The Initiative is partnering up with Crystal Dynamics for the development of Perfect Dark

[arsene_P5]

Beyond excited for words. Except these ones. :)

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Happy for Crystal Dynamics. Can't wait to hear more about this game and the next Tomb Raider!

According to Turn 10, Forza Motorsport is still in early development. So is Hellblade 2, despite the fact they've been working on it for like 3 years.

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I think the Turn 10 statement is at least one year old by now.

Out of all the announced games, this is the wild one to hear that is the case.

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Turn 10 recently talked about further playtests of some parts from FM in one of their Forza monthly. I could be wrong, but I don't think the game is to far away. I expect a 2022 releases date.

If you were wondering why the last Forza Motorsport (FM7) came out in 2017 and why the sequel hasn't released yet. Then I can tell you that Turn 10 told the community in their livestreams that the franchise is getting a reboot and with that the game will focus much more on Motorsport. They've also worked on the engine, tools and more, while hiring new developers along the way. They've also talked about some of the changes already.

 

[CorvoAttano]

I am careful in my wording because I do network with these people and do not want to burn bridges. Are you saying the other Microsoft gaming studios employees do not communicate with each other professionally or even socially outside of work and that they never refer someone from their network to a job posting they know about? What kind of information do you think a recruiter disclose to a candidate during interview or recruiting?

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So are you claiming to have inside information that The Initiative employee count is much much bigger that ~80. If so, you need to verify with moderators on this site so that we can all take the information presented accordingly. Without that, no one here is going to believe you because Linkedin employee counts are typically very accurate in the gaming industry and most of Software Development. Here at Microsoft and among all my friends in this field, I don't know a single person without a Linkedin account. No one wants to miss out on a great opportunity because a recruiter couldn't find your account while they were looking for candidates with your particular skillset.

 

[arsene_P5]

What world are we living in? This is throwing in the towel and yet we still. Come on folks. This is the nice way to kill something. It's embarrassing to pretend otherwise.

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I am legit confused by this post. Can you please elaborate what you mean?

 

[DeadOnions]

Some of the posts here are straight up pathetic and I'm baffled how some of it is allowed.

Dev studios outsource work all the time, how do people think game development works?

 

[christocolus]

This isn't the first time.

id Software Has Teamed Up with Certain Affinity to Develop the Multiplayer Part of DOOM. - Certain Affinity

Developer id Software has teamed up with Certain Affinity to develop the multiplayer part of DOOM (2016). Certain Affinity has worked on Halo, CoD, and more

www.certainaffinity.com

Same with Halo Wars 2 (and probably many other games I can't remember).

And totally makes sense considering that the Studio Head and the Game Director both came from Crystal Dynamics before joining Microsoft.

I wonder if this is for the single-player or if they plan for the game to have some kind of Multiplayer ultimately.

Anyway that's great news. CD is a great fit.

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well said. with the skillsets of the amazing devs over at TI and CD I believe PD will turn out great.

 

[Brrandon]

What world are we living in? This is throwing in the towel and yet we still. Come on folks. This is the nice way to kill something. It's embarrassing to pretend otherwise.

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Unless this is sarcasm, driveby posts like this should be bannable

Uhmm.... because they did such a great job with rebooting Lara Croft??? *cough*not really**


So.. what daddy issues will be plaguing... *checks google* ...Joanna Dark from game#1 all the way to game#3? And how will she be "becoming Perfect Dark" even at game# 3?

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When will people realize that crystal dynamics isnt writing the damn game. All of the Leads and Senior dev positions are at The Initiative, CD is being used as bulk development/programming/art/animation work.

 

[Timbuktu]

I hope all of this is just a coincidence or something they have to get through but it does worry me. The Joanna character is really important to me. I loved the N64 classic... I was lukewarm on PD Zero. I want a good new entry!

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I loved the first one as well, but less so for the characters than how much crazy they packed into the game for the time, just wish it came out on GC rather than the tail end of N64.

 

[CosmicGP]

When will people realize that crystal dynamics isnt writing the damn game. All of the Leads and Senior dev positions are at The Initiative, CD is being used as bulk development/programming/art/animation work.

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That's a huge relief. If there's one good thing I can say about the TR reboot trilogy is that it was always technically excellent.

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

Dev studios outsource work all the time, how do people think game development works?

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Publishers loan out one of their premiere AAA teams to do support work for other publishers "all the time"? Like does Sony Santa Monica regularly co-dev Assassin's Creed games part way through, and does Rocksteady Games regularly assign a big chunk of it's workers to help Sega get Yakuza games out on time?

