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

What issue? If people buy these games and they keep making sequences that people love what's wrong?
Many gamers are hypocrites, they complain about sequels but if they don't get a sequel to a game they like they complain about that as well.

It is funny that people act as if Sony doesn't do small games ore new IP, Horizon, Days Gone and Ghost of Tsushima were all AAA new IP's released on the PS4 so yes they focus on something with big potential but that's what makes the most sense. Saying they don't do small games is also not true, they make we had Sackboy's adventure at launch and Dreams and concrete genie launched on PS4 not that long ago, over the life of the PS4 there were a lot of smaller types of games and those are usually the ones people say "don't waste time with that stuff" when it's shown at a press conference lol.
 
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Uh, Bloodborne was 6 years ago. VR doesn't move the needle, Days Gone and Dreams were underperforming. Again, this isn't a Sony only issue but industry-wide. Gamers flock to sequels and rehashes, ports etc....that is great for the publishers but eventually the gamers will move on and something else will need to take hold. Sequels are fine if there are new IP's to make sequels of.
Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon, Spider man, concrete genie, until dawn, plus third party new franchises. It sounds easy to put millions of dollars in something that may flop and bring no return. Another drama article written by an attention whore
 

carlosrox

Banned
Many gamers are hypocrites, they complain about sequels but if they don't get a sequel to a game they like they complain about that as well.

Sequel hate is idiotic. I'm always down for sequels pretty much. Movies or games.

Unless the sequel is outright *actually* bad then I'm all for it. And by actually bad I mean actually bad, not fake fan wank like claiming Dead Space 3 or RE3make are bad games.
 

NahaNago

Member
after reading the article it seems kind of reaching that Sony is obsessed with blockbusters. It did show that it seems Naughty Dog needs to bulk up a lot more if they have to keep pulling others to finish their game or work on their ip. The blockbuster obsession is my current view of Sony but this article just showed that Sony has a great focus on Naughty Dogs. With that said it really does seem like Sony should be majorly bulking up its studio rather than this slow organic growth we've been hearing about. Naughty Dog, Santa Monica, Bend, Insomniac, Sucker Punch, and whatever large Sony first party studio I missed should be aiming to become mini publishers to the point where each studio could pretty much have their own E3 show.
 

Eric187

Banned
Once Sony responds with that sweet GTA6 6 month exclusive deal the playing field will tip back in their favor.....
 

WoodyStare

Member
The “remake” will be the exact same game, ported over to PS5 with the title, “The Last of Us: Part 1.” Mark my words.

I can see this happening, but I feel like they'll also expand the combat system to match what they did in TLOU 2 and add a bonus mission with Abby towards the end. If anything we'll get a good look at what ND can achieve with PS5 hardware, I only wish it were something different.
 

ManaByte

Member
Nah its ok ... I loved FF7 remake and that was just in midgar from the original and that was on a base PS4... will def play it again when I get a PS5 before the 2nd part comes out
FFVII is a 25 year old game. The only thing the remake has in common with the original is the settings and characters. It's a completely different game. On the other hand TLOU came out 7 years ago and you can still play the original at 60fps on your PS5 and a remake would just be the first game running on the TLOU2 graphics engine and not a big jump compared to how different FFVIIR is to the original.
 
At first I felt like Sony looked kinda wack after reading the article..then I thought about and I felt like...well..you damn right if I'm competing and pushing myself as the number 1 option then yeah..i'm gonna demand the best. People didn't love Michael Jordan for his 'so/so' games on the court, they loved em cause he was Michael Jordan on the court.

Its their company and they're aiming for a certain standard of quality and they aren't the first to do it. It sounds a bit rough, but it's plenty of developers who didn't want to deal with the major corporation vibe and they're making a killing going indie. I hope the people leaving go on to have amazing careers and kick some ass, and I hope Sony delivers since they're aiming high too.

Sony's PR department has definitely been asleep for the last 8-10 months though. No question
 
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WoodyStare

Member
I agree with the general consensus here that a Last of Us remake isn't necessary and too soon, but at the same time I'm definitely curious to see how it will turn out.

I played Shadow of the Colossus twice on PS2 and PS3, and as good as the HD remaster on PS3 looked, it's amazing what they were able to achieve with it on PS4 (based on what I've seen). I'll personally play it a fifth time at some point in the future because of how much better it looks but I'm in no rush (the controls still haunt me).

Considering the powerful scenes/intensity of TLOU, and the PS5 hardware, it's probably going to be an even crazier experience. Just thinking of the clickers with more enhanced details gets my skin crawling.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
That article seems like a nothing sandwich. Am I missing something?

