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[sircaw]

Not trying to be an ass, I love Sony and Demon's Souls, not starting a war ...

But isn't 1.4 mil over a year a little low when games like MK11 sell like 2mil in the first week or something?

shut your beak, when i finally get my ps5 if will err 1.400 001.

Every bit helps

 

[Badlucktroll]

Yeah not Metal Gear SOLID. Maybe Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake.

 

[sircaw]

who else, who else, spill beans. dammit

wish is with Larian studious, they are top quality.

 

[kyliethicc]

who else, who else, spill beans. dammit

wish is with Larian studious, they are top quality.

Cerny Games

 

[Unknown?]

Hopefully they will do bloodborne 2…

but business wise it’s a really a bad deal for Sony.. there is no IP attached to the purchase. All the talent could just up and quit tomorrow and what would Sony have after that? This might be a case where Sony just wanted to show that they could buy someone as well

You could say that for any studio though... It's why certain IPS go dormant.

 

[mejin]

These are extremely limited simplifications and not exactly true in terms of being absolutes for the entire gen. Saturn was an actual competitor in Japan from 1994 to 1997, and the N64 was very strong in Western territories, at times outselling PS1 in them and that is well past the launch of the system there, too.

Phrasing it as if Sony were the only one who "really cared about 3P" is a nice way of wording they were the only one with the money, distribution channel pipelines and marketing infrastructure to use as bullet points to prospective 3P devs/pubs to lure their talent over to their platform (and later, lock in exclusivity deals with pubs like Eidos, Capcom, Konami, etc.). Don't get it twisted: these were 100% business-focused moves where Sony leveraged money and resources that Sega & Nintendo simply didn't have.


It doesn't change the fact it was a form of consolidation: content consolidation. The particulars aren't important here, just the reality that such is what it was. They also took advantage of some situations early on to drive away support from Dreamcast to PS2; several 3P devs with projects planned for Dreamcast cancelled them in favor of PS2 and this was before it actually launched. Some of these were negotiated in the early days of that gen, well before a runaway effect had formed.

I didn't say there wasn't competition or "real" competition, just that there was content consolidation that gen which is 100% true, and therefore falls into the definition as a form of consolidation (the type people are now fearmongering about these days).



It effectively is when considering market conditions and realities of the day, dynamics, and market size. Consolidation is consolidation, whether it be with games (regardless HOW that happens), dev acquisitions, pub acquisitions, etc. You're getting lost in semantics.



Uh, they have? Psygnosis was a multi-plat dev before Sony acquired them, but that went away after a few years. They practically secured Square (and Final Fantasy) away from Nintendo where they had been for a decade prior to PS1. That is a form of "locking" them down to their ecosystem. History flat-out shows you're wrong.



That's always a possibility, and doesn't always revolve around acquisitions. Some of those partners could just run out of money and go out of business, or pivot to another industry altogether. It's happened before and will happen again, acquisitions be damned.

No simplications at all. And come on you are pratically rewriting history here.

Saturn died with less than 10M worldwide. Dreamcast the same and dropped dead even faster. N64 used cartridges and their production cost was higher than that of CD-ROMs and storage capacity was lower. It was a stupid mistake for Nintendo, but they didn't care as long as their games were selling. They lost Square for this, just google it. They had a serious rupture at that time.

What I'm saying is devs and publishers were really independent and they chose what were best from them. Not everything was about money, but you can't blame them to chose a platform where most of their fan base were. It wasn't a locked content, they could've go to any other platform at any time. One of the few that still has that mentality to stick to one platform is Atlus, for example. They're are slowly open up, but it's a perfect example of they can go multiplayer, they just don't wanna.

Like you said before it is what is. The world is just different now, for better or for worse.

 

[Cyber_hunter026]

 

[Kamina]

 

[Papacheeks]

Sony owns the rights to Cowboy Bebop?

They bought crunchy roll and funimation which I believe own distributing rights to those series including Bebop.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Without the "insider eyes", how am I going to believe you, bro?

 

[farmerboy]

Great studio, great news.