That's very much not something that happens. I cannot think of a single example that is strictly analogous to what's happening here. Examples people are most commonly raising is "outsourcing happens all the time" (nobody is saying it doesn't, that's completely unrelated) and "isn't this just like when Relic is developing Age of Empires for Microsoft?" and no it's not like that either, because in cases like that the external team is actually leading development themselves. The only even vaguely similar example I've seen raised (one) is Koei assigning an internal team to co-develop Fire Emblem: Three Houses, although that happened basically during the infancy of that game, as soon as they'd decided to make it on Nintendo Switch.

This is not "cause for concern" about the game, but there is a really odd thing oging on ITT where people are just repeatedly insisting this is totally ordinary, standard operating procedure for companies, happens all the time, not even worth remarking on. But it's actually a fascinating and unusual situation.

That's normal though. In preproduction The Last of Us Part 2 didn't have those 2100 devs. Those came on board via outsourcing studios somewhere in full production.

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Yes but Crystal Dynamics isn't an "outsourcing studio". It isn't a work for hire team that you can rent out at a whim to help get some art assets up. It's one of Square Enix' largest and most prestigious development teams, which has spent decades working on internal IP at Eidos/SE-Europe. Do you really not see a difference here? I feel like people are actually just reacting defensively to an assumption that I'm suggesting this is something to majorly worry about, as opposed to just highlighting the weirdness of it. You can't usually just bring aboard a 3rd party team like this to help make your game for you.

 

[vixolus]

$100M exclusivity partnership deal /s

All I can hope for is that this expedites production a bit because I'm thirsty for gameplay

 

[Spirited]

People are taking this as something bad? Why?

For me this sounds like a completely reasonable plan going into production after setting up the studio and doing pre-production completely in-house.

 

[gremlinz1982]

Big difference in my opinion.

MS started the Initiative with quite a lot of fanfare as a new first party studio - built from the ground up with really strong talent and budget. Now that studio is partnering with Square Enix to develop their first game. So who is exactly doing what here?

With Sony and Bloodborne, the game was developed by From with some project management and technical support from Japan Studio. It was very clear that all the creative development - the actual game - was developed by From.

Given how the Initiative was pitched as a new first party flagship studio, this announcement is a little surprising and slightly odd to me..

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Why are people behaving like this is somehow strange for Microsoft?

For Blue Dragon, Mistwalker took care of the creative aspects and project management, Artoon did the game development.
In the case of Lost Odyssey, it was a collaboration between Mistwalker and Feelplus.

It is something that they have tried, tested and seen to work. It has also always been the plan, as told by some insiders that The Initiative will take care of writing, vision and outsource some of the work. Seems people are stunned not by the outsourcing, but the studio that they are outsourcing to.

 

[Elog]

You're wrong as stated multiple times and being a famous trivia, the original idea for Bloodborne came from Japan studios and they did have creative output.

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Happy to be wrong if that is the case. Could you source your statement though? All I know is that Japan Studio approached From to develop a new exclusive for the PS system. From took it from there AFAIK. This might be off-topic but I am genuinely curious if this is not 100% a Miyazaki game.

 

[TraderPoe]

It's funny when you see all the shit posting come to a end the minute a verified dev makes a post, then suddenly people sound way more supportive and optimistic.

it's almost as if game developers are human and the not to judged exclusively on past work or if they've decided a collaboration fits both parties. The speculation is just so silly. Good to know but means absolutely nothing until we can see some perfect dark gameplay in 8 years

 

[gremlinz1982]

SMH at the Arkane posts. Do we want Arkane supporting or do we want them making new titles?

 

[IIFloodyII]

This thread has a lot of hot takes for something so minor.

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Crystal Dynamics doing support work isn't what I'd call minor, especially for a studio outside of SE. It's something no one here would ever guess in a million years and is definitely an interesting development (far more than the discussion this thread has been about) that will be interesting to see how they go overtime. I assumed they'd be deep into a new Tomb Raider, but that's probably still in pre-production I guess.

A game having support studios isn't though, AAA ones it is basically a requirement, them having less then 5 would be more surprising (some can have upwards of 15 different studios) I think there's even indie games that have support studios now, it's a vital part of development.

 

[T0kenAussie]

Beyond excited for words. Except these ones. :)

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Blink twice if we are getting counter ops multiplayer modes

 

[Ostrava]

I mean... Why wouldn't they team up with Rare instead?