Sony leveraging proven studios to make successful games seems to make more sense than investing in a support team becoming its own studio to remake a game that was literally just remastered or to take a risk on a new game made by an unproven team when trying to solidify the PS5's lineup. As much as it sucks the defunding of Japanese development makes sense. Console gaming isn't as popular there as it once was so if niche Japanese games don't sell enough there's not as much incentive to make them. Is he saying Sony should be funding games that people won't want to play because developers want to make them?

The Dreams thing is also interesting. Dreams is cool, but it is always going to be limited as a console game. It's not the kind of thing that easily moves to a new console. I think it is something that could do well on PC. But Schreier has to know that for a game like that to do Roblox numbers it needs the flexibility that PC provides. On console it is always going to be niche. More marketing money won't change the limits of it being a console game.

Schreier needs to quit sniffing his own farts so much.
 

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
That article seems like a nothing sandwich. Am I missing something?

Sony leveraging proven studios to make successful games seems to make more sense than investing in a support team becoming its own studio to remake a game that was literally just remastered or to take a risk on a new game made by an unproven team when trying to solidify the PS5's lineup. As much as it sucks the defunding of Japanese development makes sense. Console gaming isn't as popular there as it once was so if niche Japanese games don't sell enough there's not as much incentive to make them. Is he saying Sony should be funding games that people won't want to play because developers want to make them?

The Dreams thing is also interesting. Dreams is cool, but it is always going to be limited as a console game. It's not the kind of thing that easily moves to a new console. I think it is something that could do well on PC. But Schreier has to know that for a game like that to do Roblox numbers it needs the flexibility that PC provides. On console it is always going to be niche. More marketing money won't change the limits of it being a console game.

Schreier needs to quit sniffing his own farts so much.

The Sony employees are unhappy. They want to have the opportunity to carve out their own achievement instead of getting stuck in the supporting role under the bigger studios like Naughty Dog with LoU and Uncharted projects.

So yes you are missing everything.
 

Raven117

Member
Bend not getting a Days Gone 2 is absolutely garbage if true. That was a surprisingly well written character drama. Maybe even more subtle and more real than that last of us. Where everything had such a heavy emo vibe.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Bend not getting a Days Gone 2 is absolutely garbage if true. That was a surprisingly well written character drama. Maybe even more subtle and more real than that last of us. Where everything had such a heavy emo vibe.
this. days gone had far more depth to its characters. i liked several side characters like Boozer, Ricky and Iron Mike. I even liked the villain in act 3. his wife was surprisingly endearing.

tlou2 is basically full of unlikeable characters. no one is interesting. its like neil went out of his way to make the new characters unlikeable.
 

Raven117

Member
this. days gone had far more depth to its characters. i liked several side characters like Boozer, Ricky and Iron Mike. I even liked the villain in act 3. his wife was surprisingly endearing.

tlou2 is basically full of unlikeable characters. no one is interesting. its like neil went out of his way to make the new characters unlikeable.
This. Days Gone actually had layers to their characters. Weaknesses, strengths. Somethings you liked. Others didn’t.

I was just kind of shocked at how subtle some of it was. TLOU2 always felt like “are you challenged yet? Do you hate these people, it’s so complex” just on the nose every chance it got.

days gone had such a natural flow to it
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
The Sony employees are unhappy. They want to have the opportunity to carve out their own achievement instead of getting stuck in the supporting role under the bigger studios like Naughty Dog with LoU and Uncharted projects.

So yes you are missing everything.
How many companies exist to invest in their employees' hopes and dreams over Investing in solid returns? How many companies, especially Japanese companies, are made that way?

Sony is never going to be the company that puts employees' happiness above their balance sheet. The corpses of dead Sony studios over the decades proves that. The way it has worked in gaming for decades is that people who want to do their own thing leave to do their own thing or leave to join a company that's more in line with what they're looking for. The best they can hope for from Sony is that Sony pays them millions to buy the studio and IP they left to build after their games become popular.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
How many companies exist to invest in their employees' hopes and dreams over Investing in solid returns? How many companies, especially Japanese companies, are made that way?

Sony is never going to be the company that puts employees' happiness above their balance sheet. The corpses of dead Sony studios over the decades proves that. The way it has worked in gaming for decades is that people who want to do their own thing leave to do their own thing or leave to join a company that's more in line with what they're looking for. The best they can hope for from Sony is that Sony pays them millions to buy the studio and IP they left to build after their games become popular.
The market for retaining talent is getting more competitive though in gaming. It's not just full of people getting underpaid for the dream of working on videogames because the market grew as did the number of people needed to make games, much faster than the talent pool did.

So it's getting a lot cushier in the industry, despite all the Schreier crunch articles. And much like other places in tech, it being an employees market means companies competing to make people happy more than ever.
 
