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[Killjoy-NL]

A remaster of the PS3 game, with improved visuals, animations and tweaks to combat ground and air. I’m sure one of Sony’s teams could take that on. The Helldivers guys perhaps ?

Arrowhead is occupied with Helldivers.

If any other studio would do it, people would be bitching about Sony dedicating their studios to a multiplayer/gaas game.

So the best option for Sony is yo acquire new studios with experience developing such games, but they'll already be working on their own projects when Sony scoops them up.

So you'd be in the exact same situation all the same.

 

[tusharngf]

If 10 gaas fails and one succeeds that will recover 10 games budget. Sony is looking for that pubg fortnite miracle where the sales cross billions of dollars.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Back when they started talking up their expansion into live service, a lot of people here and everywhere else, including myself, said that they are just going to aim wide and try to get a few hits. Well, it's nice talk but a lot uglier as the process plays out.

Their biggest successes are the ones that they took an existing game and extended it into this world. Same thing EA did with Madden and FIFA. It makes the most sense. Apex was a Titanfall spin-off. They had that Ghost of Tsushima multiplayer mode and I don't think they really knew what they had.


Warhawk was a multiplayer game, not a live service game. There is a difference. It takes a lot more than just putting out a good multiplayer game to succeed in this space and make something that can be profitable and sustainable for years and years.

I said the same kind of thing. Even though GAAS is a hit and miss thing (unless you got popular established series that have been around for a while like COD and FIFA), Sony has such a solid track record with their big SP games, just stick with them. Even games like DG which didnt even get rated well sold 8M copies. And for Sony, that's a bad seller compared to the SP series games that sell 10-20M. For 99%+ games out there, 8M copies is a gold mine. They also got some GAAS too like GT and baseball which go into the reliably successful camp.

But instead of using that money to make more kickass SP focused games, they used that freed up money to buy Bungie at $3.6B, Haven and FW, and also had that powerpoint saying they want to do 12 GAAS games from 2022. Maybe that included GT and baseball already (I forget), but if it did thats still 10 new GAAS games which were supposed to all come out by 2025. And aside from H2 the rest either failed, canceled in dev or still in dev. And at that time of the powerpoint, that didnt even include Bungie games so the GAAS games can be bumped up by Marathon and any other new games Bungie has in the works. Plans changed, but at one time Sony wanted to unleash 12 GAAS titles in 3 years.... 1 per quarter! Insane. I dont think even the greediest Activision or EA execs pump out 12 new GAAS IPs in 3 years. And that didnt even include anything Bungie related since the buyout was still in progress.

Sony just got greedy and lost focus. Even though they were humming along making good profits on SP games and reaping in 30% cuts from all the third party digital sales, they probably got jealous that COD, Fortnite, EA and UBI bragging about high margin mtx sales in their earnings reports that Jim Ryan and gang had to leap in too and get a piece of the action.

The key thing is it seemed they learned and scaled back some GAAS games in dev. But long term is interesting what they'll do. And what they do/what happens to Fairgames, Marathon and any other new GAAS games secretly being worked on.

 

[Trogdor1123]

If a company is making gaas and hits 50% they are pumped. Thats an excellent track record for those types of games.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Nobody asked for Fortnite BR either.

True, the BR genre was unknown and not popular until Fortnite came around and Fortnite was obviously an IP people had long wished would go MP and MMO, just like Horizon, which people totally aren’t burned out on.

 

[diffusionx]

I said the same kind of thing. Even though GAAS is a hit and miss thing (unless you got popular established series that have been around for a while like COD and FIFA), Sony has such a solid track record with their big SP games, just stick with them. They also got some GAAS too like GT and baseball which go into the reliably successful camp. But instead of using that money to make more kickass SP focused games, they used that freed up money to buy Bungie at $3.6B and then had that powerpoint saying they want to do 12 GAAS games. Maybe that included GT and baseball already (I forget), but if it did thats still 10 new GAAS games. And aside from H2 the rest either failed, canceled in dev or still in dev. And at that time of the powerpoint, that didnt even include Bungie games so the GAAS games can be bumped up by Marathon and any other new games Bungie has in the works.

Sony just got greedy and lost focus. Even though they were humming along making good profits on SP games and reaping in 30% cuts from all the third party digital sales, they probably got jealous that COD, Fortnite, EA and UBI bragging about high margin mtx sales in their earnings reports that Jim Ryan and gang had to leap in too and get a piece of the action.