 

[Deleted member 68874]

I mean... Why wouldn't they team up with Rare instead?

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Rare doesnt want to work on their old IP. They've said they are interested in new games and new experiences.

 

[War95]

Welp..

 

[Brrandon]

I mean... Why wouldn't they team up with Rare instead?

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Rare is busy on Everwild and continued support for Sea of thieves. Presumably also overseeing a battletoads season 2 since jez corden said theres a 2d beat em up in dev at xbox

 

[LilScooby77]

This forum is so biased, it's crazy.

Don't quote me.

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+1

 

[modiz]

Is this the first confirmation that the project is a straight up FPS?
On the main topic though, it is not unusual for studios to outsource their projects with many different studios, for example Sony outsources their Visual Arts team for a lot of third parties and First Parties for the creation of assets or even motion capture. What that isnt very usual is using a AAA studio from another publisher as a seemingly full co developer on the project. It doesnt sound like it it just about creating assets but that Crystal Dynamics will support every aspect of the development. Which i will say, does still make sense in the current situation. The Initiative probably had difficulty growing and were missing deadlines as a result; At the same time CD are likely overstaffed after avengers underperformed massively and tomb raider wont be ready for full production for years, so that was a solution to avoid a big turnover at the studio.
In short, it is an unusual situation, but i think it makes sense in context for both studios.
One thing I have to say however is that it isnt a great look for Crystal Dynamics to move from working on one of the biggest entertainment IPs right now to co developing a game with another publisher.

 

[vixolus]

Is this the first confirmation that the project is a straight up FPS?
On the main topic though, it is not unusual for studios to outsource their projects with many different studios, for example Sony outsources their Visual Arts team for a lot of third parties and First Parties for the creation of assets or even motion capture. What that isnt very usual is using a AAA studio from another publisher as a seemingly full co developer on the project. It doesnt sound like it it just about creating assets but that Crystal Dynamics will support every aspect of the development. Which i will say, does still make sense in the current situation. The Initiative probably had difficulty growing and were missing deadlines as a result; At the same time CD are likely overstaffed after avengers underperformed massively and tomb raider wont be ready for full production for years, so that was a solution to avoid a big turnover at the studio.
In short, it is an unusual situation, but i think it makes sense in context for both studios.
One thing I have to say however is that it isnt a great look for Crystal Dynamics to move from working on one of the biggest entertainment IPs right now to co developing a game with another publisher.

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They mentioned it being fps in a dev video a long time ago but this was a blunt reminder of it being fps

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

Is this the first confirmation that the project is a straight up FPS?

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No, it's been called an FPS since the first announcement. Nobody has ever indicated anything else in an official capacity.

 

[Grue]

Is this the first confirmation that the project is a straight up FPS?
On the main topic though, it is not unusual for studios to outsource their projects with many different studios, for example Sony outsources their Visual Arts team for a lot of third parties and First Parties for the creation of assets or even motion capture. What that isnt very usual is using a AAA studio from another publisher as a seemingly full co developer on the project. It doesnt sound like it it just about creating assets but that Crystal Dynamics will support every aspect of the development. Which i will say, does still make sense in the current situation. The Initiative probably had difficulty growing and were missing deadlines as a result; At the same time CD are likely overstaffed after avengers underperformed massively and tomb raider wont be ready for full production for years, so that was a solution to avoid a big turnover at the studio.
In short, it is an unusual situation, but i think it makes sense in context for both studios.
One thing I have to say however is that it isnt a great look for Crystal Dynamics to move from working on one of the biggest entertainment IPs right now to co developing a game with another publisher.

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Good post.

Tomb Raider looked and played fantastic. If any of that technical expertise makes its way into Perfect Dark, I'm a very happy gamer.

 

[Raigor]

Crystal Dynamics doing support work isn't what I'd call minor, especially for a studio outside of SE. It's something no one here would ever guess in a million years and is definitely an interesting development (far more than the discussion this thread has been about) that will be interesting to see how they go overtime. I assumed they'd be deep into a new Tomb Raider, but that's probably still in pre-production I guess.

A game having support studios isn't though, AAA ones it is basically a requirement, them having less then 5 would be more surprising (some can have upwards of 15 different studios) I think there's even indie games that have support studios now, it's a vital part of development.

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Doing support work is pretty common in the industry, it's just that people don't know or care.

