he? I miss Shuhei Yoshida, he did bring a nice slate of games on PS4.

 

[SlimySnake]

This is absolutely delusional lol

nah delusional is paying $3.6 billion for Bungie.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

nah delusional is paying $3.6 billion for Bungie.

No CEO gets retired over a small acquisition like that failure or otherwise. That's fucking daft

 

[clarky]

But it didn't, so now you'll be hearing it from Schreier. Train it better next time.

Its trained not to tell me obvious shit it pulled from its ass.

Not extra training required. Good boy.

 

[SlimySnake]

No CEO gets retired over a small acquisition like that failure or otherwise. That's fucking daft

Small? It's the biggest playstation acquisition by 15x. The most expensive studio acquisition prior to bungie was $220 million for insomniac.

They passed on Respawn for $300 million. Cystal Dynamics and Eidos montreal for $300 million. Only to spend 12x more for Bungie. Its anything but small and a gigantic waste of money. There were reports that Bungie mislead sony about their future revenues and marathon is focus testing extremely poorly so yes, as the CEO, the buck stops with him for not doing his due diligence on the financials and future projects.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Small? It's the biggest playstation acquisition by 15x. The most expensive studio acquisition prior to bungie was $220 million for insomniac.

They passed on Respawn for $300 million. Cystal Dynamics and Eidos montreal for $300 million. Only to spend 12x more for Bungie. Its anything but small and a gigantic waste of money. There were reports that Bungie mislead sony about their future revenues and marathon is focus testing extremely poorly so yes, as the CEO, the buck stops with him for not doing his due diligence on the financials and future projects.

They're a megacorp incase you forgot. Yes $3.6 billion is a small amount to stab your CEO in the back over. That doesn't happen.

 

[Embearded]

Getting fired is always a possibility for project managers / ditectors.

To be honest, i respect the decision to pull the plug on a project if they don't feel good about it. Surely though, someone will have to explain what went wrong and face the consequences.

 

[SlimySnake]

They're a megacorp incase you forgot. Yes $3.6 billion is a small amount to stab your CEO in the back over. That doesn't happen.

Hes the playstation CEO. A subdivision of Sony which is the megacorp. Not the Sony CEO. Of course the Sony CEO asked him to fall on his sword over such a massive purchase for a sub division.

 

[adamsapple]

Forced into retirement

It took awhile but maybe Ybarra and Spencer sharing that glass of scotch when Ryan was promoted saying he would run Playstation into the ground were right all along as he differently was heading down that road

The long con.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

They should have just packed a normal multiplayer mode like they did with TLOU, that stuff was very fun and even original.

Don't know how the fuck you spend 4 years working on an mp mode only to end up not releasing anything.

Makes sense assuming Sony or ND wanted to add normal MP with mtx to the game.

But with their gung ho GAAS strategy to take in Uber dollars from mtx or season passes, they want to make it a giant ongoing separate game that would go up against COD Warzone or Fortnite.

And that strategy requires a lot more time and money and people. So it could never be a bunch of standard modes like most games have.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Hes the playstation CEO. A subdivision of Sony which is the megacorp. Not the Sony CEO. Of course the Sony CEO asked him to fall on his sword over such a massive purchase for a sub division.

While still leading their most profitable generation. If minor fuck ups along the road like that justify replacing your leadership we'd see them dropping like flies. We all know that doesn't happen.

 

[StueyDuck]

I bet weenie boy is so happy about it. His pathetic beef with naughty dog and Rockstar is pretty well known

 

[SlimySnake]

While still leading their most profitable generation. If minor fuck ups along the road like that justify replacing your leadership we'd see them dropping like flies. We all know that doesn't happen.

Sony's profits halved in 2022 and 2023 thanks to this delusional purchase.

yes, the revenues went up under him but if he hadnt wasted $3.6 billion on bungie, the operating income percentage wouldve held steady or even increased along with revenues. But the bungie purchase completely fucked up their profit margins. The Sony CEO threw the playstation division under the bus completely ignoring the the revenue jump because he knew that the profit margins went down because of that one unnecessary purchase.

he took over a business that was on its way up already after Phil ran Xbox to the ground in the second half of last gen. its not like ps5 was successful because of him, it was successful inspite of him.

 

[TGO]

fire Neil Druckmann

Fixed

 

[proandrad]

No CEO gets retired over a small acquisition like that failure or otherwise. That's fucking daft

3.6 billion is a disaster for a studio that cost as much to run as bungie for Sony. They don’t the mountains of cash like Microsoft to be able to dust off a 3 billion dollar purchase. That purchase is about 3% of their market cap. It would be abour 0.1% of Microsoft.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

He made this the most profitable generation in Playstation history despite launching during a pandemic and he retired shortly after closing the 10-year COD deal with Xbox ABK acquisition, which led to the Xbox Business Update back in january

It's fascinating how people willfully ignore this fact.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

I've been saying this for quite a while...after TLOU2 released most of Naughty Dog and their main project was this one.

People thinking the next Naughty Dog game is going to be announced this year or next are in for a huge surprise.

You guys will be waiting for the next Naughty Dog game until close to next gen. Their next game is the studios priority for like a year or so...games take more than half a decade nowadays, specially if its a new IP.

 

[tommib]

I've been saying this for quite a while...after TLOU2 released most of Naughty Dog and their main project was this one.

People thinking the next Naughty Dog game is going to be announced this year or next are in for a huge surprise.

You guys will be waiting for the next Naughty Dog game until close to next gen. Their next game is the studios priority for like a year or so...games take more than half a decade nowadays, specially if its a new IP.

I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see anything from ND until PS6.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Whose heads rolled, J.Cuckster?

Tell us!

I'm looking at the ND LinkedIn accounts and all the studios' leads are still in their current roles.

Herman Hulst who was WWS boss is even being promoted. So pray tell, whose heads have rolled? Or are you just making shit up again to pretend you're some sort of informed insider?

 

[SlimySnake]

I bet weenie boy is so happy about it. His pathetic beef with naughty dog and Rockstar is pretty well known

If it wasn't for him we wouldnt have found out about 100 hour work weeks at Rockstar, the massive divorce rates, and all of the following shit going on over at ND:

- constant meddling with Bend's Uncharted spin-off leading Bend to cancel it
- constant meddling with VSG's TLOU remake forcing VSG leadership to quit leaving ND with a remake
- poor focus testing on Abby's levels leading to many rewrites and delays for TLOU2
- the reason reason for Amy henning's departure... i.e., clashes with Druckmann and Bruce over uncharted 4 forcing her to resign, even though it was her series to begin with

I dont care if he is a little shit. he keeps everyone accountable.

 

[Punished Miku]

I've been saying this for quite a while...after TLOU2 released most of Naughty Dog and their main project was this one.

People thinking the next Naughty Dog game is going to be announced this year or next are in for a huge surprise.

You guys will be waiting for the next Naughty Dog game until close to next gen. Their next game is the studios priority for like a year or so...games take more than half a decade nowadays, specially if its a new IP.

My guess is a very small scale new IP. Like indie game small. And then all hands on deck to barely finish TLoU3 before the show passes them.

 

[SlimySnake]

Whose heads rolled, J.Cuckster?

Tell us!

I'm looking at the ND LinkedIn accounts and all the studios' leads are still in their current roles.

Herman Hulst who was WWS boss is even being promoted. So pray tell, whose heads have rolled? Or are you just making shit up again to pretend you're some sort of informed insider?

He said at Sony, not Naughty Dog.

 

[Masterri]

Hulst to be promoted CEO of Sony any minute now.
I hate the dutch so much it's unreal.