The key thing is it seemed they learned and scaled back some GAAS games in dev. But long term is interesting what they'll do. And what they do/what happens to Fairgames, Marathon and any other new GAAS games secretly being worked on.

They freaked out when MS bought ABK. They saw that one of their biggest money makers was going to be in the hands of their primary rival. So they tried to bring more control over to their own platform. Yet they did this at the same time they weakened their platform by porting their games out of it. And now a few years later with Xbox business obviously failing and MS putting their games on PS, it is clear that fear was unwarranted, and it's even worse because they bought Bungie at probably the worst time to buy the company. The opportunity costs of going down this path are enormous and will have consequences for a long time.

True, the BR genre was unknown and not popular until Fortnite came around and Fortnite was obviously an IP people had long wished would go MP and MMO, just like Horizon, which people totally aren’t burned out on.

PUBG, which basically established the genre, had come out and was the best selling game on Steam, it was hugely popular, but it also ran like shit, was PC exclusive, and was expensive. So Epic churned out Fortnite BR to quickly capitalize on that, it is a lower spec game, it ran on other platforms, and was F2P.

This just shows a huge driver in this is dumb luck. Would Fall Guys had been as popular as it was had we not been forced inside our homes by the government? You can't plan for this. You can't treat your business like a roulette table.

 

[Parazels]

Cancelled games don't count. Instead you should praise Sony for not releasing bad games at all.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

True, the BR genre was unknown and not popular until Fortnite came around and Fortnite was obviously an IP people had long wished would go MP and MMO, just like Horizon, which people totally aren’t burned out on.

Fortnite BR was a side-project 5 Fortnite StW devs created in their sparetime for fun.

There was no massive demand from anyone for such a mode.

So kind of a weird logic to come up with by saying "who's asking for?".

 

[Parazels]

Is it legal to make threads with such misleading title and conclusions?

 

[fart town usa]

I cannot wait to see what happens with Fairgames. That game is more cringe than Concord.

"Eat the rich" themed GAAS title funded by Sony. So effing dumb. Deserves the Concord treatment and them some.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Fortnite BR was a side-project 5 Fortnite StW devs created in their sparetime for fun.

There was no massive demand from anyone for such a mode.

So kind of a weird logic to come up with by saying "who's asking for?".

Yes we all know the history of Fortnite, thank you.

There was massive demand for BR when Fortnite came out. There is less than zero demand for Horizon MP or an MMO.

There’s nothing weird about pointing out no one is asking for stupid spin offs of an IP like Horizon. And we all know I am right, because otherwise you wouldn’t be doing your contrarian shtick in response. You arguing against my point is confirmation it is the logical point, otherwise you wouldn’t argue against it.

I see you didn’t learn your lesson from Concord. Not going to feed the troll further

 

[The Cockatrice]

• Marathon - will most likely do ok
• Fairgame$ - will fail or get cancelled
• New IP From Bend Studio - will fail
• Horizon multiplayer - lmao insta fail/get cancelled if isnt already
• Horizon MMO - same as above

Updated.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

If a company is making gaas and hits 50% they are pumped. Thats an excellent track record for those types of games.

This is a good point. During the PS3 era IIRC, one of the Sony execs said like 2 or 3 of every 10 of their games make a profit. This was before GaaS exploded and we started to see lots of games with extremely long revenue streams. To hit on 50% is actually really good.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

LOL. I didnt know Horizon had two GAAS in the works. I remember the one that has a cartoony look, but thats it. I'm not sure if that's the MP game or MMO game. I'm assuming that was the MP one.

 

[SSfox]

Oh god I forgot about that Horizon multiplayer. Hermen need to go ASAP really

 

[Killjoy-NL]

There was massive demand for BR when Fortnite came out. There is less than zero demand for Horizon MP or an MMO.

Nobody asked for Fortnite BR either.

And there is always a large portion of any demographic that is interested in mp games.

There’s nothing weird about pointing out no one is asking for stupid spin offs of an IP like Horizon. And we all know I am right, because otherwise you wouldn’t be doing your contrarian shtick in response. You arguing against my point is confirmation it is the logical point, otherwise you wouldn’t argue against it.

