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Sony shuts down Bluepoint Studios

I've quit gaming months ago (I'm selling my ps5 atm), but this news saddens me a lot, I loved Bluepoint and their remakes.

I finally bought a beautiful fully restored Yamaha C5 piano from 1985 and that (and books) will be my entertainment from now on. No worries with GPU or RAM prices or bugs or performance issues.
I'm completely distancing myself from social media and forums and trying to focus on the physical world.
I came here just to say goodbye to you all, i had a great time in this forum and will cherish the memories of browsing GAF.
I wish all of you all the best.
Best regards to all! 👋🥲
 
This is got to be the dumbest fucking thing to ever do. You have a studio that is incredible at making remasters and remakes. They should have been put on nothing but that. Bloodborne should have been there next project for the launch of the PS6. That would have had those systems flying off shelves.
 
Physiognomonics said:
This is what those accountants don't get it. Games like Demon's Souls, even selling "only" 2 millions are prestige games. The kind of games Playstation made its repution along the years. PS2 had Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, PS3 had Infamous, TLOU. PS4 had Resogun, Infamous SS or Bloodborne.

Many bought PS5s thinking there would be more of Demon's Souls throughout the years.

People are not buying PS5s to play Roblox.
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Game companies dont understand that. Every game has to be a hit game, however GAAS gets nine lives looking for that Fortnite killer.

Car companies do the halo effect all the time. The best sellers are going to be their low end models. But what do they do? They spend more time and money on ads on their luxury models because it gets people interested. Even if it's not the right kind of car for them or too expensive, they might still check out the site and see what else they got for cheaper.

Sometimes in business you need those filler products or halo effect products. They might not be the best sellers. They might make crap profits or even lose a bit of money. But you need it in the portfolio.

Problem is with tech and gaming, the assumption is always high growth, high profits and high margins. Lots of other industries dont gun for that as much. everyone wants that, but if the market has settled down to certain parameters, then a 4% growth rate might be all you got now. The market is only so big.

In gaming, the biggest growth over the decades is mobile. Yet the console makers dont even bother making smartphone games. And if they do, it's barely any effort. So for their quest for gaming growth, they arent even doing it in the right sub-sector. The only one who has is Nintendo with a hybrid system. But the games themselves arent even mobile-ish games.
 
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Any particular reason why demon souls didn't sell so much more? I'm not really into souls likes but with this closure I been watching industry streamers that I follow discuss this and they been showing footage of demon souls and it's making me wonder about this game as it looks absolutely amazing. How is it this didn't do 5x or more than what it did. It looks like it deserved 10M+.
 
Ar¢tos said:
I've quit gaming months ago (I'm selling my ps5 atm), but this news saddens me a lot, I loved Bluepoint and their remakes.

I finally bought a beautiful fully restored Yamaha C5 piano from 1985 and that (and books) will be my entertainment from now on. No worries with GPU or RAM prices or bugs or performance issues.
I'm completely distancing myself from social media and forums and trying to focus on the physical world.
I came here just to say goodbye to you all, i had a great time in this forum and will cherish the memories of browsing GAF.
I wish all of you all the best.
Best regards to all! 👋🥲
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many people here would be much happier if they followed in this guy's footsteps. May your life be peaceful and fulfilling.
 
Jesb said:
Any particular reason why demon souls didn't sell so much more? I'm not really into souls likes but with this closure I been watching industry streamers that I follow discuss this and they been showing footage of demon souls and it's making me wonder about this game as it looks absolutely amazing. How is it this didn't do 5x or more than what it did. It looks like it deserved 10M+.
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It was an exclusive launch game to a console that got sold out in 10 minutes and became very hard to find for 2 years. By the time PS5 where easy available, there was a bunch other games stealing ppl atention. Game was also added to the PS+ Extra tier (thats where i played it), and even with discounts the game was still kinda expensive for a remake. They should have made a PC port when they decided to do the Returnal PC port as well, the original Demon's Souls never released on PC so it would probably sell well on PC.
 
Ar¢tos said:
I've quit gaming months ago (I'm selling my ps5 atm), but this news saddens me a lot, I loved Bluepoint and their remakes.