 

[Elios83]

It's finally confirmed.
Really looking forward to see both their original game and their next remake.
It's a really talented studio and I think Sony has been really good at picking these studios strategically so far.
Everything has a particular role to cover, they're all made by proven talented people and they don't cost a fortune. Thinking they grabbed Insomniac for 220 millions is still crazy.

 

[GhostOfTsu]

No simplications at all. And come on you are pratically rewriting history here

He's been doing that for months. Bringing up old shit from the 90s and rewriting it to paint Sony as the devil that bought a publisher in 1993, killed Sega and more. Most people won't bother looking it up. MS will avenge them all I guess?

Imagine how many cartridges Square would need for FF7. Blame Sony lol

 

[Yoboman]

They bought crunchy roll and funimation which I believe own distributing rights to those series including Bebop.

Thats like saying Netflix owns Cowboy Bebop

 

[yurinka]

Sony owns the rights to Cowboy Bebop?

I think it belongs to Sunrise (Bandai Namco) and what Sony owns is the rights to stream it via their anime services.

Without the "insider eyes", how am I going to believe you, bro?

Hermen said today he's open to continue acquiring:

 

[Nickolaidas]

shut your beak, when i finally get my ps5 if will err 1.400 001.

Every bit helps

What a cuck.

I pre-ordered it for 100 bucks (deluxe edition) and have yet to play it because I do not own a ps5.

 

[demonstr8]

I would like to see a japanese studio joining worldwide studios

Any day now... right??

 

[FromDuskTillGameOver]

No surprise, but honestly it's a waste. They could have done much more than only Sony IPs.

 

[aclar00]

I know everyone here is sick of console warring, but these acquistions wouldn't have happened if MS didnt buy Bethesda. After spending an entire generation closing down 4 studios, and buying just one new studio in Insomniac, Sony has bought 4 studios (housemarque, Nixxes, Firesprite and BP) in a matter of months.

Competition is good. I'd argue that MS doesn't go out and acquire Playground Games, Ninja Theory and Obsidian if Sony first party wasnt so goddamn successful last gen. They were pretty much forced to respond, and I feel Sony was forced to act as well.

We don't need all the big companies buying up all the smaller studios, but there is no denying that healthy competition between two industry giants is good for the gaming industry as whole. Studios like BP, Housemarque, Ninja Theory and Obsidian struggle to get big money from third party devs and thats exactly where first party support is needed.

Keep the pressure up on your favorite company. Dont let them get complacent and good things will follow. Taking pot shots at their competition is fun, but criticism of your favorite company can be quite productive.

If GamePass continues to be successful, then we ate undoubtedly going to see more acquisitions. The subscription model in today's day and age required new and original content.

MSFT cant rely on 3rd party publishers too much because if they do, they will see themselves with less and less content as other publishers decide they want to start their own service. Like Disney and other studios dropped Netflix to start their own.

The only way to be competitive i a subscription service will be original content. And the publishers with the most studios and quality content will be the leaders. Dont know is Sony plans to ramp ul PS Now like GamePass, but if they can continue to make quality original conent the they should be fine for a while, even w/o a service.

 

[Aenima]

Finally. Why does it took so long to announce this aquisition? Playstation JP spoiled it months ago.

Curious to see what they original IP will be.

 

[Dr Bass]

Finally. Why does it took so long to announce this aquisition? Playstation JP spoiled it months ago.

Curious to see what they original IP will be.

It might not have been finalized. Legal can take a long time on deals in the works.

 

[THEAP99]

next up they need kojima, fromsoft, or remedy then I think they're good for a bit

 

[onQ123]

I thought this had already happened

 

[yurinka]

, That wasn't the case for Naughty Dog, or Psygnosis tho, who are two of their first acquisitions. Also, while calling their recent acquisitions "defensive" might be a bit much, they are at least in some form reactionary, or partially reactionary. You can notice it in the language they use when they make the announcements, and their recent language regards acquisitions in general.

Not true.

ND released Crash Bandicoot 1, 2, 3 & CTR as PS1 exclusive games before being aquiring to make PS2 games like Jak & Daxter.

