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Jason Schreier: Sony’s Obsession With Blockbusters Is Stirring Unrest Within PlayStation Empire

I really wanted Days Gone 2.
WTF is this shit? Jim Ryan is destroying everything.

Jim Ryan going to sink this ship faster than Don Mattrick tvtvtv.

So Jim Ryan says no to Days Gone 2 and turns Bend into a support studio for Naughty Dog?

Oh no.. this is bad, actually bad.

Starting to remake a game 5 years after you released it and 4 years after you remastered it is baffling. I suppose a 2013 game is basically dirt to Jim Ryan though so it fits.

I understand Days Gone not getting a sequel but turning them in to a support studio causing it's creatives to leave is nuts too.

Remaking TLOU1 a game that don't need a remake.... SMH, everyday there is a Sony news that prove and reiforce the fact that Jim and Hermen are the 2 fuck retard no brain, and probably they picked TLOU becasue it's going to have a tv show... i don't give a flying fuck about the movies and tv shows, i care about the GAMES, Sony is going total wrong direction

As i suspected they seems to go super safe and focus it all on the big AAAA sequels ... or remake. Games like Ico, Last Guardian, or gravity rush don't have place no more in the modern Sony lead by the 2 clowns jim and hermen... They're destroiyng the brand and everything that past Playstation CEOs has build.

Man I'm so close to going mad at Jim again lmaooooo I cannot believe this

Hulst is doing to Jim what Phil did to Mattrick.

It make sens now

I never though i would say that, but after seeing what Jim Ryan is doing i think Don Mattrick wasn't that bad

I feel sorry for making all of my friends play Days Gone and telling them to go for the secret ending.

God dammit, I cannot believe how they are going to let such an intriguing franchise die. Imagine if Capcom decided to stop with Resident Evil just after releasing the first game - because that's exactly what Sony is doing to Days Gone.

Jim Ryan is arrogant Sony's final form.

Don almost killed Xbox though. I don't see Jim doing the same thing.

But more studios would allow more risks.... cause the risk would be spread among more studios and styles of game.

This approach of Jim Ryan is putting all your eggs in one basket.

And yet we're called stupid and delusional fanboys for hating Jim Ryan.

This guy has no fuck ass clue what makes PlayStation great.

You're telling me the reason theres been no TLOU 2 PS5 update is because they're wasting resources on a TLOU1 Remake?!?! GTFO

Yeh this is true. Japan studio alone was responsible for a ton of experimental stuff but we all know what's happening to them.

This probably explains why they were apparently aggressively attempting to pay for 3rd party exclusives to offset that but we all know how that has turned out.

We are entering a phase of the industry when owning your own studios and IP is going to be increasingly important because of the rise of the subscription service but these guys are going to be left in the cold if they think what they have now will be sufficient.

Don Mattrick was pretty awful. He set a very low bar...

When management changes, the incumbent will always want to put their stamp on things in order to justify their position. At the end of the day this small group built a prototype/proof-of-concept and that's it. It wasn't a new IP, or a "small game". So, really the only evidence we have is that they reorganized the teams responsible for making Knack and Gravity Rush.

Doesn't seem catastrophic to me, especially as neither of those franchises exactly blew the doors off critically or commercially. Is it really such a strange idea for Sony to put all their weight behind Team Asobi who've made a far bigger splash despite their work being restricted to VR and a pack-in to demonstrate the PS5's controller? Seems like a sensible reconsolidation to me.

Overthrow the Jim Ryan and Hermen Hulst regime!!

When a ship is heading towards icebergs, you look to the Captain for a corrective course. Jim deserves the 'shitting on' as he is the captain of the ship, and therefore assumes responsibiltiy.

As a huge Playstation Fanboy, this is a huge disappointment.

SIE is done, sinking ship at this point, absolute chaos & disaster.

Rip Playstation, 1994-Jim Ryan.

Bro Days gone was great, don't do this jimbo! It ended on a cliffhanger too ffs

Wow this kind of confirms the assumptions people had about Sony and Jim Ryan. That really sucks. Have to rely on 3rd Party RPGs for Japanese games now I suppose.

Last of Us remake seems bizarre, but then I don’t like remakes to begin with (or Last of Us for that matter), but the rest seems sensible. And I agree with Tom Warren - it’s coming to PC (and GamePass? :messenger_beaming:). Definitely to cash in on the tv show. People will cry on here but they will still lap up any old shit they serve, because Sony.

