Sony Bend lays off 30% of their staff (40 people)
- Thread starter Gaiff
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yurinka
Member
Yes, if you count the acquisitions they must have spent over $5B on them. And must also have generated several billions from this batch of GaaS too.
As an example, in PC the Sony first party game made around $1.5B in the last couple fiscal years combined (FY23 and FY24, don't remember FY22 but was less), and a huge chunk from that must be from Destiny 2, Helldivers 2 and MLB. And well, these games are also are in PS making similar or more money (no Valve/MS/Nintendo cut there) plus also have Gran Turismo 7 there.
The GaaS initiative pretty likely already generated enough money to pay the budget of all the dozen GaaS. At the end of the current fiscal year or so, pretty likely will have also payed the cancelled and not greenlighted ones plus the minor acquisitions if aren't already covered there. The post launch sfuff of GaaS normally is self funded with money from addons.
So there would only be only the 3.6B of the Bungie acquisition left, that could be already recouped by the GaaS around or soon after the PS6 launch, assuming another big success with Marvel Tokon and one or two GaaS being moderately successful (as could be Marathon, Horizon Online, Fairgame$ or Gummy Bears).
MoreJRPG
Suffers from extreme PDS
PlayStation is in big, big trouble. They're lucky to release two first party games in a calendar year while Xbox and Nintendo runs laps around them. What's even the value in PlayStation hardware anymore? The most played and sales charts are dominated by Rockstar, Microsoft and Epic. A 30% cut of MTX revenue isn't enough to keep the business afloat and their 300 million dollar single player titles that struggle to sell 10 million units doesn't have the ROI. Day and date PC will be here by the end of the gen and not even that will be enough.
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BennyBlanco
aka IMurRIVAL69
Sony Bend hire this man. He's an ideas guy.
Bernardougf
Member
Bluepoint never had a game director. The game director of the Demon's Souls remake was from the Japan Studio team.
They never had any game director, any creative director, only have under half a dozen designers and never had anybody in GaaS specific task. Because as they and Sony said, they are a support team.
It's absolutely impossible that they could have been leading a GaaS title. If something, they could have worked as support team in a GoW GaaS leaded by somebody else.
They are first party teams of PS Studios, just like XDEV or Nixxes. And like them they are not lead dev studios, Nixxes is another support team like Bluepoint, Valkyrie or PS Studios Creative Arts, and XDEV is their team in charge of managing "eXternal DEVelopment":
When they were the main developer of a remaster or remakes they developed (managed by XDEV since they were an external team, and overviewed/supported by the team in charge to that IP and was asking them that remaster/remake) yes, their logo was featured at the start of the title, or sometimes in the box. When working as support team in new games like in GoWR, no.
Btw, Nixxes also shows their logo in the ports and remasters they make:
Go fuck yourself, idiot
Bluepoint is the developer of Demons Souls with the support of japan studios, thats the official info, they are the devs at the front cover and credit on the game. If you have proof of the contrary post the receips or stop your bullshit.. telling others to go fuck themselves because you were caught bullshitting wont make it truth.. So Ill wait for your official source showing that bluepoint was not the developer of Demons Souls remake.
BennyBlanco
aka IMurRIVAL69
How do you figure? They are posting record revenue and profits. They've always been more of a hardware company. Valve hasn't made a non GaaS game in 15 years and are killing it because they have no viable competitor, which is the same situation Sony is about to be in with Xbox gone.
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
kpopSuperstar
Member
The amount of Sony studios that messed up a multiplayer game is started to become comical at this point.
Its like Sony were so bitter on how Days Gone went down, with the disgruntled employees and terrible metacritic score, that they refused to accept the potentional of a sequel.
Its like Sony were so bitter on how Days Gone went down, with the disgruntled employees and terrible metacritic score, that they refused to accept the potentional of a sequel.
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
That's funny. I literally said that in a different thread, lol.
Sony is failing upwards.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
What laps are MS running? Buying the two of the largest publishers and some of the largest IPs, a console nobody is buying, and now forced to port their games to PlayStation?
Wild take, this.
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kpopSuperstar
Member
Its actually the opposite, they are making more money than ever. Xbox is almost gone in the console market and Nintendo doesnt appeal to third-party, so Playstation is collecting all the third-party money on console. They are making billions of it. Their subscription services are also doing extremely well.
Truth is, these problems couldnt have come at a better time. They will have no problem covering the costs of these struggling studios.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
Fan Fiction, ladies and gentlemen.
Perrott
Member
The sequel was never pitched by studio managers to the PS Studios executives responsible for their North American operations, so there was nothing for "Sony" to refuse there.
What Jeff Ross described as the "millenials" working at Bend's trenches from the last stretch of Days Gone's development onwards were the ones who didn't want to work on and meddled with the vision for a Days Gone follow-up.