Guerilla, Sony Bend, Insomanic did support work for Death Stranding

All Zenimax studios for example are deeply working with each other on their projects; we know Tango Gameworks designed some demons for DOOM, Arkane Lyon level designers were working on Youngblood and both Id Soft and Arkane Austin worked on Fallout 76.

Ubisoft does this all the time and some EA devs move between their sister studios when it's needed.

In Japan is even more common when you see major publishers working with each other.

. What that isnt very usual is using a AAA studio from another publisher as a seemingly full co developer on the project

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343 and Creative Assembly (ownesd by SEGA) co-worked on Halo Wars 2
World's Edge and Relic (also owned by SEGA) are co-working on Age of Empires 4.

Bandai Namco is literally co-working with the likes of Nintendo and Square Enix to make games.
Team Ninja has worked with Namco Bandai, Nintendo and Square Enix to publish some games etc....

 

[arsene_P5]

Yes but Crystal Dynamics isn't an "outsourcing studio". It isn't a work for hire team that you can rent out at a whim to help get some art assets up. It's one of Square Enix' largest and most prestigious development teams, which has spent decades working on internal IP at Eidos/SE-Europe. Do you really not see a difference here? I feel like people are actually just reacting defensively to an assumption that I'm suggesting this is something to majorly worry about, as opposed to just highlighting the weirdness of it. You can't usually just bring aboard a 3rd party team like this to help make your game for you

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You talked about the timeframe in which the other studios landed a hand and there is nothing odd about the timing. Nobody needs all hands on board in preproduction. The whole situation surely isn't as common as hiring support studios, but it's also not unprecedented as Raigor post above mine highlights.

 

[Hyrulelegend05]

.

 

[Raigor]

Yes but Crystal Dynamics isn't an "outsourcing studio". It isn't a work for hire team that you can rent out at a whim to help get some art assets up. It's one of Square Enix' largest and most prestigious development teams, which has spent decades working on internal IP at Eidos/SE-Europe. Do you really not see a difference here? I feel like people are actually just reacting defensively to an assumption that I'm suggesting this is something to majorly worry about, as opposed to just highlighting the weirdness of it. You can't usually just bring aboard a 3rd party team like this to help make your game for you.

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Creative Assembly, Relic, Team Ninja and Omega Force are not "outsourcing studios" and they co-worked with MS studios, Square Enix, Bandai Namco and Nintendo on several games; like Smash, Age of Calamity, Dissidia etc...

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

You talked about the timeframe in which the other studios landed a hand. Unless I misunderstood you.

The whole situation surely isn't as common as hiring support studios, but it's also not unprecedented as Raigor post highlights. But I understand you feeling it's weird.

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I mentioned the combination of all factors, that was just one of them. We've had situations where external teams co-developed something. We've had situations where companies get outsourcing partway through development (that's totally normal). We've had first parties pay publishers to use one of their teams to make an exclusive game. All of those things are individually not strange, but I'm not familiar with any situation like this one, where a studio started making a game, then brought one of a publisher's premiere AAA development team on several years into development to act as a support studio / codev.

It's not a question of why Microsoft would be willing to have Crystal Dynamic (talented developers, good relationship with Darrel, etc). The oddity is more why there would be such a big gap in CD's schedule that they could be doing this, and why Square Enix wouldn't have simply got them to help out with one of their other numerous games instead. Any way you cut this, it's interesting, and says something about CD and Square Enix, but I'm obviously just looking at this from the outside and could only speculate as to what precisely it means.

Creative Assembly, Relic, Team Ninja and Omega Force are not "outsourcing studios" and they co-worked with MS studios, Square Enix, Bandai Namco and Nintendo on several games; like Smash, Age of Calamity, Dissidia etc...

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Literally every example you just listed isn't like this. In every instance, the developer in question is acting as the lead on the project, with the other company acts as publisher. They are not acting as support studios.

 

[christocolus]

Beyond excited for words. Except these ones. :)

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Nice. I know you guys will do an amazing job.

 

[Raigor]

It's not a question of why Microsoft would be willing to have Crystal Dynamic (talented developers, good relationship with Darrel, etc). The oddity is more why there would be such a big gap in CD's schedule that they could be doing this, and why Square Enix wouldn't have simply got them to help out with one of their other numerous games instead. Any way you cut this, it's interesting, and says something about CD and Square Enix, but I'm obviously just looking at this from the outside and could only speculate as to what precisely it means.

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Don't think there's a gap to fill.