Sony is this kind of game, and it’s been wildly successful for them, so of course they’re going to double down. Jim Ryan doesn’t give a fuck what you think and while the rabid fan base keeps buying everything available, why should he?

Seems like the policy is to have a few big budget games with accompanying tv series or movies, and just focus on those. Kind of ironic in some ways, but will probably work for the mass market. For the players? Not so sure.

Jim wasn't literally referenced a single time within the article, most of the stuff took place before he was anywhere close to his current role.

Where are all those Jim defenders now?


Very dissapointed.

I've read article around 4 times. One thing i really noticed is that article doesn't refer to Jim Ryan at all. It has nothing to do with him. That was before his current role in PlayStation

Only reference to Hulst I saw was the one where he thought VASG was requiring too much money for the TLOU remake.

Keep in mind this ‘news’ is from 2018.
Jim Ryan didn’t take over until 2019.

Lotta people shitting on Jim Ryan here but all I see from that article is Hermen Hulst pulling triggers. Hard to tell what exactly is going on in reality, and if some of this stuff is even real or just over exaggerated as Schreier is wont to do.

These 3 guys gets it.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Sony management's lack of vision on building a new studio on a remake is really shocking.

You can see Nintendo does basically the exact opposite, and slowly keeps giving studios more and more autonomy, and projects that are appropriate for their skillsets. They slowly let Next Level Games keep advancing and building. They give smaller teams like Grezzo remakes to build up, and then graduate to a new IP, then to HD development. They have smaller groups with less experience work on smaller DLC projects to gain experience, like Bowser's Fury.

Here you have a team within Sony that's trying to take the initiative and gain experience through that same route, and they're just being kept on grunt work. And even worse, fully formed teams are being held back like Sony Bend, and all of Japan Studio.

If you ever read the Iwata Asks stuff, they explain in detail how they pick projects for each group's skillset and try to develop them.
 
I think we're on the "change in demographics" generation where Sony will prioritize casuals and try to sell to new younger audiences rather than the same old customer that has gotten old. Not a fan on how they raised prices (console, games) and offer less choice on their games. I Expect lots of ports and remakes/collections of older Playstation games to try to appease us. The thing is, nothing makes sense. They just made a killing last gen, and their new streamlined strategy is fucking idiotic.
 

Hugare

Member
The TLOU remake would be so, so dumb

"It makes sense" from an executive point of view, due to the HBO series and all that, but ... just don't

It's like remaking Chrono Trigger: you dont touch that shit. Any small change can fuck the whole project.

And the game still looks really great despite its age

Days Gone 2 cancelled makes sense. I hated the first game in so many ways, and it had some really troubled development.

Sony Bend being all arrogant saying "we dont want to become ND North" is hilarious. They were given the a big budget and maany years of development, delivered a 71 MC game and now want to make another new IP game with big budget? Ready at Dawn got fucked for less.
 

Chessmate

Banned
Funny how folks made fun about MS only doing halo etc and nowadays Sony is doing basicly this.
Another remake nobody askes for, for 80€ lol
New IPs my ass.
Naughty dog nowadays only produces super serious and depressive games.

Sony is basically merging its movie branch with its gaming branch, an entertainment powerhouse with mascots like Nathan Drake, Aloy, Joel and Ellie. They seem to have the vision of becoming a Disney-like entertainment giant based on fictional characters born in the gaming industry. They are investing massively at the moment, not necessarily in games, though.
 
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Emm... why are you quoting me exactly? I mean, I was speaking out facts in that post of mine, not making a "hot take" of any kind.

Sorry, i'm on mobile. It was accidentally. Yes, you stated out facts, though. But there are unnecessary hot takes. Some even didn't read the article. It was before Jim Ryan
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Sony is basically merging its movie branch with its gaming branch, an entertainment powerhouse with mascots like Nathan Drake, Aloy, Joel and Ellie. They seem to have the vision of becoming a Disney-like entertainment giant based on fictional characters born in the gaming industry. They are investing massively at the moment, though not necessarily in games.
Literally the Don Mattrick strategy.
 

SLB1904

Banned
Sony management's lack of vision on building a new studio on a remake is really shocking.

You can see Nintendo does basically the exact opposite, and slowly keeps giving studios more and more autonomy, and projects that are appropriate for their skillsets. They slowly let Next Level Games keep advancing and building. They give smaller teams like Grezzo remakes to build up, and then graduate to a new IP, then to HD development. They have smaller groups with less experience work on smaller DLC projects to gain experience, like Bowser's Fury.