I'm just saying your logic is retarded when talking about "but nobody's asking for it"
There isn't always a need for it, but if you decide to go ahead you need to be able to sell it.

I see you didn’t learn your lesson from Concord. Not going to feed the troll further

Concord is a good example of how not to do it.

No idea what that has to do with me, because I didn't care nearly as much about Concord as you and others seem to do.
It's living rent-free in your heads, huh?

 

[cireza]

They didn't invest enough money, this is why the games failed.

 

[yurinka]

Over 50% of PlayStation’s Live Service Projects Either Failed Or Were Canceledhttps://www.neogaf.com/threads/over-50-of-playstation’s-live-service-projects-either-failed-or-were-canceled.1674748/#reply​

Fake news

The following list shows PlayStation’s biggest live service projects over the last few years.

• MLB The Show – Succeeded
• Helldivers 2 – Succeeded

You didn't include GT7 and Destiny 2, which are part of their dozen IPs with GaaS titles. If you're including previous stuff like Destruction All Stars not included there, you should also include previous successful GaaS stuff like GT Sport or even stuff like LBP and PS Home.

• Gran Turismo Sport – Succeeded
• Gran Turismo 7 – Succeeded
• Destiny 2 – Succeeded

• Destruction All-Stars – Failed
• Concord – Failed
• Last of Us 2 Multiplayer – Canceled

• New IP From Deviation Games – Canceled
• New IP From London Studio – Canceled

Yes, but Destruction All Stars isn't from their dozen GaaS push. In the same way Gran Turismo Sport, Dreams, Little Big Planet, the Singstar F2P, PS Home, DC Universe Online, Everquest and many other previous Sony GaaS weren't part of that push.

• Payback From Bungie – Canceled
• Twisted Metal – Canceled

• Spider-Man: The Great Web – Canceled

Looking at the list, six major games have been canceled so far.

These 3 weren't in production, they weren't greenlighted so couldn't be cancelled. Were just rejected pitches / prototypes made by relatively small teams that never entered production.

The only known GaaS that were cancelled -this is, games under production being shut down- were TLOU Online, the London new IP and the Deviation new IP (that last one got replaced/maybe rebooted by the ex-Deviations team).

• Horizon multiplayer
• Horizon MMO

Oficially there's a single "Horizon Online" game internally codenamed Hunters Gathering being made at Guerrilla in addition to Lego Horizon and Horizon 3.

That Horizon Online, their MP game, may also be the MMORPG -or not- that apparently NC Soft is developing for mobile and PC (Guerrilla could be making the console part).

This means that 9 of the 16 games have been failures.

239492 of 16 xDDD

Being serious, in their current push for getting a dozen IPs with GaaS, they have/had up to 15 games in production. 4 released successfully, 2 failed, 3 got cancelled and 5 ares still under development.

So 5 out of 15 games under production (a third) got canceled or were a failed. 4 of them are instead in the market being successful.

1. MLB - Succeded
2. Gran Turismo - Succeded
3. Helldivers - Succeeded
4. Destiny - Succeeded
5. Firewall - Failed
6. Concord - Failed
7. Horizon Online / "Hunters Gathering" - WIP
8. Marathon - WIP
9. Fairgame$ - WIP
10. Bend's new IP - WIP (may not make the initial March 2026 goal)
11. "Gummybears" (new IP incubated at Bungie, moved to PS Studios) - WIP (may not make the initial March 2026 goal)
12. Ex-Deviations new IP - WIP (replaced Deviation's new IP, won't make the initial 2026 goal)

Games cancelled (all companies cancel games, it's part of the process):

• TLOU Online - Cancelled
• London new IP - Cancelled
• Deviation new IP - Cancelled / Rebooted or replaced by other project of ex-Deviation members

Most pitches / prototypes (independently if GaaS or not GaaS) aren't greenlighted and never enter production or even pass the early preproduction stage. It's normal because they invest hundreds of millions on AAA, so they have to filter and only greenlight/choose those who they are more confident on. There must be way more we never heard of, but the ones we know from GaaS are:

• Spider-Man: The Great Web - Not greenlighted
• Twisted Metal - Not greenlighted
• Payback - Not greenlighted

Foamstars, while technically not a PlayStation first-party release, was marketed and released as a console PlayStation exclusive. Following a lukewarm reception, Square Enix has gone free-to-play with this title.

