PlayStation Studios |OT14| Let's be honest: |OT13| could have been a lot smoother

Ivanovic · Sep 22, 2020

Sony seems to find themselves in the same position as they did in the 360 era when so many Sony exclusives were going multiplatform. They eventually built up their own first party games and look at them now. They should probably go down that route again. WRPGS, JRPGS and Shooters are their main deficiencies so personally, I'd rather they spent billions slowly building up that area.

It might take years for the franchise to mature but eventually you want to be in Nintendo's position where your first party is so good that it doesn't matter who Microsoft buys or what goes exclusive.

lmcfigs · Sep 22, 2020

"continuing to nurture"... these are all empty buzzwords. Yeah i would hope Sony continues to make games after 2020. what i need to see is them making investment into the system like MS is doing - not just talk about doing it.

Uzupedro · Sep 22, 2020

MasteroFlich said:
what makes you think that? this games comes after starfield. and starfield isnt even on the horizon. i would guess ESO is 2025 earliest?
if msft is truely goping for netflix gaming, they wont thakt exclusive i guess.

TESO(or ESO) is The Elder Scrolls online.
You are talking about The Elder Scrolls VI: Subtitle, TESVI.
In this case, yeah, I don't think it will hit Playstations.

gundamkyoukai · Sep 22, 2020

ArmGunar said:
Layden was CEO of SIE America from 2014 to 2018 and then was head of WWS until he left end of Sept 2019

He was in charge, greenlighted and supported probably every projects from PlayStation North America studios that began from 2013 onward (Spider-Man, Ghost, TLOU Part II, God of War, etc...) and he is the one who managed to get Insomniac as PlayStation Studios

If PlayStation had/will have an incredible 2020 and a stellar 2021, it's probably thanks to his decisions about projects like God of War and now God of War 2 can exist, he probably agreed when Guerrilla wanted to expand to 2 teams with 400 developers overall, he probably greenlighted Miles Morales as a PS5 launch game, same for Ghost, TLOU Part II and Dreams
(and when I meant "supported", I meant providing enough resources to these studios, the time and the budget to fulfill their vision)

Every projects that began before Sept 2019 and will shine on PS5, that's partly thanks to him

And no Sony has not a ton of goodwill, they have of course but they deserved a lot more considering COVID and the output they have prepared for launch and first year.
And of course, I'm talking about ERA, but what I see on social media.

The problem is media don't talk about Sony, their incredible launch line up and their first year because it would be too much Sony's praise for them
I can't imagine the headlines if Sony would have delayed Miles/Demon's Souls to have nothing for launch.

That is not true Shu who was in charge WWS studios and which games get greenlighted and what happens to them .
Layden was in head of WWS from 2018 to 219 .
Hell GG wanted to expand from since 2017 and they base in Europe and giving you Layden credit for that when Jim was the head of Europe ?

remanutd · Sep 22, 2020

--R said:
Microsoft bought Bethesda and everybody's losing their minds.

That's a good acquisition, but they are still light years behind WWS I dont see how sony is doomed here, but Microsoft could actually gain some fanbase this next gen, good for them and good for sony, I like competition which i feel sony didnt have any this gen.

dbcyber · Sep 22, 2020

So that new studio in San Diego. Are we ever going to get official confirmation that they exist? Just been hearing about how they are acquiring talent for what feels like 3-4 years now.

ArmGunar · Sep 22, 2020

gundamkyoukai said:
That is not true Shu who was in charge WWS studios and which games get greenlighted .
Layden was in head of WWS from 2018 to 219 .