I finally bought a beautiful fully restored Yamaha C5 piano from 1985 and that (and books) will be my entertainment from now on. No worries with GPU or RAM prices or bugs or performance issues.
I'm completely distancing myself from social media and forums and trying to focus on the physical world.
I came here just to say goodbye to you all, i had a great time in this forum and will cherish the memories of browsing GAF.
I wish all of you all the best.
Best regards to all! 👋🥲
Click to expand...
You will be back once your fingers start cramping up from that fucking piano. YOU WILL BE BAAAACKKK!!!!

All the best for you as well. ;)
 
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Of all the studio acquisitions PS have made in the last 5 years, Bluepoint was the one I felt was the most strategically sound and "safe" because they pretty much were the remake studio and had their work cut out for them due to the vast amounts of IP Sony owns.
But, tbh I kinda got a bad gut feeling when it was announced they were assisting SSM on GoW: Ragnarök and when the leaks about the canceled GoW live service game I was more or less convinced that they'd be gone or at least having their potential completely wasted.
 
Aenima said:
It was an exclusive launch game to a console that got sold out in 10 minutes and became very hard to find for 2 years. By the time PS5 where easy available, there was a bunch other games stealing ppl atention. Game was also added to the PS+ Extra tier (thats where i played it), and even with discounts the game was still kinda expensive for a remake. They should have made a PC port when they decided to do the Returnal PC port as well, the original Demon's Souls never released on PC so it would probably sell well on PC.
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It was on the GFN list, so the PC version was worked on. As to why it never was released I guess we will never know.
 
That's what I meant, friends...

And I suspected it ever since Hulst became president.

And it will be even worse when the next one is Druckmann or whoever's at Insomniac with the Ratchet and Clank games.

For everyone's sake, we must strike where it hurts Hulst the most...

We must annihilate Guerrilla Games... Avoid buying Horizon games, Killzone games, games with the Decima Engine, and... Ripper Marathon.

As an act of revenge.
 
yogaflame said:
I hate Hermen to the bone. Ryan and Hermen gaas obsession killed many years of development that should had been great exclusives and killed great teams like Blue point. And after concord flop , Hermen and Sony continues to be stubborn with those gaas trash like marathon and that ugly horizon gathering. I hope he be fired and follows Phil to the Cancun.
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That's right, my friend... But Hermen Hulst should go to Mars or far away. What did Cancun do to deserve this? 😢 I don't want him here 😂
 
For you guys wanting Hermen gone, there is one thing above all that will likely keep him in place. It's not games. It's Sony Gaming Division financial performance.

And last time I heard about it, it's firing on all cylinders rebounding in profits and margins. That's being done with no big first party sales lately except GoY. So it means the third party games and mtx cuts must be balling it lately.

What that does is give Sony corporate coffers to keep gunning for GAAS if they want to. They cancelled some games and studios (which actually frees up more money), so it gives them a bigger stockpile to keep going for more Concords or whatever. The only big new GAAS success is Helldivers 2. I dont think any of us think they'll stop with Fairgames and Horizon Hunters.

So the more profits they make, the more spins at the slot machine they get to hit 7-7-7. Or in this case G-A-A-S.

It's when financials hit the shitter do most companies change strategy to focus what they are good at (like Sony focusing on SP). But when the gravy train is rolling in, you can afford to blow money on steak dinners and not even care if the food was good or not.
 
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Ar¢tos said:
I've quit gaming months ago (I'm selling my ps5 atm), but this news saddens me a lot, I loved Bluepoint and their remakes.

I finally bought a beautiful fully restored Yamaha C5 piano from 1985 and that (and books) will be my entertainment from now on. No worries with GPU or RAM prices or bugs or performance issues.
I'm completely distancing myself from social media and forums and trying to focus on the physical world.
I came here just to say goodbye to you all, i had a great time in this forum and will cherish the memories of browsing GAF.
I wish all of you all the best.
Best regards to all! 👋🥲
Click to expand...
Brings back memories. Enjoy the piano! When I still had piano lessons it was on the same make and model. I don't play piano very often anymore, as I started to primarily play guitar a few years after and still do that almost daily.
Anyway, it's a great hobby and who knows you might actually get to do something more with it if you want. I'm not going to give up on gaming (yet), though.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
For you guys wanting Hermen gone, there is one thing above all that will likely keep him in place. It's not games. It's Sony Gaming Division financial performance.

