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PlayStation has canceled two more live-service games, from subsidiaries Bend and Bluepoint, Bloomberg has learned
saintjules
Gold Member
Don't worry, a few new big games that make their way will make everyone forget these cancelations.
For a split second I bet you forgot about Concord when you saw this news, amirite?
Sony has to be thankful to its many loyal and patient fans who always trusted Sony brand, to be honest including me. Lesson learn, there is still time in ps5 life cycle to rebound and create very good SP games, and even revive some OG Ps1 to Ps3 franchise titles. But surely 4 years from now, with lesson learned, ps6 will be back to ps1 to ps4 style focus on single player game exclusives and maybe reviving OG PS1 to ps3 franchise titles.
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Bloodborne remake from Bluepoint and Days gone 2 from Bend will make it even.
Felessan
Member
Mihoyo are 3/3 on tries/success. Riot didn't fail on their 2nd project etc
The problem of gaas in western world is that western core players not that used to them and western devs except very few (valve, riot, bungie etc) have no expertise and little idea what to do. They try to straight copy only to make an inferior version, and nobody wants that. And to get expertise experience is required.
If you look at Asian market - failure rate are much lower there, especially in AAA space. People there got used to play gaas en-masse from early 2000 and there quite a few companies who made gaas games for a long time and understands players and know how to make game interesting and engaging and very important - differentiate yourself from others in the market
And by report - they didn't ask all their studios go gaas, split was roughly 50/50. Insomniac, Santa Monica, Asobi, ND etc still making SP games
Yoboman
Member
2022 - GOW Ragnarok - GOTY nominee and Sony's fastest selling game of all time
2023 - Spiderman 2 - GOTY nominee and again their fastest selling game of all time
2024 - Astro Bot overall GOTY and Helldivers 2 takes the helm as Sony's fastest selling game ever
There's a lot to complain about with the live service initiative but come back to reality. Xbox wishes it had game output like I've listed
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
Still waiting to see what companies out there have better output than Sony.
There's a disconnect out there somehow and I don't necessarily blame the commentators entirely. I think at least part of it is Sony's fault with bad PR and communication, but the reality is Sony is outputting more/better games than pretty much anyone in the industry.
CDPR came out with Cyberpunk in 2020 and 4 years later they have no new games outside of a DLC. I don't see anyone complaining about their output.
Naughty Dog also put out The Last of Us in 2020 and released a remaster bundle of two games, a remake, and another remaster. They get a ton of flack for their lack of production.
Miles708
Member
That's a nice summary of the situation
Spukc
always chasing the next thrill
Bruh he gone
Sanepar
Member
In 2025? MS has a better output than Sony imo. Doom Dark Ages, Avowed, Oblivion Remake, OuterWorlds 2 and maybe Fable.
For me Sony has 2 great games this year and one is from a third party: Death Stranding 2 and Ghost of Yotei.
GymWolf
Member
Dude got fat but it still doesn't count for 2.
M1987
Member
It just pisses me off how Sony have fucked about most of this gen making their top studios make live service games.Even Naughty dog said they would have to become a live service studio if they didn't cancel Factions
skit_data
Member
What a waste. So many things better that Bluepoint could have done with their time.
I've been lukewarm on their whole GAAS push because I was hoping it wouldn't affect their Single Player games output too bad but it's clearly evident it does. I just hope we don't hear anything similar about Housemarque because that would make me even more upset.
I've been lukewarm on their whole GAAS push because I was hoping it wouldn't affect their Single Player games output too bad but it's clearly evident it does. I just hope we don't hear anything similar about Housemarque because that would make me even more upset.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
LOL.
First, you're saying 2025, which hasn't happened yet. We're in January and not a single of those games has released nor do you know how good those games are. Astro Bot wasn't even announced by this point last year, nor was Until Dawn remake, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, or Lego Horizon. Astro Bot won GOTY.
Sony isn't announcing games early, so we have no idea what games are going to come out, but we know they have Death Stranding 2, Ghost of Yotei, and Marathon. They'll probably have a remake in there as well.