Because you don't think the CEO of SIE America didn't have a word to say about the project his studios worked on ?
Shu and Layden probably worked together

If a studio needs more time and therefore bigger budget for its game, that's probably Layden who agreed or not

lmcfigs · Sep 22, 2020

dbcyber said:
So that new studio in San Diego. Are we ever going to get official confirmation that they exist? Just been hearing about how they are acquiring talent for what feels like 3-4 years now.

it's just that i'm seeing a lot of "sony is trying to do x" and very little "sony has actually done x". Other than insomniac, what was their last move?

get2sammyb · Sep 22, 2020

I don't know how anyone in this thread could possibly know what any of these executives do during their normal day job. Just because you connect better personally with the personality of one of these suits over another does not mean they're solely responsible for all the good you see at PlayStation and vice versa.

Also, there's nothing that Jim Ryan, Andrew House, Shawn Layden, or Shuhei Yoshida can feasibly do if Microsoft wants to throw out $7.5 billion. They've put together an impressive slate of software for the first 12 months of the PS5, and will continue to ensure they have a strong content pipeline. Beyond that, I'm not sure what you expect them to realistically do? (I know, you want them to buy a publisher as well, but this is just fantasy football chatter.)

John Bender · Sep 22, 2020

Asapphire541 said:
Sony don't need a to get a huge publisher I rather they get studios that would diversify they're output. Like an FPS, a non sim type Racer, RPG etc.

They should also revive more old IPs. Personally I would also like to see Sony push Astrobot as they're big mascot with multiple full fledged games.

They can diversify their output, revive old IPs and expand their first-party studios at the same time by acquiring a publisher like Square.

Kaiserstarky · Sep 22, 2020

Ivanovic said:
Sony seems to find themselves in the same position as they did in the 360 era when so many Sony exclusives were going multiplatform. They eventually built up their own first party games and look at them now. They should probably go down that route again. WRPGS, JRPGS and Shooters are their main deficiencies so personally, I'd rather they spent billions slowly building up that area.

It might take years for the franchise to mature but eventually you want to be in Nintendo's position where your first party is so good that it doesn't matter who Microsoft buys or what goes exclusive.

Yes building a team for a WRPG and a JRPG will be a good start, you don't really need to buy a studio for that. You can just build a team at Japan Studio and another one for a WRPG inside a Sony Studio who could be interested to make a game like that.

Nostradamus · Sep 22, 2020

lmcfigs said:
"continuing to nurture"... these are all empty buzzwords. Yeah i would hope Sony continues to make games after 2020. what i need to see is them making investment into the system like MS is doing - not just talk about doing it.

But they are investing. Just because they keep a set number of studios it doesn't mean they aren''t expanding like crazy. Sony is hiring people all the time and their investment is actually showing on the quality of the games. I don't understand people going crazy over the number of studios each company has and potential future games when the results are already speaking for themselves.

Zeusy · Sep 22, 2020

Oh wow OT 14 already, we going real fast 😎

EagleClaw · Sep 22, 2020

lmcfigs said:
it's just that i'm seeing a lot of "sony is trying to do x" and very little "sony has actually done x". Other than insomniac, what was their last move?

Well, there are some rumors that they were also on the move for Zenimax.
It was one of the last privately owned publishers.
Maybe they lost the bid race, or they did nothing, who knows...

gundamkyoukai · Sep 22, 2020

ArmGunar said:
Because you don't think the CEO of SIE America don't have a word to say about the project his studios worked on ?
Shu and Layden probably worked together

If a studio needs more time and therefore bigger budget for its game, that's probably Layden who agreed or not

Shu was head WWS from since 2008 he had the final say in what get done and how they run .
Budget and time would depend on Shu and head of PS and maybe the others from all regions .

EDIT in fact every time Sony talk about there games like new IP or how games going the mention Shu as he was in charge of that stuff .

starblue · Sep 22, 2020

remanutd · Sep 22, 2020

lmcfigs said:
Microsoft is investing a ton of money to acquire talent. Sony is doing nothing

So basically people overreacting and fanboyism everything, I thought it was something about the ps5 released or something else but that is actually a good acquisition for microsoft, they may actually gain some fanbase back this upcoming gen and I like that because I like competition which I feel sony didnt have any this gen.