And last time I heard about it, it's firing on all cylinders rebounding in profits and margins. That's being done with no big first party sales lately except GoY. So it means the third party games and mtx cuts must be balling it lately.
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Which is why (that plus subs to PS+) I do not see them pushing their PC strategy harder as they put all of that at risk if people flee en-masse to PC.

StreetsofBeige said:
What that does is give Sony corporate coffers to keep gunning for GAAS if they want to. They cancelled some games and studios (which actually frees up more money), so it gives them a bigger stockpile to keep going for more Concords or whatever. The only big new GAAS success is Helldivers 2.
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In their own heads GT7 is GaaS too, but sure. Still, you only need a few of those to hit the jackpot.

StreetsofBeige said:
I dont think any of us think they'll stop with Fairgames and Horizon Hunters.

So the more profits they make, the more spins at the slot machine they get to hit 7-7-7. Or in this case G-A-A-S.

It's when financials hit the shitter do most companies change strategy to focus what they are good at (like Sony focusing on SP). But when the gravy train is rolling in, you can afford to blow money on steak dinners and not even care if the food was good or not.
Click to expand...
The only problem of companies pivoting to what they are good at is that it might be late as a pivot when things are bad and customers pissed… I do not quite think they have abandoned their SP big hitters though.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
For you guys wanting Hermen gone, there is one thing above all that will likely keep him in place. It's not games. It's Sony Gaming Division financial performance.

And last time I heard about it, it's firing on all cylinders rebounding in profits and margins. That's being done with no big first party sales lately except GoY. So it means the third party games and mtx cuts must be balling it lately.

What that does is give Sony corporate coffers to keep gunning for GAAS if they want to. They cancelled some games and studios (which actually frees up more money), so it gives them a bigger stockpile to keep going for more Concords or whatever. The only big new GAAS success is Helldivers 2. I dont think any of us think they'll stop with Fairgames and Horizon Hunters.

So the more profits they make, the more spins at the slot machine they get to hit 7-7-7. Or in this case G-A-A-S.

It's when financials hit the shitter do most companies change strategy to focus what they are good at (like Sony focusing on SP). But when the gravy train is rolling in, you can afford to blow money on steak dinners and not even care if the food was good or not.
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Sad but accurate.

As long as PlayStation is making money, Hermen will continue to lead and push the (garbage) first-party GaaS software strategy. He can fail over and over and over again because the money in exceeds the money out.

If the PS6 console and PS6 handheld don't attract a lot of people after the launch window, Hulst will be gone. His demotion from co-CEO indicates that Sony are more than willing to make executive changes due to poor/questionable performance. I genuinely hope that Hulst recognizes that they cannot compete in the handheld world -- against Nintendo -- without a compelling value proposition. That value can be in exclusives, price, features, etc.
 
Jesb said:
Any particular reason why demon souls didn't sell so much more? I'm not really into souls likes but with this closure I been watching industry streamers that I follow discuss this and they been showing footage of demon souls and it's making me wonder about this game as it looks absolutely amazing. How is it this didn't do 5x or more than what it did. It looks like it deserved 10M+.
Click to expand...
You can male the best souls in the planet, even if it's a remake, it will not sell as much as an From developed game.

That said, it sold well enough for Sony to buy them.
 
simpatico said:


They did have it coming though.
Click to expand...

They absolutely did. The Demon's Souls remake is a disgrace. I love the origial and remember being excited about this remake when it just got announced, but at the time I didn't know much about bluepoint. Shame it turned out being such a waste of opportunity, and an egregious one at that.

Not surprised in the slightest they got axed.
 
Jesb said:
Any particular reason why demon souls didn't sell so much more? I'm not really into souls likes but with this closure I been watching industry streamers that I follow discuss this and they been showing footage of demon souls and it's making me wonder about this game as it looks absolutely amazing. How is it this didn't do 5x or more than what it did. It looks like it deserved 10M+.
Click to expand...
The game was a launch title during the time ps5 was struggling with shortages and when things cooled down the game was added to psplus and stayed there.

You can also add that it was a full priced 1:1 remake of a not so old game so this can contribute.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
For you guys wanting Hermen gone, there is one thing above all that will likely keep him in place. It's not games. It's Sony Gaming Division financial performance.

And last time I heard about it, it's firing on all cylinders rebounding in profits and margins. That's being done with no big first party sales lately except GoY. So it means the third party games and mtx cuts must be balling it lately.