• Foamstars – Failed

This is 3rd party, not a Sony game.

If you also count 3rd party console exclusives then add successful ones like Fall Guys, Rocket League, Final Fantasy XIV, Genshin Impact or ZZZ.

 

[Dorago]

Remember when they wasted the middle of the PS3's lifespan making waggle controls and releasing casual waggle control games than nobody played? Remember how this almost killed they system and the only thing that saved them was Microsoft going even harder in with the Kinect?

Remember too how every sequel of every PS3 franchise had an online multiplayer mode tacked on and that the single player modes were markedly worse than their predecessors?

What Sony is doing isn't new, though it is remarkable that they've learned nothing about chasing market trends over the last 17 years.

 

[SHA]

So in Sony's mind, ff14 can't be bested.

 

[vivftp]

My list:

1) MLB The Show - successful ongoing annual franchise

2) Helldivers 2 - had a wildly successful launch

3) Concord - pulled after release. Remains to be seen what will happen, if anything

4) The Last of Us Online - development stopped as ND had to choose between either that or continuing to make single player games

5) Payback from Bungie - a spinoff that borrowed elements from Gehsin and Warframe that was cancelled

6) Twisted Metal - was never greenlit. The project started with Lucid Games and was moved to Firesprite and never came together

7) Deviation Games new IP - the project was pulled from Deviation. We know that Jason Blundell and many former Deviation staff are working directly at SIE now, there is a good chance that they are continuing to develop this game internally, but we have no confirmation as of yet

8) London Studios new IP - the studio was closed down earlier this year, so of course their game went with it. We do not have any insight into the reasons for the studios closure, whether it was related to the game, or the studio itself or if Sony just needed to cut a studio to improve their margins

9) Spider-Man The Great Web - was never greenlit

10) Marathon - continuing development

11) Fairgame$ - continuing development

12) Horizon Online (Guerrilla) - continuing development

13) Horizon MMORPG (NCSoft) - continuing development

14) Destiny Rising (Netease/Bungie) - a mobile game set in the Destiny universe that's continuing development

15) Project Gummy bear - a project that began at Bungie and has been spun off into a newly formed studio of former Bungie devs at SIE

16) Neon Koi's game - continuing development

17) Destiny 2 - An already successful live service game that Sony acquired with Bungie with annual expansions



In your list you have included Foamstars which is a Square Enix game not published by Sony, it has no place on this list. Bends new IP has MP elements, but no evidence that it's a live service at this point in time. Destruction Allstars was a game from a bygone era, greenlit and almost entirely developed before the current live service initiative began in 2019. It falls into the same category as other titles like Predator Hunting Ground and Dreams. It's also up in the air if one wishes to include Gran Turismo 7 to the list as it seems to exist in a quasi-live service state. If one does add GT7 then that gets added to the list of successfully released games.

So from my list I count:

3 successful live service games (MLB, Destiny 2, Helldivers 2)
2 games that were never greenlit (Twisted Metal, Spider-Man)
3 games cancelled (TLOU Online, Payback, London Studios)
1 game released and pulled, its future TBD (Concord)
7 games still in development, possibly 8 if Jason Blundells game is a continuation of Deviations (Neon Koi, Gummy Bear, Horizon Online, Horizon MMORPG, Fairgame$, Marathon, Destiny Rising)

 

[Fafalada]

I'm also sure plenty of single player games get internally cancelled.

In big publisher studios - more games get cancelled than made - completely agnostic of the genre/business model.

Warhawk was a multiplayer game, not a live service game. There is a difference. It takes a lot more than just putting out a good multiplayer game to succeed in this space and make something that can be profitable and sustainable for years and years.

True - but you can build off of that foundation (existing IP + codebase that was not build for GaaS). I've seen a fair number of those 1st hand - and while success rates were all over the place - there was at least one breakout hit made this way that still makes hundreds of millions to this day (18 years later).

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Divide up the list between existing franchises/games already out and new games that came out lately or cancelled/bombed and it's night and day.

Only successful game lately is Helldivers 2.

 

[diffusionx]

True - but you can build off of that foundation (existing IP + codebase that was not build for GaaS). I've seen a fair number of those 1st hand - and while success rates were all over the place - there was at least one breakout hit made this way that still makes hundreds of millions to this day (18 years later).