John Bender · Sep 22, 2020

get2sammyb said:
I don't know how anyone in this thread could possibly know what any of these executives do during their normal day job. Just because you connect better personally with the personality of one of these suits over another does not mean they're solely responsible for all the good you see at PlayStation and vice versa.

Also, there's nothing that Jim Ryan, Andrew House, Shawn Layden, or Shuhei Yoshida can feasibly do if Microsoft wants to throw out $7.5 billion. They've put together an impressive slate of software for the first 12 months of the PS5, and will continue to ensure they have a strong content pipeline. Beyond that, I'm not sure what you expect them to realistically do? (I know, you want them to buy a publisher as well, but this is just fantasy football chatter.)

Fantasy football chatter like Microsoft buying Zenimax, Disney buying 21st Century Fox, or Squaresoft merging with Enix.

ASilentProtagonist · Sep 22, 2020

ArmGunar said:
There is no doubt PS5 will be a success during its first few months but it will be thanks to Layden leadership during PS4 generation

With all the games planned for launch and for 2021, Sony should have more goodwill than we are seeing right now.
If it's not the case, it's because of bad messaging/communication/marketing

Price increase of games, no free upgrade talk, no clear backward compatibility talk during a show for general audience, PS4 SKU of games contradict the "vision" claimed during June event throw shade to the good things

74.99€ instead 79.99€ would have been more understandable

Especially Sony with huge PS Store revenues, they should have been the last company to do a price increase but whatever

A slide about BC during PS5 showcase would have been enough and avoid headlines like "PS5 is confirmed not BC to PS1/PS2/PS3"

Say straight that you believe in generations and therefore there will be PS5 exclusive since launch but you think about PS4 customers and and they are important for you (Sony) so you decide to do a Miles PS4, Horizon PS4 for those who can't spend $400 to upgrade next gen but these games will have a free upgrade when you decide to move to nex-gen

They could have done this so much better and they failed miserably

I may seem harsh but they did so stupid things
Could you imagine that we don't even talk about freaking God of War 2 coming next year because of all the bad news which dropped right after the event...

I agree with most of this. Sony's poor messaging really splashed cold water all over next gen hype for PS5. However, if you think long term, year 1 (2021) is very impressive. God of War: Ragnarok, Horizon 2, and FFXVI is an incredible year 1 already. That is, if they hit all of their dates..

PlanetSmasher · Sep 22, 2020

Ivanovic said:
Sony seems to find themselves in the same position as they did in the 360 era when so many Sony exclusives were going multiplatform. They eventually built up their own first party games and look at them now. They should probably go down that route again. WRPGS, JRPGS and Shooters are their main deficiencies so personally, I'd rather they spent billions slowly building up that area.

It might take years for the franchise to mature but eventually you want to be in Nintendo's position where your first party is so good that it doesn't matter who Microsoft buys or what goes exclusive.

I don't think it's possible for Sony to get where Nintendo is. Nintendo survives because they produce immediately profitable (or almost immediately profitable) hardware that makes them money from minute one while selling absolute boat-loads of first-party software regardless of how much third party software sells.

If Sony suddenly becomes a "backup" console for the core gamer market because third parties have largely been swept up by Microsoft, I don't think their first-party IP has the strength to keep them afloat the way Nintendo's does. Especially not if they're releasing loss-leader hardware. The loss of third-party software sales revenue will hurt them extremely badly.

I know people are going to call me a doomer or whatever, but Nintendo has spent thirty years nurturing its IP and building a level of ubiquitous association with gaming that transcends the market. They're extremely unique and no other company would've been able to tank a gen as bad as the Wii U and come out even stronger for it.