They are working on Tomb Raider + post-launch for Avengers. They have over 300 devs. Helping who among SE Europe studios? Eidos Montreal is way more staffed (500-600 devs) and Square Enix Montreal is making mobile games and that's it.

CD needed help to ship Avengers, while EM made Guardians of The Galaxy by themselves due to being a much bigger studio.

 

[g-m1n1]

From AAAA to hAhAhAhA :-/

Let's wait & see. I can't inagine the whole CD is on the project. Probably only a portion of the team when the other is working on smth else.

 

[Tortillo VI]

That's nice, as long as the writing is nothing close to the Tomb Raider reboot sequels. I could barely stand the tone and story, despite the games being fun, and found the main character annoying and unrelatable. Really hope Johanna Dark is written in a different way.

But other than that bring it! The more the merrier. It's strange to see given that CD is owned by Square though.

Edit: just remembered Shadow of the Tomb Raider was not by them. But in any case I pray for a different tone and direction for Perfect Dark

 

[DuvalDevil]

Great to see an Xbox and Square connection. Hopefully it's a success so they can continue to work together.

 

[arsene_P5]

It's not a question of why Microsoft would be willing to have Crystal Dynamic (talented developers, good relationship with Darrel, etc). The oddity is more why there would be such a big gap in CD's schedule that they could be doing this, and why Square Enix wouldn't have simply got them to help out with one of their other numerous games instead. Any way you cut this, it's interesting, and says something about CD and Square Enix, but I'm obviously just looking at this from the outside and could only speculate as to what precisely it means

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I understand where you coming from now better and yes it's certainly interested, although not unprecedented as Raigor pointed out in the two posts. Perhaps you haven't seen those yet.

I can only guess, since I know nobody at CD or SE. But what if the plan to support avengers was cut short due to the sales of the game and then you had another team still planning the next tomb raider. Which is very early in development. So there could be lots of developers in theory without anything to do and so the deal made sense for both parties. Those studios are in the same city, too.

You raise good question though. Why didn't SE uses the "free developers" to support another studio like the FF16? Would be interesting to know. Perhaps they don't need any help and/or Microsoft gave SE a better deal that's more lucrative than using the devs on a internal project as a help.

 

[Luneth]

Not sure if this are good news. I mean, the initiative was marketed as a top all star developers coming from top studios. It looks like they are having problems developing the game, but let wait and see. Just hope this doesn't mean the game is too far away.

 

[DeoGame]

I think the best frame of reference is Kojima Productions and Death Stranding.

KojiProd is estimated by wikipedia to be around 90 devs at the time of Death Stranding's release. Based on the credits, an additional 70 devs from Guerilla were brought on board to help with the game, as well as several different support studios.

This fact was announced pretty publically as well.

Guerilla was announced to have joined the game right before full production started in early 2017.

Similarly, this move was announced while the game is early in production. Given that MS has had to form the studio whereas Kojima had somewhat of a head start in people leaving Konami with him, a longer talent hunt can be accounted for.

I really don't think this is too far fetched. The bigger question is of course why Crystal is doing this instead of supporting other SE projects, but I suspect a big enough cheque can solve those issues.

 

[Bulby]

That's nice, as long as the writing is nothing close to the Tomb Raider reboot sequels. I could barely stand the tone and story, despite the games being fun, and found the main character annoying and unrelatable. Really hope Johanna Dark is written in a different way.

But other than that bring it! The more the merrier. It's strange to see given that CD is owned by Square though.

Edit: just remembered Shadow of the Tomb Raider was not by them. But in any case I pray for a different tone and direction for Perfect Dark

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My thoughts exactly. Xbox needs to step above this schlocky video game writing.

 

[Deleted member 68874]

That's nice, as long as the writing is nothing close to the Tomb Raider reboot sequels. I could barely stand the tone and story, despite the games being fun, and found the main character annoying and unrelatable. Really hope Johanna Dark is written in a different way.

But other than that bring it! The more the merrier. It's strange to see given that CD is owned by Square though.

Edit: just remembered Shadow of the Tomb Raider was not by them. But in any case I pray for a different tone and direction for Perfect Dark

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The writing should be handled by The Initiative. The lead writer their is Christine Thompson who previously wrote for Destiny 2.

 

[Kemono]

Oh no... Not them.

 

[IIFloodyII]

Doing support work is pretty common in the industry, it's just that people don't know or care.

Guerilla, Sony Bend, Insomanic did support work for Death Stranding

All Zenimax studios for example are deeply working with each other on their projects; we know Tango Gameworks designed some demons for DOOM, Arkane Lyon level designers were working on Youngblood and both Id Soft and Arkane Austin worked on Fallout 76.