What that does is give Sony corporate coffers to keep gunning for GAAS if they want to. They cancelled some games and studios (which actually frees up more money), so it gives them a bigger stockpile to keep going for more Concords or whatever. The only big new GAAS success is Helldivers 2. I dont think any of us think they'll stop with Fairgames and Horizon Hunters.

So the more profits they make, the more spins at the slot machine they get to hit 7-7-7. Or in this case G-A-A-S.

It's when financials hit the shitter do most companies change strategy to focus what they are good at (like Sony focusing on SP). But when the gravy train is rolling in, you can afford to blow money on steak dinners and not even care if the food was good or not.
Click to expand...
Exactly.. and thats why people saying that sony will course correct back to favoring SP games are coping very hard. They seem very happy to be a third party console collecting 30% and making third/second party deals and just running as you said the GAAS lotery with the house money.
 
Jesb said:
Any particular reason why demon souls didn't sell so much more? I'm not really into souls likes but with this closure I been watching industry streamers that I follow discuss this and they been showing footage of demon souls and it's making me wonder about this game as it looks absolutely amazing. How is it this didn't do 5x or more than what it did. It looks like it deserved 10M+.
Click to expand...

Launch window game that they didn't continuously promote.

I agree though, it and they deserved much better. Now their engine will be sat there unused as Herman tries to enforce decima on everyone.
 
coolmast3r said:
They absolutely did. The Demon's Souls remake is a disgrace. I love the origial and remember being excited about this remake when it just got announced, but at the time I didn't know much about bluepoint. Shame it turned out being such a waste of opportunity, and an egregious one at that.

Not surprised in the slightest they got axed.
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Lol you purists are hilarious
 
StreetsofBeige said:
For you guys wanting Hermen gone, there is one thing above all that will likely keep him in place. It's not games. It's Sony Gaming Division financial performance.

And last time I heard about it, it's firing on all cylinders rebounding in profits and margins. That's being done with no big first party sales lately except GoY. So it means the third party games and mtx cuts must be balling it lately.

What that does is give Sony corporate coffers to keep gunning for GAAS if they want to. They cancelled some games and studios (which actually frees up more money), so it gives them a bigger stockpile to keep going for more Concords or whatever. The only big new GAAS success is Helldivers 2. I dont think any of us think they'll stop with Fairgames and Horizon Hunters.

So the more profits they make, the more spins at the slot machine they get to hit 7-7-7. Or in this case G-A-A-S.

It's when financials hit the shitter do most companies change strategy to focus what they are good at (like Sony focusing on SP). But when the gravy train is rolling in, you can afford to blow money on steak dinners and not even care if the food was good or not.
Click to expand...
This may well be true of PlayStation and Sony overall but Sony has always worked on a model where atomic business units within the business have their success and failure directly attributed to them. So those 500m GaaS failures at an atomic business unit level will still be getting the the aftermath analysis they earned, and Hulst's demotion was probably a by-product of such a unit loss. A repeat of that loss with Marathon would likely come with a further consequence IMO, not because of it failing, but because of the repeat of a positivity echo chamber that was a management failure to empower that, stopping a course correction, meaning the management aren't even learning from the previous mistakes to get closer to success analytically.
 
Ar¢tos said:
I've quit gaming months ago (I'm selling my ps5 atm), but this news saddens me a lot, I loved Bluepoint and their remakes.

I finally bought a beautiful fully restored Yamaha C5 piano from 1985 and that (and books) will be my entertainment from now on. No worries with GPU or RAM prices or bugs or performance issues.
I'm completely distancing myself from social media and forums and trying to focus on the physical world.
I came here just to say goodbye to you all, i had a great time in this forum and will cherish the memories of browsing GAF.
I wish all of you all the best.
Best regards to all! 👋🥲
Click to expand...
Why go 100% in the other direction? Gaming to me is like watching movies or shows. It goes in phases and it's not something I need to make a statement for whenever I don't feel like watching them anymore.

But sure, if one can't be balanced and the hobby takes up too much time then it might be better to go "no-contact". But I'll never fully understand it and honestly find it baffling and somewhat cringe.
 
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Ogbert said:
The video game industry is run by retards.
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They aren't retards, they are just people who don't give a fuck about video games. It happened in music and movies and everything else, eventually these things get so big the "passionate" people who do this out of love fade away and the soulless husks of human beings that follow them only care about profit. It's so pervasive that even the idiot fanboys drone on about profits instead of games.
 