Here you have a team within Sony that's trying to take the initiative and gain experience through that same route, and they're just being kept on grunt work. And even worse, fully formed teams are being held back like Sony Bend, and all of Japan Studio.

If you ever read the Iwata Asks stuff, they explain in detail how they pick projects for each group's skillset and try to develop them.
Lmfao
 

Fake

Member
Maybe they'll have the TV actors in the game lol.

Or maybe they finally want to put Joel as a boss char. To make Abby less hated and safety bet the part 3.

Remember, TLOUSpart2 is a very divisive game. He split the fanbase in two. Some fans believe Part 2 never existed, so maybe there is the reason for remaking the one.

REmake usualy change those things.
 
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jakdex

Member
Those reviewers have way too much influence if Day's gone "critical reception" partially steered its sequel into cancellation . SIE's management needs to wake up and realize these people aren't representative of the community.

So "critical response" for Days Gone and the OBIVIUS "let's rewrite The Last of Us 1 to be exactly like the way TLoU2 (and the tv show will obviously) retcon 1 events", yep that left such a good taste in the mouth.
Oh yes, about the Days Gone "critical response":


Days-Gone-Fair-Reviewers.jpg
 
What? Show me another jrpg the scope and graphics like persona 5. Dark souls sekiro isnt AAA. Got it


What scope does persona 5 have that you think its some huge game ? Do you know what the budget for Shadow of the Tomb Raider was ? Between 100 and 135 million dollars. Persona 5 probably had less than 10% of that. Minimal voice acting and cartoony visuals - Persona 5 is an extremely cheaply made game.
 
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Saber

Member
Ok. This article clearly confirms the fact that TLoUP2 was so bad that they wanted to remake TLoU just to erase all the mistakes made in TLoUP2.

They don't want to confirm. They just want to "assimilate" 1 with 2. They probably want to add unnecessary stuff to the story to make 2 more reasonable to the eyes of fan. We all know whos the target for that change.
 
S

Shodan09

Unconfirmed Member
He's spot on tbh. Their output now isn't nearly as interesting as it was going from PS3 to PS4.
 

Umbasaborne

Banned
I just want them to make open world games that dont feel so boring and formulaic, spiderman and ghosts of tsushima are good games, but god can they be boring and repetitive at times
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
They don't want to confirm. They just want to "assimilate" 1 with 2. They probably want to add unnecessary stuff to the story to make 2 more reasonable to the eyes of fan. We all know whos the target for that change.
Baby Abby's going to have blood splatter all over her face when her dad gets shot. Then Joel's going to kill her dog with a golf club, who was in the operating room urinating on Ellie with his leg lifted.
 

SLB1904

Banned
What scope does persona 5 have that you think its some huge game ? Do you know what the budget for Shadow of the Tomb Raider was ? Between 100 and 135 million dollars. Persona 5 probably had less than 10% of that. Minimal voice acting and cartoony visuals - Persona 5 is an extremely cheaply made game.
If you say so
 

Maxwell Jacob Friedman

leads to fear. Fear leads to xbox.
I'm kind of ok with this, the games sony offers are some of my favorite and most memorable for me. No one makes blockbuster games like Sony and both companies like Nintendo and MS are still lagging behind. When I go to the theatre I want a blockbuster film, not an indie title. Sony has found their bread and butter and what makes them the most successful, of course, they would go all-in on that.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
LoU 1
LoU 1 Remastered

LoU 2
LoU 1 Remake?

LoU 3?
LoU 2 Remaster or Remake?

Bleeding the franchise.

Although Days Gone didnt great awesome ratings (~70 on MC), LoU Remake would probably sell more. Look how many copies an upscaled/double frame rate LoU Remastered sold on PS4.

But a Days Gone sequel would benefit a lot more from a systems boost. Many of the key grumblings about Days Gone were technical issues, which PS5 would solve. They'd just have to try getting rid of the repetitiveness which is a common thing in all open world gmes.
 

Dabaus

Banned
This is pretty pathetic. All of it.

Sony falls from some SJW journalists who unfairly criticized the game for not having black zombies, focusing on white male bikers and other insane things instead of actually playing the game themselves and looking at the fan feedback. It's a fantastic first game from a studio that typically only made portable games. Now that studio is a support studio???

The funny thing is that Death Stranding was a critical hit, but not a commercial hit so they didnt greenlight it either. So if the game wins the most GOTYs in 2019, it doesnt deserve a sequel either. Not sure wtf kinda metrics they are looking at.