Sony also didn't spend 80 billion dollars adding to their pipeline. They don't have 80 billion to spend. But what they have spent on has resulted in some pretty good dividends so far. Just look at Nixxes production, which is entirely ignored here. in 2025 they'll be coming out with TLOUP2 and Spider-Man 2 ports and maybe more.
In 2024 which DID happen, Sony produced Astro Bot, Helldivers 2, Stellar Blade, and Rise of the Ronin as well as a bunch of other stuff that doesn't merit much conversation. I think their production pipeline is a lot better than Microsoft's.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
I agree.
Bluepoint putting out a new remake every 2-3 years is their ballpark. Revitalizing franchises is a huge opportunity. Having them work with FromSoftware directly would massively improve those games too.
That being said, eventually you kind of run out of games to remake faithfully, i.e. more along the lines of Demon's Souls rather than Resident Evil 2.
Like I'm not sure Bluepoint would be right for remaking God of War's greek saga, unless it was in conjunction with Santa Monica.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Bunch of idiots wasted precious time of their studios.
hemo memo
You can't die before your death
So, of all the possible games, you let Bluepoint work on GaaS...
What the hell. Why was Bluepoint working on GAAS? They should be doing a Bloodborne remake or an original non-gaas game.
Sanepar
Member
I don't care if they have money or not. With 15 studio they could have been a bit smart and focused what their consumers want and what they are good: sp narrative games.
Now half of their studios wasted last 4-5 years with gaas canned games.
I bet they will close bend this year and will have one less studio maybe even mm will be closed. They are fucked.
vaibhavpisal
Member
If you are going to count games like Death Stranding and Stellar Blade, then also count games like Hellblade, Starfield and even Redfall on xbox.
Death Stranding - well made but divisive
Starfield - well made but divisive
Stellar Blade - competent hack and slash
Redfall - competent shooter
I think a lot of people are living in made up fantasy land where they boo games released on Xbox platform, then pretend they are not good games and don’t count.
TheGodfather07
Member
I don't have a problem with Sony chasing live service. The problem is forcing strong single player game studios to make them. Moronic and worrying decision. The leadership is out of touch and usually that's where the downfall starts. Nothing is invincible.
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Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
You're inflating things about here with your narrative.
14 studios including studios purchased for specific tasks other than SP games.
You also assume incorrectly that these were the only projects these studios were working on. Naughty Dog had been working on Intergalactic since 2020.
I do agree that Bend and MM will likely close, but I don't think that is simply due to a Live Service push. Neither studio has really produced anything special in a long time. That's the business. I had a lot of confidence that Bend could turn the corner and be on par with some of its sister studios, but maybe that just isn't likely.
I do think that Bluepoint working on a live service God of War was mismanagement though, but at most what was lost here was 1 more remake... but Sony also only bought them about 3 years ago.
This is how you know that Sony doesnt give a shit about games at all. Multiple Gaas wont work at the same time since they eat into playerbase. So essentially sony was willing to send them all out to die just as long as 1 turned into fortnight. If sony falls at this point its deserved.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
Death Stranding was nominated for GOTY, Starfield was not.
Stellar Blade was a financial success and pretty well regarded. Redfall was not.
Hellblade was a massive failure.
Sony isn't shooting 10/10, but they have far more successes than Microsoft has had even after Microsoft spent 80 billion trying to corner the industry. So much that it has shifted the very direction of the company and maybe gaming itself...
Killer8
Member
The rumor is that it's Nixxes who are remaking (remastering?) the Greek saga.
It seems that Sony have no idea how to approach the running of these particular studios. Bluepoint's wheelhouse has always been remasters and remakes and so the decision to have them embark on their own original projects completely goes against the ethos of the studio.
Meanwhile Nixxes, who were acquired for their expertise in porting games to PC, seemingly don't have enough work to do on that front and are now adopting the role that Bluepoint should have had. The Horizon remake they did, while strong work, is something i'd have expected from Bluepoint.
