~ State of Play | June 4, 2025 ~

I'm pretty much convinced Gaas took a big bite out of their release cadence as well.
For sure. I think Sony was giving their studios more leeway with the single player games to take their time with, as long as they did some small GaaS projects in the interim. And now they might be restructuring and getting "all hands back on deck" for the single player games. Kind of like what we saw with Naughty Dog.
 
For sure. I think Sony was giving their studios more leeway with the single player games to take their time with, as long as they did some small GaaS projects in the interim. And now they might be restructuring and getting "all hands back on deck" for the single player games. Kind of like what we saw with Naughty Dog.
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I'm pretty much convinced Gaas took a big bite out of their release cadence as well
For sure. I think Sony was giving their studios more leeway with the single player games to take their time with, as long as they did some small GaaS projects in the interim. And now they might be restructuring and getting "all hands back on deck" for the single player games. Kind of like what we saw with Naughty Dog.
No, the cadence of all AAA teams (not only Sony) decreased because every generation AAA games take longer to be made.

The GaaS production didn't greatly affect their other teams:
  • ND SP team moved from TLOU2 to Intergalactic and expanded to the point that later got a second SP team. Their MP team expanded and moved to GaaS. They also had some juniors training on supporting mostly outsourced remasters/remakes and ports
  • Guerilla expanded from making only a mainline Horizon to also do in addition to the mainline Horizon -with help of other teams- on top a GaaS MP game, the VR game, the Lego game and some remaster/PC ports
  • Polyphony, San Diego Studio, Bungie, Haven, Deviation, Firewalk, ArcSys teams continue doing the same stuff they did before
  • In case of Arrowhead they did the same but went AAA GaaS with this title
  • London Studio were making the game they wanted and had GaaS experience from PS Home and Singstar
  • As far as we know Bend only has a single gamedev team, so since their open world with live service elements -they were doing the same open world game type, but adding the MP they couldn't add to Days Gone- new IP got cancelled (this shit happens in both GaaS and non-GaaS titles), pretty likely started a new project from scratch so pretty likely will take a while to release their own new game. Until then, pretty likely will have part of their team supporting/codeveloping one of the ND games as they always did since the PS1 days
  • The rest of their teams only had SP under development or were support teams. And their team size in most cases increases in the recent years, so GaaS didn't affect them
Regarding their 12 IPs with GaaS push, which could end being more than 12:
  • Already released and successful: MLB, GT, Destiny, Helldivers
  • Already released and failed: Concord, Firewall
  • WIP and releasing maximum next year: Convallaria, Marathon, Midnight Murder Club, Marvel Tokon
  • WIP and who knows when will be released (maybe 2026/2027): Fairgame$, Horizon Online, 'project GummyBears'
There may be some other unannounced GaaS from XDEV, or particularly from China Hero Project, but I don't think on time for this push. I think Media Molecule and Dark Outlaw could be doing GaaS but wouldn't be in time for this push. And I think none of them is making a GaaS title. I think Sucker Punch may have expanded their Ghost of Tsushima Legends team to make a standalone GaaS, but I think again wouldn't be on time for this push.

Some time ago they did try -and failed- making a Singstar F2P. But nowadays that there's more knowledge about GaaS, and that Sony is expanding to PC and mobile I think there's a good opportunity -maybe not in time for this 'dozen IPs with GaaS' push- specially in mobile to make a PS5+PC+mobile Singstar F2P/GaaS taking advantage of the huge Sony Music catalog they have. I think some small team could do it for a cheap budget, maybe a small external team.
 
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No, the cadence of all AAA teams (not only Sony) decreased because every generation AAA games take longer to be made.

The GaaS production didn't greatly affect their other teams:
  • ND SP team moved from TLOU2 to Intergalactic and expanded to the point that later got a second SP team. Their MP team expanded and moved to GaaS. They also had some juniors training on supporting mostly outsourced remasters/remakes and ports
  • Guerilla expanded from making only a mainline Horizon to also do in addition to the mainline Horizon -with help of other teams- on top a GaaS MP game, the VR game, the Lego game and some remaster/PC ports
  • Polyphony, San Diego Studio, Bungie, Haven, Deviation, Firewalk, ArcSys teams continue doing the same stuff they did before
  • In case of Arrowhead they did the same but went AAA GaaS with this title
  • London Studio were making the game they wanted and had GaaS experience from PS Home and Singstar
  • As far as we know Bend only has a single gamedev team, so since their open world with live service elements -they were doing the same open world game type, but adding the MP they couldn't add to Days Gone- new IP got cancelled (this shit happens in both GaaS and non-GaaS titles), pretty likely started a new project from scratch so pretty likely will take a while to release their own new game. Until then, pretty likely will have part of their team supporting/codeveloping one of the ND games as they always did since the PS1 days
  • The rest of their teams only had SP under development or were support teams. And their team size in most cases increases in the recent years, so GaaS didn't affect them
Regarding their 12 IPs with GaaS push, which could end being more than 12:
  • Already released and successful: MLB, GT, Destiny, Helldivers
  • Already released and failed: Concord, Firewall
  • WIP and releasing maximum next year: Convallaria, Marathon, Midnight Murder Club, Marvel Tokon
  • WIP and who knows when will be released (maybe 2026/2027): Fairgame$, Horizon Online, 'project GummyBears'
There may be some other unannounced GaaS from XDEV, or particularly from China Hero Project, but I don't think on time for this push. I think Media Molecule and Dark Outlaw could be doing GaaS but wouldn't be in time for this push. And I think none of them is making a GaaS title. I think Sucker Punch may have expanded their Ghost of Tsushima Legends team to make a standalone GaaS, but I think again wouldn't be on time for this push.