Loudninja · Sep 22, 2020

lmcfigs · Sep 22, 2020

EagleClaw said:
Well, there are some rumors that they were also on the move for Zenimax.
It was one of the last privately owned publishers.
Maybe they lost the bid race, or they did nothing, who knows...

it's that and leyou - which they also failed to acquire. I'm seeing a lot of "well sony wanted to do this, but they didn't" which is not reassuring.

It also seems that a lot of the talk about how sony is investing in PS is actually just stuff i would expect them to do... sony making games and hiring developers is not on the scale of what MS is doing - it's a normal day-to-day thing that Sony should be doing at a bare minimum.

Like i don't really care about Bethesda... but if the sega rumors are true then it's an L. Imagine persona games not coming to playstation.

get2sammyb · Sep 22, 2020

John Bender said:
Fantasy football chatter like Microsoft buying Zenimax, Disney buying 21st Century Fox, or Squaresoft merging with Enix.

But it is fantasy football, isn't it? Reminds me of how when one sports team signs a player then fanbases of all the other teams get antsy and demand their team sign a player. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as that.

I do hope this thread can eventually calm down, but unfortunately I foresee this kind of discussion running for a long time.

Asapphire541 · Sep 22, 2020

John Bender said:
They can diversify their output, revive old IPs and expand their first-party studios at the same time by acquiring a publisher like Square.

How? If its anything like the Bethesda deal, Square Enix will still be their own publisher. I doubt Sony will force them to make Socom, wild arms, killzone etc. Plus they have their own ips that they wouldn't abandon.

disco_potato · Sep 22, 2020

Queen Vulpix said:
Capcom this gen has done a fantastic job, especially in regards to the Resident Evil series. Then you have MHW which iirc is the best selling game in the franchise. Then other releases as well. Looking forward to seeing Capcoms output next gen.

Unless I'm mistaken, it's Capcom's best selling game ever.

Sidewinder · Sep 22, 2020

get2sammyb said:
I don't know how anyone in this thread could possibly know what any of these executives do during their normal day job. Just because you connect better personally with the personality of one of these suits over another does not mean they're solely responsible for all the good you see at PlayStation and vice versa.

Also, there's nothing that Jim Ryan, Andrew House, Shawn Layden, or Shuhei Yoshida can feasibly do if Microsoft wants to throw out $7.5 billion. They've put together an impressive slate of software for the first 12 months of the PS5, and will continue to ensure they have a strong content pipeline. Beyond that, I'm not sure what you expect them to realistically do? (I know, you want them to buy a publisher as well, but this is just fantasy football chatter.)

Bringing COLONY WARS back from the dead would be a first step, what do you think?

I'd love to see them build a Skyrimesque game with 100% PSVR2 compatiblity out of the gate, because this is what I'm going to miss most, with Bethesda being gone now.

It really sucks to see, that Horizon, GoW etc. probably won't have much to offer in VR, if anything at all. I'm still waiting on that Horizon VR thing, whatever it is.

shadowman16 · Sep 22, 2020

disco_potato said:
Unless I'm mistaken, it's Capcom's best selling game ever.

Yup. By a mile. It exploded sales wise. The sequel is gonna be nuts.

Rover_ · Sep 22, 2020

i get some concerns with Jimbo, especially coming of our best leader ever Shawn but we should trust Hermen Hulst like 100%.

EagleClaw · Sep 22, 2020

lmcfigs said:
it's that and leyou - which they also failed to acquire. I'm seeing a lot of "well sony wanted to do this, but they didn't" which is not reassuring.

It also seems that a lot of the talk about how sony is investing in PS is actually just stuff i would expect them to do... sony making games and hiring developers is not on the scale of what MS is doing - it's a normal day-to-day thing that Sony should be doing at a bare minimum.

Like i don't really care about Bethesda... but if the sega rumors are true then it's an L. Imagine persona games not coming to playstation.

Sega will be a gamepass thing, like EA.
They will not buy sega and manage some leisure centers in japan.