It can be done for sure, you have to set up the pipeline, the business plan (battle pass, skin shop, etc.), it's not just a matter of porting or remastering an old game, and also the question is, will that be enough to get people in, Warhawk was definnitely a popular game in early PS3 days, but that was a long time ago, the audience was small, will the hardcore fans of the old game appreciate having to do a battle pass and shit? Will it attract newcomers?

My point is that it just isn't enough to bring in a popular multiplayer game because people liked it.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

This basically boils down to a bunch of nerds online whining that Sony doesn't cater to them specifically.

 

[Damigos]

Still another 50% to get cancelled

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

7 games still in development, possibly 8 if Jason Blundells game is a continuation of Deviations (Neon Koi, Gummy Bear, Horizon Online, Horizon MMORPG, Fairgame$, Marathon, Destiny Rising)

Media Molecule seems to be working on a Live Service game as well.

 

[vivftp]

Media Molecule seems to be working on a Live Service game as well.

Interesting, have a link to this info?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Interesting, have a link to this info?

9 Media Molecule jobs in Worldwide

Today's top 9 Media Molecule jobs in Worldwide. Leverage your professional network, and get hired. New Media Molecule jobs added daily.

www.linkedin.com

Media Molecule Hiring For Upcoming Live-Service Game - Gameranx

Media Molecule seems to be staffing up for a brand new post-Dreams IP that may or may not be another live service title.

gameranx.com

 

[dorkimoe]

canceling factions the ONE game people actually wanted..smart move

 

[Bartski]

Horizon MP next cmon Hermen show some balls

 

[vivftp]

9 Media Molecule jobs in Worldwide

Today's top 9 Media Molecule jobs in Worldwide. Leverage your professional network, and get hired. New Media Molecule jobs added daily.

www.linkedin.com

Media Molecule Hiring For Upcoming Live-Service Game - Gameranx

Media Molecule seems to be staffing up for a brand new post-Dreams IP that may or may not be another live service title.

gameranx.com

Thanks. Kinda feels like it's a maybe or maybe not sorta thing on whether their next game is live service or not.

 

[vivftp]

canceling factions the ONE game people actually wanted..smart move

Yes, it was a smart move since we know precisely why they stopped development on TLOU Online. It was an either/or situation where either ND worked on TLOU Online or they continued to work on single player games.

They made their decision and ND will continue to churn out the single player games we love. In the meantime, I do hope that Sony are looking around for a partner studio to work with ND on reviving TLOU Online. I have my eye on NCSoft as a likely candidate given the timing of their partnership announcement from last year and when they announced that TLOU Online would stop development, as they occurred only 2 weeks apart.

 

[Negotiator101]

There's internal pitch trailers released every day. That's typical in the industry.

I'm also sure plenty of single player games get internally cancelled. It's nothing new. Not only GaaS titles.

So you're saying the list should actually be longer

 

[Fafalada]

My point is that it just isn't enough to bring in a popular multiplayer game because people liked it.

Oh I know that all too well.
Unfortunately a lot of the time decision makers brought into these are all too poorly informed - as noted, this problem/approach is 2 decades old and people still keep repeating he same mistakes (assuming IP alone will guarantee success, not understanding the costs involved into converting something into a GaaS etc).
Hell one such project I've seen was literally started with expectation that a simple console port would be 'the service' on PC - and not only that underestimated technical costs involved (to the tune of 10s of millions $) it was also mechanically nonsense as the console game wasn't even remotely suited to it.

That being said - Warhawk core gameplay loop could have offered an interesting foundation - it's not overplayed - looks/plays distinct from 100s of other popular shooters, and IP could use a revisit. But yes there's a lot more that would need to fall into place to make it an actual success.

 

[EDMIX]

- Warhawk core gameplay loop could have offered an interesting foundation - it's not overplayed - looks/plays distinct from 100s of other popular shooters, and IP could use a revisit. But yes there's a lot more that would need to fall into place to make it an actual success.

...maybe. I love Warhawk, but it neesds a whole remake imho for it to work out for modern gamers that play MP, that might have been amazing during the PS3 gen, but remember even its sequel failed during that gen, so it needs a massive revamp.