RafterXL said:
They aren't retards, they are just people who don't give a fuck about video games. It happened in music and movies and everything else, eventually these things get so big the "passionate" people who do this out of love fade away and the soulless husks of human beings that follow them only care about profit. It's so pervasive that even the idiot fanboys drone on about profits instead of games.
Click to expand...
At the rate things are going, singleplayer gamers who want stories in their games will be better off retreating from gaming all together in the future and focus on other media like visual novels.
 
Ar¢tos said:
I've quit gaming months ago (I'm selling my ps5 atm), but this news saddens me a lot, I loved Bluepoint and their remakes.

I finally bought a beautiful fully restored Yamaha C5 piano from 1985 and that (and books) will be my entertainment from now on. No worries with GPU or RAM prices or bugs or performance issues.
I'm completely distancing myself from social media and forums and trying to focus on the physical world.
I came here just to say goodbye to you all, i had a great time in this forum and will cherish the memories of browsing GAF.
I wish all of you all the best.
Best regards to all! 👋🥲
Click to expand...
What a coincidence i myself finally bought the million dollar piano from Elton John (he is a friend) and that (and a few scrolls thought to be lost during the 48bc burning of Alexandria's library) will be my entertainment from now on. Im too completly distancing from social media and forums and the physical world, trying to focus on the metaphysical world since i became friend with the Wave Existence in college (did i mention i went to Zohar University ? Go Gears !!).

Anyway Im teasing you have fun doing what you like even if it sounds very performative :messenger_blowing_kiss:
 
StreetsofBeige said:
Game companies dont understand that. Every game has to be a hit game, however GAAS gets nine lives looking for that Fortnite killer.

Car companies do the halo effect all the time. The best sellers are going to be their low end models. But what do they do? They spend more time and money on ads on their luxury models because it gets people interested. Even if it's not the right kind of car for them or too expensive, they might still check out the site and see what else they got for cheaper.

Sometimes in business you need those filler products or halo effect products. They might not be the best sellers. They might make crap profits or even lose a bit of money. But you need it in the portfolio.

Problem is with tech and gaming, the assumption is always high growth, high profits and high margins. Lots of other industries dont gun for that as much. everyone wants that, but if the market has settled down to certain parameters, then a 4% growth rate might be all you got now. The market is only so big.

In gaming, the biggest growth over the decades is mobile. Yet the console makers dont even bother making smartphone games. And if they do, it's barely any effort. So for their quest for gaming growth, they arent even doing it in the right sub-sector. The only one who has is Nintendo with a hybrid system. But the games themselves arent even mobile-ish games.
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Game companies need to make enough revenue and to have profitability or at least not big loses to have a sustainable business.

Sony in particular made a lot of games knowing they weren't going to be good sellers but were going to be cool prestige games. Most recent example, Death Stranding 2, or Astro Bot before it.

They had studios that were unprofitable for a while before shutting them off. But from time to time there are things like the memory price increases and they have to cut costs to compensate them and keep the profitability at good levels, particularly if are saving money to make acquisitions in a year or two.

So they pretty likely went and did cut their more unprofitable team, the one that had less potential for future profitability. Despite they were the GOAT remaster and remakes studio (who no longer wanted to make remakes or remasters, and as support studio probably was too expensive for others who provide the same quality).
 
Jesb said:
I still can't believe you wouldn't want these guys on your side. Especially for when a new console launches and software isn't there yet.
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Ok sure. But then you have to ask yourself why they've made this decision. This insistence in treating the studio heads as completely irrational and not thinking anything through, I don't get.

They have to have their reasons.
 
Montauk said:
Ok sure. But then you have to ask yourself why they've made this decision. This insistence in treating the studio heads as completely irrational and not thinking anything through, I don't get.

They have to have their reasons.
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But that's an appeal to authority fallacy. They certainly do have information we don't—hard sales numbers and the complete development timeline of the company, for starters—but knowing more doesn't automatically mean the decisions they make with that information any better. These same leaders had that same suite of information when they green lit bomb after bomb while tripping over themselves to try to follow live service trends (without the vision and passion to understand what made the OG giants and innovators in the space successful).

Sure, they have their reasons, but their track record—especially for consumers that loved their first party offerings—doesn't and shouldn't inspire confidence that they're making the right call here.
 
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