Ubisoft does this all the time and some EA devs move between their sister studios when it's needed.

In Japan is even more common when you see major publishers working with each other.



343 and Creative Assembly (ownesd by SEGA) co-worked on Halo Wars 2
World's Edge and Relic (also owned by SEGA) are co-working on Age of Empires 4.

Bandai Namco is literally co-working with the likes of Nintendo and Square Enix to make games.
Team Ninja has worked with Namco Bandai, Nintendo and Square Enix to publish some games etc....

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Thanks for proving my point I guess. But there's absolutely nothing common about a studio the size of Crystal Dynamics doing support work for a different publisher then the one that owns them. From what I can find your 2 SEGA example are lead developers too, but it's definitely closer to this than anything else I can think off.

Bandai Namco ain't a single development studio, like they are the lead development team on Smash not a support team for example.
Not sure what your last example has to do with anything, a studio can have different publishers?

 

[gremlinz1982]

Interesting timeline.

The studio head is the same person that used to work as head of Crystal Dynamics, so the connection is there. Partnering with another established studio to make what is going to be their defining game is an odd choice though. Maybe the development has not been going smoothly at their current rate of growth and considering the scope of the project.

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Or maybe the studio was built to be small and outsource a lot.

I mentioned the combination of all factors, that was just one of them. We've had situations where external teams co-developed something. We've had situations where companies get outsourcing partway through development (that's totally normal). We've had first parties pay publishers to use one of their teams to make an exclusive game. All of those things are individually not strange, but I'm not familiar with any situation like this one, where a studio started making a game, then brought one of a publisher's premiere AAA development team on several years into development to act as a support studio / codev.

It's not a question of why Microsoft would be willing to have Crystal Dynamic (talented developers, good relationship with Darrel, etc). The oddity is more why there would be such a big gap in CD's schedule that they could be doing this, and why Square Enix wouldn't have simply got them to help out with one of their other numerous games instead. Any way you cut this, it's interesting, and says something about CD and Square Enix, but I'm obviously just looking at this from the outside and could only speculate as to what precisely it means.



Literally every example you just listed isn't like this. In every instance, the developer in question is acting as the lead on the project, with the other company acts as publisher. They are not acting as support studios.

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Mistwalker did this with Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey

 

[phonicjoy]

Rare doesnt want to work on their old IP. They've said they are interested in new games and new experiences.

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please, if they had come knocking at an opportune time they definitely would have. It would've even looked good to the outside. Seems to me much more likely that the manpower isn't there right now.

 

[arsene_P5]

Not sure if this are good news. I mean, the initiative was marketed as a top all star developers coming from top studios. It looks like they are having problems developing the game, but let wait and see. Just hope this doesn't mean the game is too far away.

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When entering full production most studios boost their ranks with other studios. That alone is nothing to be worried about. For example TLOU2 arguably one of the best games in the last decade had several studios and over 2000 devs working on the game.

 

[Kemono]

well said. with the skillsets of the amazing devs over at TI and CD I believe PD will turn out great.

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Lets hope the writing, character creation, art style, etc. is done by The Initiative.

Gameplay and technology are CDs strong suit.

 

[Raigor]

Thanks for proving my point I guess. But there's absolutely nothing common about a studio the size of Crystal Dynamics doing support work for a different publisher then the one that owns them. From what I can find your 2 SEGA example are lead developers too, but it's definitely closer to this than anything else I can think off.

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This is not support work. It's co-development, they are literally using the term "partnership".

Crystal Dynamics is not going to be relegated as a farming asset studio, they are going to integral in the development of the game.

Not sure what your last example has to do with anything, a studio can have different publishers?

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Team Ninja is owned by Tecmo Koei, and the studio was being used by other publishers in making games.

This is no different than Crystal Dynamics, being used by MS, to make PD while being owned by Square Enix.

 

[Theorry]

Jesus that AAAA thing keeps popping up still. Let it go
It was a recruiter outside of MS that used it one time to hype up a job listing.

 

[Deleted member 68874]

Bandai Namco ain't a single development studio, like they are the lead development team on Smash not a support team for example.
Not sure what your last example has to do with anything, a studio can have different publishers?

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Team Ninja is owned by Koei Tecmo, so them constantly working for outside publishers is worth bringing up.

FF Origin is being co developed by Square Enix and Team Ninja is a pretty good example imo.