The concept of Land, air and sea regarding MP titles is not an easy thing to pull off (that shit isn't easy to pull off in single player games btw)

 

[clintar]

Yeah I thought that was the norm. You make a bunch and hope some have success

 

[Kdad]

Honestly if 1 of 10 becomes a successful whale game, all the failures would be forgotten.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

I am really happy to see them fail, and I hope that it's enough to make them drop this shitty notion altogether. It's a net negative on the games business as a whole.

 

[bitbydeath]

With what studio?

Santa Monica worked on Warhawk, no idea if any of the crew are still there though.

 

[{insert code here}]

If any other studio would do it, people would be bitching about Sony dedicating their studios to a multiplayer/gaas game.

Idk, that's a game folks have been hoping for and if you need to do another live-service game then Warhawk/Starhawk is kinda perfectly setup for that as-is.

 

[Moriarty1889]

Sounds great to me! Let them all fail and Sony comes to their senses and goes back to making great offline AAA SP exclusives.

 

[Radical_3d]

 

[Katatonic]

 

[Wulfer]

 

[Phase]

This makes me think of the Marathon trailer. It was very well done and the game is on favorable footing to start because of that. All they have to do is not drop the ball and I think it becomes successful.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Remember when they wasted the middle of the PS3's lifespan making waggle controls and releasing casual waggle control games than nobody played? Remember how this almost killed they system and the only thing that saved them was Microsoft going even harder in with the Kinect?

Remember too how every sequel of every PS3 franchise had an online multiplayer mode tacked on and that the single player modes were markedly worse than their predecessors?

What Sony is doing isn't new, though it is remarkable that they've learned nothing about chasing market trends over the last 17 years.

I feel like i lived in a parallel universe because the middle of PS3 era (2008/2011) was when they started to rule above everyone else.

So Uncharted 2's single player campaign was worse than Uncharted 1 because it had an online mode? The Last of Us single player suffered because of its online mode? MGS4 had online and the single player campaign was great.

Killzone 2 was the best of the franchise and guess what it also had? its most famous multiplayer game "tacked on".

Wanna talk about stuff like Little Big Planet? The middle of the PS3 era was peak Sony creativity in every corner. That 2008/2011 run was incredible. And all of this had...FREE multiplayer modes for everyone.

 

[Stu_Hart]

I am not really asking for much, just a simple MP instead of this live service thing that they fumbled and wasted their time and resources on. When it comes to games like the last of us 2, all I ever wanted was a simple base multiplayer like the 1st one which I enjoyed a lot, but they chased trends like battle royale and live service, and in the end they cancelled factions. It seems they are never going to bring back games like resistance and killzone, even though there are potential for the MP to be good if they put in the work to improve on the mistakes of the previous games such as the uneven matchmaking (resistance) and the controls (killzone).

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I am not really asking for much, just a simple MP instead of this live service thing that they fumbled and wasted their time and resources on. When it comes to games like the last of us 2, all I ever wanted was a simple base multiplayer like the 1st one which I enjoyed a lot, but they chased trends like battle royale and live service, and in the end they cancelled factions. It seems they are never going to bring back games like resistance and killzone, even though there are potential for the MP to be good if they put in the work to improve on the mistakes of the previous games such as the uneven matchmaking (resistance) and the controls (killzone).

Yup.

That's because when it comes to MP now, it's either balls to the wall giant server farm and e-store mtx, or nothing. The big companies aim for Fortnite or bust.

Looking back, all those old gen super popular CODs and BF and Halo etc.... had SP, MP and mtx was basically limited to map packs and if someone wanted to buy a $5 dashboard wallpaper. Any trinkets, weapon skins, and loot boxes were either not implemented yet, or barely off the ground. somehow the games did fine.

Now, map packs are expected to be free and part of the service, but the amounts of mtx goody bagging for everything else is insane, including deluxe editions for 3 days early access . You'd think a game company might try to do it old school way and make a good SP + good MP (without it trying to be Fortnite), charge full price and run with it.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Santa Monica worked on Warhawk, no idea if any of the crew are still there though.

Did they? Never knew.
It's an Incognito game, which apparently was led by Jaffe, although at least Jaffe left Incognito before they developed Warhawk.

Idk, that's a game folks have been hoping for and if you need to do another live-service game then Warhawk/Starhawk is kinda perfectly setup for that as-is.

Fair enough, but I think it's a given that an existing IP has fans.
I think Sony is bolstering their studios first. Incognito seems to have been dissolved as most devs had left the company.