Really Sony should be utilising Nixxes more to get much more of their older PlayStation back catalogue onto Steam. It doesn't make sense that you can get Uncharted 4 on PC but not the rest of the story to add context to that for the PC-only players unfamiliar with these franchises.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Sold like hot cakes on PC.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
I'll be really disappointed in a remaster and I think a remake by anyone outside of Santa Monica is super risky, but we'll see at the end of the day. I didn't think Silent Hill 2 would be a competent remake and here we are.
I think that's lacking context, that Sony lets studios choose their own projects. We hear it constantly in developer interviews. Did Naughty Dog doing Uncharted and then Last of Us got against their ethos? What about Insomniac doing Resistance and then Spider-Man? Sometimes stuff works sometimes it doesn't.
It seems that Bluepoint doesn't want to just do remakes and that remakes were used as a technical demonstration of what they were capable of.
Nixxes is putting out at least 2 PC ports this year, so I'm not sure that they don't have enough work to do, but eventually, yes I think their work is going to slow down since it takes longer to develop games than it does to port them.
They're doing TLOUP2 and Spider-Man 2 and who knows what else this year.
I don't think Sony wants to sell Uncharted 1-3 on Steam. There's not much value in that. It makes more sense to reboot or remake Uncharted and then bring it to modern platforms. I think that's why they started with Uncharted 4.
On that same note, they have to be careful with the decisions to port games to PC vs remaking/remastering them, but once you get down the list, you do start looking at older stuff.
Felessan
Member
Mihoyo (Riot, Valve) says Hi!
HeisenbergFX4
Gold Member
They are super lucky that Xbox has a bunch of idiots running the show and can't do anything to capitalize
Honestly i prefered petty console wars over what we have today.
Xbox not acting like a competitor, Sony buying third party games (i acknowledge they make good partnerships and have a good support team for third party) to compensate the downfall of their internal pipeline, Nintendo doing just usual stuff.
Xbox not acting like a competitor, Sony buying third party games (i acknowledge they make good partnerships and have a good support team for third party) to compensate the downfall of their internal pipeline, Nintendo doing just usual stuff.
nial
Gold Member
People only crediting Shu despite he being the less involved party all around is dumb, never mind that it still all had to be approved by Hulst or that he also greenlit similar projects like Lost Soul Aside for PS Studios production.
YOU PC BRO?!
Gold Member
Sony have really hampered development productivity this generation. So many cancelled gaas projects. Squandered years of development capacity with this nonsense. Its usually Microsoft out there making poor decisions but Sony own this one through and through.
Ramiro_Rodriguez
Neo Member
Bring back the PS3 era, as Sony had to fight back.
nial
Gold Member
This is cope, there wasn't any Team Asobi to close before 2021, the studio was formed as a reorganization of SIE's internal Japanese production to a big focus on Astro Bot. And Hermen Hulst was heavily involved in that, out all the things you want to discredit him from, Astro Bot may be the most stupid one.
Yoboman
Member
Let's not go with the revisionist history. Redfall was as big a GAAS failure as any. Absolute critical and commercial failure. It literally resulted in Phil having to apologise and the studio eventually being shut down
Bernardougf
Member
Now Sony "producing" is buying games from third party... shills will be shills.
Mattyp
Not the YouTuber
I would take Indiana, Flight Sim, Hellblade & Age of Mythology & AoE remaster personally. And produced or purchased third party developer titles? So throw Stalker2 into the mix as well if that’s the case.
But everyone has different tastes in gaming.
2025 has even more games confirmed for xbox studios not just oh they’ll announce more titles games that are confirmed for release, the pipeline is finally producing a solid supply of titles.
What Sony is doing right now is Microsoft 5 years ago, cancelling games and wasting years and years of dev time. Both these studios will be looking at PS6 release dates now for anything.
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owandeseis
Member
Horizon FW was nominated for GOTY and got like a 9 on MC/OC, wihle actually great games weren't nominated.