I have to say it was time for MS to pick up, i think their first party output was miserable.
They surely took a huge step with Bethesda and might now be leading.
But in reality another company will not answer such a huge step during 4 months time.

EDIT:
Sega also is publicly traded, the holding just holds 11% by their own.

gundamkyoukai · Sep 22, 2020

PlanetSmasher said:
I don't think it's possible for Sony to get where Nintendo is. Nintendo survives because they produce immediately profitable (or almost immediately profitable) hardware that makes them money from minute one while selling absolute boat-loads of first-party software regardless of how much third party software sells.

If Sony suddenly becomes a "backup" console for the core gamer market because third parties have largely been swept up by Microsoft, I don't think their first-party IP has the strength to keep them afloat the way Nintendo's does. Especially not if they're releasing loss-leader hardware. The loss of third-party software sales revenue will hurt them extremely badly.

I know people are going to call me a doomer or whatever, but Nintendo has spent thirty years nurturing its IP and building a level of ubiquitous association with gaming that transcends the market. They're extremely unique and no other company would've been able to tank a gen as bad as the Wii U and come out even stronger for it.

Unless MS buy up everyone ( which won't happen) Sony will not become the backup for 3rd parties.
I also think you forget they was a time when Sony was the back in a way and they were losing billion on hardware with out big IP .
It was call the PS3 gen .

Rover_ said:
i get some concerns with Jimbo, especially coming of our best CEO ever Shawn but we should trust Hermen Hulst like 100%.

He was never CEO .

TheRealTalker · Sep 22, 2020

ASilentProtagonist said:

Nice future Sony first party you got there right Bundy? 😏

Host Samurai · Sep 22, 2020

The nature of the game has unfortunately changed to buying up publishers now. It makes sense now in the age of getting as much exclusive content on your service/machine. Bethesda was a great choice imo. Great diverse catalog with games that come out consistently. It will give Xbox users consistent exclusive content every few months instead of just 2 per year. If Sony wants to compete with output like that, than they need to buy a publisher like Capcom or Ubisoft that has major IP's and release games in a constant timely manor.

As much as I love SE, they take forever to release anything. It would be a match made in heaven if it was 20 years ago, but who knows.

Rover_ · Sep 22, 2020

gundamkyoukai said:
He was never CEO .

i mean PS Leader, Jimbo's position lol sorry my mistake.

DisturbedSwan · Sep 22, 2020

Ooooo that new thread smell! The last one went super quick wtf lol.

gundamkyoukai · Sep 22, 2020

Rover_ said:
i mean PS Leader, Jimbo's position lol sorry my mistake.

I mean Shawn was never CEO \leader of PS .

PlanetSmasher · Sep 22, 2020

gundamkyoukai said:
Unless MS buy up everyone ( which won't happen) Sony will not become the backup for 3rd parties.
I also think you forget they was a time when Sony was the back in a way and they were losing billion on hardware with out big IP .
It was call the PS3 gen .

In the PS3 gen they were still GETTING those games even though their software sales weren't as high. In the event Microsoft keeps buying major third parties, Sony will fall behind because Sony will be getting demonstrably less games. And with that huge loss of third party software sales revenue they will be forced to make major changes to the way they approach the industry - their first party software cannot keep their division afloat on its own.

Like we do not want to get to a point where Sony's platform is just Sony first party, Activision, Ubisoft and indies because Microsoft, Tencent, Amazon and Google snapped up everyone else. That would be a nightmare scenario.

Uzupedro · Sep 22, 2020

Oof, XSS/XSX pre-orders are pure chaos, in the end the PS5's fiasco was more smooth(but not ideal).

Pai Pai Master · Sep 22, 2020

Uzupedro said:
Oof, XSS/XSX pre-orders are pure chaos, in the end the PS5's fiasco was more smooth(but not ideal).

Seems kinda early to tell but my first impression is both have been a shitshow lol

Rover_ · Sep 22, 2020

gundamkyoukai said:
I mean Shawn was never CEO \leader of PS .

that's news to me. he wasn't Jimbo's position? SIE's boss?