Psygnosis released temporal console exclusives for PS1 like Wipeout or Destruction Derby that some time later got ported. They also made many other full console exclusive PS1 games like Adidas Power Soccer, Chronicles of the Sword, Destruction Derby 2, Formula 1, Colony Wars, Lomax, F197, G Police, Tenka, Rush Hour, Shadow Master, League of Pain, Rollcage, Rollcage 2, Wipeout 3 and many more before being acquired to make PS2 games.

3% out of a sea of 1600 million, though.

3% of 1600 is 48 million games for PS4, which is very generous. We don't know the exact number of total of PS4 games sold, but we know while ago was above 1622. It may be over 1700 and will be higher at the end of the generation. I mentioned 'less than 3%' to throw and approximate, but less than 2% at the end of the generation would be more realistic.

Considering Sony's total are probably averaged at around 10% of that, and they have released way more games than Zenimax/Bethesda last gen as a whole (especially in terms of new games)...I'd say those are actually quite good percentages for Zenimax/Bethesda on the platform.

It's a good number for Zenimax, but looking at the growth in Sony's business, this ~2% of the game sales will be compensated with the growth. Sony won't miss them. And again, it was estimating they sold ~50M PS4 games which I think it isn't the case at all.

Regarding Sony's numbers, I'd say in recent quarters they mention the % of 1st party sales (for that quarter, not in total) and don't remember the number but I think it was something like 18%. Which in the scale of the amount of games sold in total for PS is pretty impressive.

As a corporation no, they aren't making more money than MS in fact the inverse of that is true but...what does that necessarily have to do with trying to justify an acquisition?

What matters when talking about games are their gaming divisions. MS having trillions as corporation didn't help them to catch Sony in 20 years.

 

[Loope]

next up they need kojima, fromsoft, or remedy then I think they're good for a bit

Remedy i highly doubt. They have a better relationship with MS and refused them, also they like to keep their IPs.

 

[gow3isben]

Does anyone have a list of all their studios now?

 

[Omnipunctual Godot]

"Original content."

lol, did you just kind of gloss over the tweet I was replying to?

 

[Aenima]

Does anyone have a list of all their studios now?

Team Asobi
Bend Studio
BluePoint
Guerrilla
Firesprite
Housemarque
Insomniac
London Studio
Media Molecule
NaughtyDog
Nixxes
San Diego Studio
Santa Monica Studio
Sucker Punch
Pixelopus
Polyphony Digital
Xdev

 

[El Pistolero]

So, Hulst and Ryan still wants to talk that they are not in arms race and they prefer organic growth?

Because if answer is yes I just need to know to believe exact opposite of what they are talking in future...

But congratz to the team. I'm interested what they will do when not making remakes...

This move is identical in essence to all their previous acquisitions. That is what they mean by organic growth: A relationship over many years, where a small team gets funded and supported, until which time said team proves to be effective, reliable and in sync with the rest of the studios, and gets offered to join the group as an official member. That would be different to Sony dropping 10 billion dollars to buy Capcom one sweet day...

 

[aclar00]

Not trying to be an ass, I love Sony and Demon's Souls, not starting a war ...

But isn't 1.4 mil over a year a little low when games like MK11 sell like 2mil in the first week or something?

Yes and no...i think Multiplats in general tend to have better sales overall than 1st party inclusives (not counting other consoles). Also, DS is a very niche title and genere that i would argue is more of a hardcore gamer's game.

According to Wikipedia, the original sold 1.7 in its lifetime, so id say thats good. In all honest, anything over a million on any console is great sells numbers...though hi budget games may have a hard time recouping their money on that.

DS is essentially sitting at about 14% adoption rate. Sounds good to me?

 

[dyergram]

Glad Sony’s twitter intern didn’t fuck this up. Bloodbourne 2 please and thanks.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Without the "insider eyes", how am I going to believe you, bro?

 

[Mobile Suit Gooch]

Worst kept secret.

 

[El Pistolero]

All these Sony acquisitions, and Hulst saying they are not done, sound to me like a preemptive defensive move. Sony has always worked closely with 3rd party studios but only now are they acquiring them. With MS buying Bethesda and rumored to be buying another publisher or two it must have sent Sony in an aggressive move. That's smart on Sony's part and Vinciquerra's word on the gaming industry consolidating is foreshadowing on what's happening now.