Shocking that they are taking resources AWAY from like one of their 4 productive studios to do a remake that wouldve been done without their involvement. Who here will pick to have ND do a remake instead of a new game? It's shocking how poorly Sony is run right now. Herman Hurst is even worse than Jimbo. No common sense. This will delay every single Naughty Dog game on PS5.

This leaves Sony with like 5 AAA studios.
Naughty Dog
Santa Monica
Insomniac
Guerrilla Games
Sucker Punch

Now they are supposed to compete with Microsoft's 24 studios. Hilarious. The Sony as we had come to love it in the PS3 and PS4 era is gone.

- Zipper
- Evolution Studios
- Team ICO
- Japan Studios
- Sony Bend
- Incognito Studio
- PS All Stars studio

3rd Party Studios making Sony IPs
- Ready At Dawn
- Quantic Dream
- KojiPro
- From Software

The Sony today is a shell of what it used to be.
I genuinely believe days gone was cancelled precisely because it had a cool white male lead. Same thing with cyber punk, which sony pulled from their store. Look back at the PS5 Reveal, besides the japanese stuff which isnt hyper woke (yet) you can tell which demographic sony themselves are no longer interested in appealing to. With that said playstation gamers can enjoy the last of remake and volcano high indie game while xbox fans look forward to bethesda games. The writing was on the wall when they moved their head quarters to california.
 

Interfectum

Member
So "critical response" for Days Gone and the OBIVIUS "let's rewrite The Last of Us 1 to be exactly like the way TLoU2 (and the tv show will obviously) retcon 1 events", yep that left such a good taste in the mouth.
Oh yes, about the Days Gone "critical response":


Days-Gone-Fair-Reviewers.jpg
Fucking disgusting games media. Oh no wife making sexual advances and innuendo towards her husband. How fucking awful and gross! :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 

bitbydeath

Gold Member
In the GTS case in 2019.

Look at others examples.

Gran Turismo 5 in that site: 19,100,000
Gran Turismo 5 official shipment: 11,950,000

7 million difference.

Days Gone crossed 5 million sales late 2020... there is no way it is near 8 million.
Didn’t GT5 get free trials though?
I vaguely recall that discussion when the numbers first came out.
 

LQX

Member
Not surprised there is potential turmoil inside Sony. The signs are there with so much of the power structure almost abrupt shift to Europe with them seemingly calling all the shots.
 

ElCasual

Member
What I was telling you yesterday about Sony not abandoning Kojima Productions immediately after Death Stranding (they approached them with a pitch for a Silent Hill project in early 2020) has nothing to do with WWS management being stupid and not seeing the potential the Days Gone franchise has.
Kojima is abandoning Playstation, thats for sure. The brand is a huge mess, lost the identity.
 

Chessmate

Banned
Literally the Don Mattrick strategy.

TV, TV, TV...which is why they will also announce an exclusive title in collaboration with Remedy, which will be accompanied by some kind of movie/series. Days Gone or Bloodborne obviously don't fit in anymore, because they aren't cinematic enough and lack the characters/story that can be transformed into the movie world.
 
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ElCasual

Member
I've read article around 4 times. One thing i really noticed is that article doesn't refer to Jim Ryan at all. It has nothing to do with him. That was before his current role in PlayStation







These 3 guys gets it.
But he like a CEO can turn the tides but he is doing nothing. That two must go.
 

Bryank75

Banned
Not surprised there is potential turmoil inside Sony. The signs are there with so much of the power structure almost abrupt shift to Europe with them seemingly calling all the shots.

That's the problem with giving power to the guy who ran the safest territory, he never had to do anything. Europe was always last to get things, things were always worst here out of the main territories....

Updates, releases, sales, services etc etc

Everything was delivered late or under-delivered here.

But because Europe is basically PlayStation only (Apart from Nintendo handhelds) , it looked like Jim was doing great.... reality was he had to do nothing and he was rewarded for that.
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Works out for me, I really only enjoy there movie like 3rd person games (uncharted/last of us/god of war/spiderman ect..). Now how about making that Last of Us reremake shows up on PC. Jimmy my man make it happen.
 
S

Shodan09

Unconfirmed Member
While we are at it, why the fuck have they let Media Molecule spend the best part of a decade working on Dreams only??
 

ethomaz

Banned
Didn’t GT5 get free trials though?
I vaguely recall that discussion when the numbers first came out.
Free trials?
GT5 Prologue is another game and I believe it had a trial.
Any case trials can't earn trophy so it is out of the site stats.
 