Some time ago they did try -and failed- making a Singstar F2P. But nowadays that there's more knowledge about GaaS, and that Sony is expanding to PC and mobile I think there's a good opportunity -maybe not in time for this 'dozen IPs with GaaS' push- specially in mobile to make a PS5+PC+mobile Singstar F2P/GaaS taking advantage of the huge Sony Music catalog they have. I think some small team could do it for a cheap budget, maybe a small external team.
What about Bluepoint?

Google Pout GIF
 
No, the cadence of all AAA teams (not only Sony) decreased because every generation AAA games take longer to be made.

The GaaS production didn't greatly affect their other teams:
  • ND SP team moved from TLOU2 to Intergalactic and expanded to the point that later got a second SP team. Their MP team expanded and moved to GaaS. They also had some juniors training on supporting mostly outsourced remasters/remakes and ports
  • Guerilla expanded from making only a mainline Horizon to also do in addition to the mainline Horizon -with help of other teams- on top a GaaS MP game, the VR game, the Lego game and some remaster/PC ports
  • Polyphony, San Diego Studio, Bungie, Haven, Deviation, Firewalk, ArcSys teams continue doing the same stuff they did before
  • In case of Arrowhead they did the same but went AAA GaaS with this title
  • London Studio were making the game they wanted and had GaaS experience from PS Home and Singstar
  • As far as we know Bend only has a single gamedev team, so since their open world with live service elements -they were doing the same open world game type, but adding the MP they couldn't add to Days Gone- new IP got cancelled (this shit happens in both GaaS and non-GaaS titles), pretty likely started a new project from scratch so pretty likely will take a while to release their own new game. Until then, pretty likely will have part of their team supporting/codeveloping one of the ND games as they always did since the PS1 days
  • The rest of their teams only had SP under development or were support teams. And their team size in most cases increases in the recent years, so GaaS didn't affect them
Regarding their 12 IPs with GaaS push, which could end being more than 12:
  • Already released and successful: MLB, GT, Destiny, Helldivers
  • Already released and failed: Concord, Firewall
  • WIP and releasing maximum next year: Convallaria, Marathon, Midnight Murder Club, Marvel Tokon
  • WIP and who knows when will be released (maybe 2026/2027): Fairgame$, Horizon Online, 'project GummyBears'
There may be some other unannounced GaaS from XDEV, or particularly from China Hero Project, but I don't think on time for this push. I think Media Molecule and Dark Outlaw could be doing GaaS but wouldn't be in time for this push. And I think none of them is making a GaaS title. I think Sucker Punch may have expanded their Ghost of Tsushima Legends team to make a standalone GaaS, but I think again wouldn't be on time for this push.

Some time ago they did try -and failed- making a Singstar F2P. But nowadays that there's more knowledge about GaaS, and that Sony is expanding to PC and mobile I think there's a good opportunity -maybe not in time for this 'dozen IPs with GaaS' push- specially in mobile to make a PS5+PC+mobile Singstar F2P/GaaS taking advantage of the huge Sony Music catalog they have. I think some small team could do it for a cheap budget, maybe a small external team.

Ryan Reynolds Cool Story Bro GIF by The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard


I'm not buying it
 
What about Bluepoint?

Google Pout GIF
It's a support team, they don't and never had the staff roles required to be a AAA lead dev studio (game director, creative director, a strong design and narrative team, etc) and even less the ones to specifically lead a GaaS (economy designers, server programmers etc).

As in other support/remasters teams, the majority of their staff are artists. They said that afer Demon Souls they were done with remasters/remakes and that were moving to work (as support team) in new games, as they did with God of War Ragnarok, where all their entire studio did work until almost release.

So after GoWR (they didn't work in Valhalla), they moved to support unknown game(s) leaded by somebody else (maybe SSM since Sony+SSM+Bluepoint must be happy with their work in GoWR).

Since Bluepoint mostly does art and in a pretty smaller proportion coding, for them doesn't matter if they are supporting GaaS or non-GaaS because to make assets and animations of characters, weapons, environments etc is the same job for both game types.
 
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It's a support team, they never had the staff roles required to be a AAA lead dev studio (game director, creative director, a strong design and narrative team, etc) and even less the ones to specifically lead a GaaS (economy designers, server programmers etc).

As in other support/remasters teams, the majority of their staff are artists. They said that afer Demon Souls they were done with remasters/remakes and that were moving to work (as support team) in new games, as they did with God of War Ragnarok, where all their entire studio did work until almost release.

So after GoWR (they didn't work in Valhalla), they moved to support unknown game(s) leaded by somebody else (maybe SSM since Sony+SSM+Bluepoint must be happy with their work in GoWR). Since Bluepoint mostly does art and in a pretty smaller proportion coding, for them doesn't matter if they supporting GaaS or non-GaaS because to make assets and animations of characters, weapons, environments etc is the same job for both game types.
What about their "original content" they were working on hyping everyone up?
 
What about their "original content" they were working on hyping everyone up?
God of War Ragnarok is "original content" or "new game".

Not a remaster or remake.

For a dev, to work in a new game -even as one of the many support teams who work in AAA games- is more fun than to work in remasters or remakes.
 
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I have to say at first I got excited about Deus Ex being added to the classics lineup. But then I started reading about this console version and how the levels were splint into smaller sections (to deal with memory limitations) or how the framerate was tanking in heavier scenes.

I'm still not saying no, especially if the emulated version will feature trophy support. ;)
 
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