Definitely true. It also coincides with a window of opportunity for the division to grow exponentially, since all the segments have either received their fair share of interest (animation, music...), or do not have any consolidation potential (motion pictures, where the number of players has already shrunk). Many more moves are to be expected, especially in light of how aggressive MS seems to be.

 

[NikuNashi]

This is a perfect question to bring up. I'm starting to believe that's EXACTLY what 3 of those "3rd party partners" that they signed this year are thinking. That maybe within 5 years they can be acquired too! It makes perfect sense. This is Jade Raymonds perfect oppurtunity! It's all setup for her. If she does a great job with her studio, they'll be set by 2030.

Raymond has to complete a game on time and on budget without leaving a studio, then it needs to be a good game (85+meta). If she can do this then perhaps after two games a Sony purchase would be on the cards, until then it's just money down the drain and to big a risk.

 

[DeepSpace5D]

Team Asobi
Bend Studio
BluePoint
Guerrilla
Firesprite
Housemarque
Insomniac
London Studio
Media Molecule
NaughtyDog
Nixxes
San Diego Studio
Santa Monica Studio
Sucker Punch
Pixelopus
Polyphony Digital
Xdev

Add to that ForwardWorks

 

[kyliethicc]

Team Asobi
Bend Studio
BluePoint
Guerrilla
Firesprite
Housemarque
Insomniac
London Studio
Media Molecule
NaughtyDog
Nixxes
San Diego Studio
Santa Monica Studio
Sucker Punch
Pixelopus
Polyphony Digital
Xdev

XDEV doesn't count really and Nixxes barely counts, since they don't make their own games. Even Sony themselves say they now have "16 studios" which means they don't count XDEV. They do seem to count Nixxes in that 16, strangely, but Nixxes are part of the PD support studio group, a separate entity within PS Studios.

They really have 15 internal studios now. And a bunch of support staff.

Add to that ForwardWorks

No. ForwardWorks is not part of PlayStation Studios.

They're a separate corporation owned by Sony that only does mobile games.

Not the same thing.

 

[kyliethicc]

double post sorry

 

[skit_data]

XDEV doesn't count really and Nixxes barely counts, since they don't make their own games. Even Sony themselves say they now have "16 studios" which means they don't count XDEV. They do seem to count Nixxes in that 16, strangely, but Nixxes are part of the PD support studio group, a separate entity within PS Studios.

They really have 15 internal studios now. And a bunch of support staff.

Do we know the total staff count for all studios? They must’ve added 400+ people only in the last year, if not more?

 

[Aenima]

XDEV doesn't count really and Nixxes barely counts, since they don't make their own games. Even Sony themselves say they now have "16 studios" which means they don't count XDEV. They do seem to count Nixxes in that 16, strangely, but Nixxes are part of the PD support studio group, a separate entity within PS Studios.

I took those studios straight out of the playstation site. So they do count them all. Bluepoint still has not been added.

https://www.playstation.com/corporate/playstation-studios/

 

[DeepSpace5D]

No. ForwardWorks is not part of PlayStation Studios.

Right they are just a mobile studio but they are owned by Sony aren’t they?

I wasn’t aware the distinction was only Playstation console studios.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

excited to see them work on a new IP

hope it retains the Japanese feeling of the games they tend to remaster

 

[kyliethicc]

Do we know the total staff count for all studios? They must’ve added 400+ people only in the last year, if not more?

Very rough estimates

Bend ~ 130
Bluepoint ~ 70
Firesprite ~ 265
Guerrilla ~ 375
Housemarque ~ 80
Insomniac ~ 350
London ~ 80
Media Molecule ~ 75
Naughty Dog ~ 325
Pixelopus ~ 25
Polyphony Digital ~ 170
San Diego ~ 100
Santa Monica ~ 300
Sucker Punch ~ 160
Team Asobi ~ 50

Its probably over 2500 people across the 15 studios.

And then they have like 300+ people in their support group. Its a lot.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

I think James E. Ryan Esq. waits until arch-nemesis Bryank75 is banned to make purchases. This happened a few times now.

I know Bryank75 will be sitting having a Guinness smiling to this news.