Hell even the first Horizon game was nominated the same year Divinity: OS 2 wasn't, and believe me, diiifferent leagues.
Reality is latest sequels by Sony, even if they got nominated or got great scores on MC, haven't left a great taste on players, which is what matters. I wouldn't be surprised if Rebirth got better numbers on Steam's release next week vs Spiderman 2 because of this for example, word of mouth is very different in these 2 games.
Sony's output this gen hasn't been amazing and it's way too short, specially without counting games developed by other studios but published by them.
It was supposed to be ramping up by the second half of the generation just like with PS4, but with this news and these studios being out of the game for a long time it doesn't look like there'll be a lot on the AAA Singleplayer scene, ND's game, Tsushima's sequel and Marvel stuff by Insomniac mostly.
And ye not using this to defend MS's one, Starfield was meh as fk even if it would have won GOTY, so was HB2, and Redfall was laughable too.
By the way, since 2020 CD Projekt has output an expansion that was way better than almost every full game i mentioned in this post, and upgraded Cyberpunk's graphics making it to be still the best looking game in 2025. They also announced their next game which, i won't say anything comparing to ND's next one because i loved and respect a lot what they did with TLOU, but ye.
nial
Gold Member
Eh, yes...
Aquanaut's Holiday: Hidden Memories on PS3 was also a third-party published game that Sony then picked up for production and became a Japan Studio project.
Please tell me how this is any different from the Stellar Blade situation, or else it sounds like you need to learn more about Sony's history.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
You're once again assuming that they weren't working on any other projects.
You're also assuming that Sony games unless announced years in advance won't release for years to come.
This stuff is massively disproven.
Astro Bot was announced in May and released in September of the same year. 4 months in advance... Almost all of their games get a short release window now. Ghost of Yotei was announced in September and will release within 16 months of being announced. We have know idea what Sony's pipeline looks, which is not necessarily a good thing, but I think it's a leap to assume that it looks bad.
Games have been canceled since the beginning of time. We're only hearing about live service cancellations though because certain publications know it will generate more clicks.
IAmAnAgnostic
Member
What a joke of a PlayStation generation, aside from the very bright spot of Astro Bot the recent output has been atrocious and will continue to be considering how much time and how many resources were wasted on these garbage Gaas titles. (not all Gaas are bad, these certainly are)
And seeing how Cukmann killed ND last generation and Japan studio was shut down, they have very few sources of talent left.
I'd much rather have kept The Order 1886, Driveclub and Days Gone people from the last generation which were flawed but promising products than waste, what, a billion+ on failed cringe Gaas titles.
And seeing how Cukmann killed ND last generation and Japan studio was shut down, they have very few sources of talent left.
I'd much rather have kept The Order 1886, Driveclub and Days Gone people from the last generation which were flawed but promising products than waste, what, a billion+ on failed cringe Gaas titles.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
Sony's output for the first half of the PS5's life has been significantly better than the first half of the PS4s life. I'll take it in a heartbeat.
Have I liked any of Sony's sequels more than the first games that released on PS4? No, I haven't. I do think they've missed out on what makes good sequels. The writer has gone downhill significantly in the sequels across the board, but the gameplay has improved significantly in almost each regard too. Easier to fix bad writing than it is to fix bad gameplay.
Naughty Dog has also improved the graphics for TLOUP1 and P2. They also released a free DLC. I just don't see a major difference in output between the two studios.
I again will say, people ignore the fact that a lot of these studios are working on multiple games.
vaibhavpisal
Member
I see.
This fantasy is reinforced by high metascores and game awards.
It hasn’t taken hold by itself.
Yes it was a failure.
But at the end of the day, we have to look at the game itself, how it is to play currently.
Its a perfectly alright shooter with a good artstyle/atmosphere. Doesn’t do anything revolutionary.
Exactly like a lot of games on that list.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Maybe that's why they said Concord is the future of Playstation.