Oghuz · Sep 22, 2020

With this move Sony is only losing out on two big franchises: Fallout and Elder Scrolls. That is painful for sure, but nothing Sony can't overcome. Hopefully this will mean they will start getting serious themselves and invest in some RPG games, instead of cinematic action/adventure only.

DrM · Sep 22, 2020

Uzupedro said:
Oof, XSS/XSX pre-orders are pure chaos, in the end the PS5's fiasco was more smooth(but not ideal).

They went pretty smoothly in Europe (but we know how much demand there is for Xbox in continental EU)
US looks like complete clusterf*ck.

Uzupedro · Sep 22, 2020

DrM said:
They went pretty smoothly in Europe (but we know how much demand there is for Xbox in continental EU)
US looks like complete clusterfuck.

Yeah I'm talking based on the US people feedback.
I hope everyone gets one.

Deleted member 52190 · Sep 22, 2020

Rover_ said:
that's news to me. he wasn't Jimbo's position? SIE's boss?

No, he has president of SIEA and President of WWS.

The CEO position before Jim was Kodera and prior to that was Andrew House.

Omnistalgic · Sep 22, 2020

Wasup ponies...are we feeling better today?

I know I am after some admitted overreaction lol

Vic Damone Jr. · Sep 22, 2020

Omnistalgic said:
Wasup ponies...are we feeling better today?

I know I am after some admitted overreaction lol

I'll feel good if Sony drops some info this week. How're you feeling?

Asapphire541 · Sep 22, 2020

They need to chill with latest rumours about Sega, I don't think many will recover if its true

Edit: most likely a partnership if anything

PlanetSmasher · Sep 22, 2020

Omnistalgic said:
Wasup ponies...are we feeling better today?

I know I am after some admitted overreaction lol

I think I feel worse than I did yesterday, somehow.

TheJollyCorner · Sep 22, 2020

So many people champing at the bit for Sony to 'respond' with their own multi-billion dollar acquisition...

I feel like the one taking crazy pills around here by preferring for them to spend theoretical billions to open up new studios/promote rising stars from existing studios to run them and just expand the PlayStation Studios portfolio.
I just look at the hiring posts that pop up in this thread and there's a very strong realization that people all over this industry want to work for WWS/PlayStation Studios. These studios foster great talent. I mean, I didn't even know the name Halley Gross until playing The Last of Us Part II. I certainly know her name now. Maybe soon we see her, just as one example, fully leading a project?

MS can keep trying to 'buy for the win' if that's their strategy, but as long as Sony stands strong on the quality of their first-party games and continues recruiting from within, I think they'll continue to succeed in this space. They have worked hard to build a reputation of incredible first-party games; they've been through a lot of growing pains. All the sudden MS having Elder Scrolls, or DOOM, or (insert another future acquired series) isn't going to make fans of PlayStation Studios games go "whelp... guess I'll forget about these now!" Just doesn't work that way.

gundamkyoukai · Sep 22, 2020

Rover_ said:
that's news to me. he wasn't Jimbo's position? SIE's boss?

No.
The last 3 head of PS were .
John Kodera was head for a short while .
Andrew House Start of the PS4 gen .
Kaz Hirai who went on to be head of Sony .
Now we have Jim.

Snakeeee said:
No, he has president of SIEA and President of WWS.

The CEO position before Jim was Kodera and prior to that was Andrew House.

Truth is when Shawn became president of WWS it seem more like Sony had to many people because of how they restructure.
So they gave him something else .

nolifebr · Sep 22, 2020

This whole "We can't wait to show you more details about PS5 in the coming weeks" > Wait three months > "We are happy to finnaly annouce some PS5 news" cycle is starting to piss me off

PlayStation Studios |OT14| Let's be honest: |OT13| could have been a lot smoother

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