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bitbydeath

Gold Member
Eurogamers reporting that Bend were planning to make an Uncharted prequel but now are working on something else.
Along with word Days Gone had not been beloved enough to get a sequel, Eurogamer had heard about the now-scuppered plans for a new Uncharted game at Sony Bend, which was set to be a new chapter in the series separated somewhat from Naughty Dog's previous games. One person familiar with plans told us it had been intended as something of a reboot for the franchise, with one idea being for a prequel, before Sony Bend departed the project.
 

Bryank75

Banned
While we are at it, why the fuck have they let Media Molecule spend the best part of a decade working on Dreams only??

That's what I've been saying, they literally only have 5 studios making AAA exclusives.

San Diego...making MLB multiplat (Gamepass fodder)
Mm making artsy farsty stuff
London making VR stuff
Japan...considerably downsized to a one game studio

Making billions and can't invest in a few studios.....
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Doesn't matter if you are a Sony fan or MS fan, or love or hate LoU or Days Gone, now for some of you (Jason Schreier supporters) can finally see the junk he posts getting hits and bumming out corporate culture.

This isn't one of his Robin Hood articles where he tries to swoop in and tell the world about so-called shitty bosses and crunch "for the sake of helping the industry".

Who knows how true his story is, but that is no "save the peons piece". That is business strategy dirt digging, no different than any of us working in an office and the leaders ultimately decide upon new brands to create or get rid of. Or workers who don't like the result and quit. Happens all the time. Its not like all people who leave the company are only fired. Sometimes they just don't like the direction or strategy that s being forced on their brands and they want to leave.

Doesnt mean the company is evil or oppressing the workers. I've been shuffled around to different depts and bosses too.
 
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Rest

All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
No Days Gone 2? What the fuck? Days Gone was a really good starting point for a franchise. It had fun and varied mechanics, an interesting world, and a better than average story. A sequel that could polish up the mechanics that were lacking, expand on the world, and take the next step in the story could have been a legit blockbuster. It could have lead to one or two blockbuster games per generation for the next two generations.

It also had a good opportunity for a kind of story that doesn't get explored a lot in any media, the post-post apocalypse. How does society rebuild? What does that look like?
 

Hypereides

Gold Member
I don't disagree that it'd potentially be a metric. But it'll be one of a number, and not a particularly important one.

Equally, the idea that critics trashed it (they didn't) and all gamers loved it (not even close) is a fantasy.

It's more the idea that the critics destroyed this multi-million dollar sequel that has millions of diehard fans waiting for it is just funny to me.

That's not what I'm saying at all.

From the gameplay footage I've seen, and the vocal following its amassed, it definitely had potential for growth. Not being a run away hit from the get-go shouldn't take that opportunity from Sony bend to improve on it and expand it.

Btw, solely going by metacritic, I can imagine an accumulated 71 points aggregate score would likely partially fail to convince the management that a sequel is viable. I can't exactly imagine that's the kind of average score that would have risk-aversive suits all riled up in excitement and ready to consider making Day's gone into a household franchise. That just isn't good enough. So, yeah, in a sense the critics did "trash" it and subsequently attributed to making it harder for a sequel to get greenlit.
 
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Fake

Member
I've read article around 4 times. One thing i really noticed is that article doesn't refer to Jim Ryan at all. It has nothing to do with him. That was before his current role in PlayStation

The article don't mention Jim? What a relif... Japan Studio is save.
 

Roufianos

Member
A remake of TLOU is fucking pointless. The PS4 remake feels like a native release from last-gen, give it some time.
 

Astral Dog

Member
Another Uncharted 😴 i thought they said they wanted to do something else for a change, but it appears its not 'confirmed' yet
 

driqe

Member

jim ryan can't depend on brand recognition forever
Also,that Kojima rumor doesn't seem so far-fetched now huh?
 
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So out of the big boys

Naughty Dog - TLOU 1 Remake
Sucker Punch - Ghost of Tsushima 2
Bend Studio - New IP
Insomniac - Spider-Man 2
Guerilla - Horizon Forbidden West
Santa Monica - God of War Ragnarok

Solid line up except ND doing a 2013 game. Maybe another team is doing a new IP first? Also it's interesting the fate of uncharted 5 remains unknown after bend stepped away. Doubt it would be shelved after the money and time spent on it.
 
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