 

[kyliethicc]

I took those studios straight out of the playstation site. So they do count them all. Bluepoint still has not been added.

https://www.playstation.com/corporate/playstation-studios/

Umm.. but count the site. Its 16 right now.

Then add Bluepoint. That's 17.

They literally said Bluepoint is their "16th studio" today.

Same with how they said Housemarque was their "13th studio."

Nixxes was 14th studio, and Firesprite was their "15th studio."

So they don't count XDev. Its different.

 

[AJUMP23]

Sony used the revenue generated from Bluepoint sales to buy bluepoint. Smart.

 

[yurinka]

Does anyone have a list of all their studios now?

Scroll down here to get the full list including the support studios:

Sony Interactive Entertainment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

They also have 2nd unannounced small studio in the campus of their San Diego studio that isn't listed there. They are the ones who pitched and have been making the TLOU1 remake, with people from the Sony PlayStation Visual Arts Group (an internal support team that helps all their games with the cinematics, animation and art) with support from ND.

And well, their XDEV Japanese team, the one who publishes the 2nd party games like Bloodborne or Death Stranding Director's Cut, before they were included inside Japan Studio. When Japan Studio got restructured, they separated them into two separate offices: all the internal development teams got merged into one of them (Team Asobi) and the 2nd party publisihing XDEV team went to the other one, which now reports to XDEV instead of to Japan Studio/Team Asobi.

Internal development teams:
1 - Team Asobi
2 - Polyphony
3 - Insomniac Games
4 - Naughty Dog
5 - Bend
6 - San Diego
7 - Santa Monica
8 - Sucker Punch
9 - Pixel Opus
10 - Bluepoint
11 - Guerrilla
12 - London Studio
13 - Media Molecule
14 - Housemarque
15 - Firesprite
16 - Fabrik (if we count it as separate one from Firesprite)
17 - San Diego 2nd studio (if we count unannounced one as a separate one)

Gamedev support teams:
1- Nixxes
2 - XDEV
3 - XDEV Japanese team (if we count it as separate from XDEV and Team Asovi)
4 - Malaysia Studio
5 - San Mateo Studio

excited to see them work on a new IP

They said 'original content', which can even mean a new DLC for an existing game/IP. Doesn't need to be a new IP.

I bet it will be a sequel for an existing IP, probably a 'short' one like Miles Morales as a first step. For a very popular IP whose devs are too busy with other projects and probably one we haven't seen for a while or one they already worked with. I'd bet candidates could be Uncharted, Demon's Souls, Bloodborne, SotC.

Raymond has to complete a game on time and on budget without leaving a studio, then it needs to be a good game (85+meta). If she can do this then perhaps after two games a Sony purchase would be on the cards, until then it's just money down the drain and to big a risk.

What a troll.

She released over a dozen important games before she left her studio. And there are like a dozen more released after she left but were greenlighted and started with her and also became hits/good games. And this includes some huge new IPs like Assassin's Creed, Watchdogs or The Division to name a few or rebooted other ones with cases like Rainbow Six Siege.

Sony signed her studio a 2nd party deal a month after she left Stadia or so because they know the teams she built delivered (before and after she left) a lot of hits. And well, her and her studios have an insane CV, but she also built a team with a lot of very talented and experienced former coworkers who also worked in many hits.

 

[El Pistolero]

XDEV doesn't count really and Nixxes barely counts, since they don't make their own games. Even Sony themselves say they now have "16 studios" which means they don't count XDEV. They do seem to count Nixxes in that 16, strangely, but Nixxes are part of the PD support studio group, a separate entity within PS Studios.

They really have 15 internal studios now. And a bunch of support staff.


No. ForwardWorks is not part of PlayStation Studios.

They're a separate corporation owned by Sony that only does mobile games.

Not the same thing.

Nixxes will be expanding to tackle other projects than just porting titles to PC, I am almost certain. Possibly replacing Bluepoint in time as a remake studio, at least in part. So, 16 teams is fair calculation, imo.

 

[Kerotan]

Great purchase. They've been going great work for PlayStation for years. This ensures none of the other big players especially MS can get their hands on them.

 

[Knightime_X]

Cool.

Now get to work.