Fabieter
Member
Its not about covering costs, its about having the worst Playstation generation game wise.
near
Gold Member
I was simply pointing out an investment fact that you sarcastically dismissed a few posts ago, which you're now basically agreeing with just reframing it as justified. Fair enough if you've changed your view, but let's not pretend that wasn't a 180.
yurinka
Member
If you go to check the game credits, you'll see that the people included under the following sections -which includes the game director and the main producers- are people from Japan Studio, including internal developers and many of them from the the part of the team that overviewed/managed/supported externally developed Asian games:
- Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios: Development Team
- Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios: Development Team - Production
- Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios: Development Team - Art
- Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios: Development Team - Game Designers
- Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios: Development Team - Tech Support
- Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios: Development Team - Audio
- Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios JAPAN Studio
- Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios JAPAN Studio: Special Thanks
- Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios JAPAN Studio: Creative Services - Sound
- Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios JAPAN Studio: Outsourcing
- Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios JAPAN Studio: Music Licensing
- Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios JAPAN Studio: Translation
- Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios JAPAN Studio: Finance & Administration - System Management
At some point, after that they started to report to XDEV instead of to the local gamedev team, and some time later in the 2021 Japan Studio restructuring they separated into their own office in the same building to grow, where they worked in Death Stranding Director's Cut, Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin, Death Stranding 2, Lost Soul Aside, Convallaria, Marvel Tokon or soon Physint (plus maybe other ones still not announced).
Meanwhile, in that 2021 restructuring the internal development teams of Japan Studio did merge into the most successful one of them, Team Asobi (some of the other ones were making now cancelled mobile games btw), who was starting to work in Astro Bot. They also got a new office in the same building where they originally planned to grow to become 100 devs, but later decided to stay at around 65 for a while.
Sony's external development (a.k.a. XDEV) teams are the ones who manage / produce / handle the externally developed (or co-developed) games, and also support the external team -depending on the needs of each project- with internal support teams and external outsourcing teams of any kind (art, audio, voice acting...) and obviously all the typical publishing stuff from any other Sony published games: testing, localization, legal, marketing, finances, IT etc.
Well, normally companies keep in one side the budget of the projects/games and their profitability, counting them from profits or loses, separated from the costs of acquisitions in another side.
Doing so, the initiative of the 'dozen IPs with GaaS' pretty likely already is profitable including the cancelled and not greenlighted stuff. Which is something very positive for them a very different thing of the 'omg Sony is doomed and they will go bankrupt tomorrow because they spent 72304972 billions in a FortKnack 3 battle royale'.
If just for fun we also count there on top the costs of the related acquisitions as let's say a single investment (something companies doesn't do since they keep M&A investments as a separate long term stuff more associated to the whole company than to specific projects), pretty likely they'll have recouped that in a couple years on top of the over a dozen budgets. That'd be a very successful initiative/investment since often acquisitions take over a decade to recoup their investment.
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playbignbox
Member
Sony isn't making many first party games, so they can fire even more people
Come on Sony, we believe in your potential
Come on Sony, we believe in your potential
Ass of Can Whooping
Member
Aint no way they're risking another new IP. They're doing Days Gone 2. They have a base to work with already and they need to play it safe.
But maybe they haven't found a cure for their retardation yet.
But maybe they haven't found a cure for their retardation yet.
Bernardougf
Member
If you take Neil Druckmann and three of his guys and put him to direct a game at Santa Monica, it will not be a Naughty Dog game, you are getting names on credits and transforming into information that suits your "opinion" of the development of the game, you have the opinion that the game is mainly a Japan Studio game, you can have this opinion, but you cant present as fact, connecting names and dots and saying "well this is the real truth" dosent make it real or offical source or info.
Again .. the offical info is that the game was developed by Bluepoint with support from Japan Studio, bluepoint is the developer credited online, at sony and on their site and on the game box.
You are saying that Bluepoint was not the main developer, it was only support for Japan Studios, information that cant be found anywhere.
Your opinion dosent matter to me.
So you got nothing and this conversation is over.
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
Whats on June 12?
yurinka
Member
They are posting record numbers every year but they are super doomed. Sure, Jan.
PlayStation hardware has the biggest active userbase it ever had, and with record user spending average. This is because people sees value there.
I assume means Sony's Business Segment Meeting:
Sony Group Portal - Business Segment Meeting 2023
It's that meeting where at the start of the fiscal year the head of every Sony division (Nishino and Hermen in case of SIE) details the results of the past fiscal year and explains plans and strategy for the current and future fiscal years.
As reference, here you have the SIE powerpoint and video presentation of last year:
https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/business_segment_meeting/pdf/2024/GNS_E.pdf
https://www.irwebmeeting.com/sony/vod/20240530/A3kXbsx8/bsb_day1_02_en/2_gns/index.html
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Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
mmmmm I thought more exciting event like.....
Konami Press Start live stream set for June 12 featuring Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Silent Hill f
Konami will host a “Konami Press Start” live stream on June 12 at 6:00 a.m. PT / 9:00 a.m. ET / 22:00 JST, featuring game news and updates, the company announced. You will be able to wa…
www.gematsu.com
Kataploom
Gold Member
You know, that's my assumption but for all the PS Studios, like Sony already gave up this generation and is preparing for PS6 instead, relying more in third party, even exclusives ones. There's no way these studios will have ANYTHING ready before PS6 comes out if they just restarted development
Fake
Member
Important Note: This will be the first Business Segment Meeting under the NEW CEO of Sony, Hiroki Totoki AND the NEW CEO of SIE/PlayStation, Hideaki Nishino. This will be where they will update everyone on their new plans for PlayStation and if the strategy is changing or remaining the same.
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Goalus
Member
Tesla robo-taxis go into commission.
Bernardougf
Member
I think the best thing about this last SOP was no gaas presence... I think they got one showcase this year still.. if we dont see gaas there also welp.. something is changing
Thabass
Member
Dying.
vaibhavpisal
Member
This is some legendary mismanagement.
Makes Xbox handling on Tango seem competent.
At least they are making some games while working under a different company.
Makes Xbox handling on Tango seem competent.
At least they are making some games while working under a different company.
Ass of Can Whooping
Member
whenever im hungry for a bad take i can always count on you
BUT what if they can release a successful GAAS to cancel out all the losses on these other games? Get on it, Hermie.
semiconscious
Member
y'know, it hadn't occurred to me, but if any or all of naughty dog's, insomniac's, guerilla's, or santa monica's next release were to come out as a ps6 exclusive, there'd be some serious head explosions...
i mean, they'd never do something like that. right?...
yurinka
Member
The initiative is very successful, obviously they won't end it. The profits from their very successful GaaS like MLB, GT, Destiny and Helldivers more than compensate the failed ones and also pay the budget of the upcoming ones.
Upcoming ones that obviously some of them will also be very successful. As an example, Marvel Tokon has potential to be the market leader of the fighting genre.
The biggest announcement of the SoP was Marvel Tokon, which like all modern fighting games is a GaaS.
Are you saying that you think that they cancelled Death Stranding 2, upcoming Destiny 2 expansions, the upcoming Astrobot free DLC, Lost Soul Aside, Ghost of Yotei, Marathon, Convallaria, Saros, Marvel Tokon, Wolverine, Fairgame$, Cory's new IP, the next GoW, Firesprite's horror advendure (likely Until Dawn 2), Horizon Online, Horizon 3 etc?
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vaibhavpisal
Member
So Bend might be working on more GAAS?
That would be something.
Sony won't be left with any studios if they keep going like this.
Its possible they might still thrive with no more traditional competition.
lh032
I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
"The profits from their very successful GaaS like MLB, GT, Destiny and Helldivers"
I agree on MLB and helldivers. But then Sony does not own the helldiver studio though.
But does GT and destiny 2 still brings good profit? Is there any report or article on this?
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lh032
I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
they can still do GaaS games, just not focusing on it.
I prefer they focus on SP games while assign some resources for GaaS
StreetsofBeige
Member
Part of Bungie's $3.6B buyout included $1.2B alone going to retention cash payouts. Add in all the losses from years of GAAS development, buying up new studios, cancelled games, and the write down on the value of Bungie as it's sunk like a rock past 3 years, and any net profits H2, GT and Destiny DLC and Mtx have brought in the past few years wont comes close to covering all the losses.
yogaflame
Member
Wow that is Friday the 13th so this week. I really hope its live demotion of Hulst after what he did to Sony game development on wasted talents on gaas. Ryan is already retired so no problem with that anymore. I also hope they will shift to focus back to exclusives to ps5 console only because it really alienated many PS fans porting there exclusives to pc. And more Japan made games from Sony. Bring back Shu as a consultant And it might be impossible but, I hope for price cuts for both base Ps5 and ps5 pro.
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bitbydeath
Member
It's a shame they can't make games on the same scale as Days Gone.
DavidGzz
Member
This may have worked if we were talking Naughty Dog....but....ok lol
ChorizoPicozo
Member
Hypereides
Member
Ross stated in a tweet that their following project, the GaaS endeavour, cost the studio something like "quarter of a billion" compared to a hypothetical DG2 at a "bargin bin price of 150 mil.":
That's an insane amount of money straight ouf of the window. The management and studio head, Christopher Reese, over at Bend needs to break out the emergency glass and go with Days gone 2 as their next project. But, with one caveat: They need both Jeff Ross and John Garvin back on the team to head the development. Reese needs to swallow his pride, or whatever, and reconcile the business relationship with the two, otherwise they'll loop back to the current situaton they found themselves in or worse.
That's an insane amount of money straight ouf of the window. The management and studio head, Christopher Reese, over at Bend needs to break out the emergency glass and go with Days gone 2 as their next project. But, with one caveat: They need both Jeff Ross and John Garvin back on the team to head the development. Reese needs to swallow his pride, or whatever, and reconcile the business relationship with the two, otherwise they'll loop back to the current situaton they found themselves in or worse.
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bitbydeath
Member
MS don't do big AAA SP games.
DavidGzz
Member
They're coming....next year....or maybe the next one.
I see what you're saying. That's why I own a Pro, but looks like Sony quit too going by the layer of dust.