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ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
How many companies exist to invest in their employees' hopes and dreams over Investing in solid returns? How many companies, especially Japanese companies, are made that way?

Sony is never going to be the company that puts employees' happiness above their balance sheet. The corpses of dead Sony studios over the decades proves that. The way it has worked in gaming for decades is that people who want to do their own thing leave to do their own thing or leave to join a company that's more in line with what they're looking for. The best they can hope for from Sony is that Sony pays them millions to buy the studio and IP they left to build after their games become popular.

Well that's what this article is about.
 

longdi

Banned
Sony didn’t even want a dev kit sending out for Football Manager whilst Microsoft laid on a full on charm offensive to get the game on Xbox.

Yap! Little news like this just makes me more pissed.

FM does not fit jimbo profile of a big game and got ignored.
Which is ironic given jimbo is from UK.
I still remember the old days of psp hype that the game is on it.

small things that makes gamers excited.
 

Spacefish

Member
How many companies exist to invest in their employees' hopes and dreams over Investing in solid returns? How many companies, especially Japanese companies, are made that way?

Sony is never going to be the company that puts employees' happiness above their balance sheet. The corpses of dead Sony studios over the decades proves that. The way it has worked in gaming for decades is that people who want to do their own thing leave to do their own thing or leave to join a company that's more in line with what they're looking for. The best they can hope for from Sony is that Sony pays them millions to buy the studio and IP they left to build after their games become popular.
It's in both the developers and Sony's (long term) best interest for them to be given creative autonomy, the only people who hate this are shareholders who despise risk and CEO's looking for a quick pay rise. Barring family commitments the most talented developers at any studio can move around the industry pretty easily. If you stifle creative autonomy you will cause a brain drain which is a dumb long term move. Sony does not have a monopoly, they are about to start a content war with Microsoft, they cant afford to loose another AAA dev. The value of competent devs has gone up, Microsoft, amazon and google have proven that no amount of money can magic together a cohesive team.
 

longdi

Banned
It's in both the developers and Sony's (long term) best interest for them to be given creative autonomy, the only people who hate this are shareholders who despise risk and CEO's looking for a quick pay rise. Barring family commitments the most talented developers at any studio can move around the industry pretty easily. If you stifle creative autonomy you will cause a brain drain which is a dumb long term move. Sony does not have a monopoly, they are about to start a content war with Microsoft, they cant afford to loose another AAA dev. The value of competent devs has gone up, Microsoft, amazon and google have proven that no amount of money can magic together a cohesive team.

Yap there is serious risk going the way Jimbo wants, to focus on 'blockbusters'.

Which is simply betting the farm on their few studios - GG, ND, SP, IG, PD
In turn, these studios have yuge pressure and rather stick to the formula, adding in crunch time, makes the whole working culture anti-gamer imo.

Of those internal studios, i think only PD has a long track records of good sales. And next probably ND. Even then, not all their games hit double digits millions in sales or always winning GOTY.
Playstation fans keeps bringing up GOTY, well its a recent thing, and those games were done under Shawn Layden watch....

Which maddens me no ends, why jimbo let Kojima and Bend Studio go, their games sold more than few millions and got GOTY, but stiil not make his cut?! :messenger_weary:
 
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Keihart

Member
It's in both the developers and Sony's (long term) best interest for them to be given creative autonomy, the only people who hate this are shareholders who despise risk and CEO's looking for a quick pay rise. Barring family commitments the most talented developers at any studio can move around the industry pretty easily. If you stifle creative autonomy you will cause a brain drain which is a dumb long term move. Sony does not have a monopoly, they are about to start a content war with Microsoft, they cant afford to loose another AAA dev. The value of competent devs has gone up, Microsoft, amazon and google have proven that no amount of money can magic together a cohesive team.
This very much.

You can hear Shuhei and even first party devs site that WWS used to be handled this way, most studios were allowed to set their own priorities in what type of game and the scope of it, Suckerpunch always wanted to go big for example just like Bend, they were given the chance and succeded. But other studios never had such ambitions and welp, here we are now.

I feel that Japan Studios restructuring was uncalled for unlike evolution studios for example, Evolution had been trying to hit it for a while and failing and Driveclub was a really big bomba and tarnished WWS image with the horrible launch, but Japan Studios has made some all time classics and that talent was still there, just not properly managed. Toyama's team has 2 Siren tittles that are like the 2 last all time survival horror classics before being pushed into a corner with episodic content. Gravity Rush 1 was really well managed in scope only for 2 being blown out of proportion making the team spread too thin in a game way too big for them.

I would love to be wrong and be surprised by the breath and quality of upcoming PS Studios games but as it is, it looks as plain as it gets. How long people think that ND it's gonna be able to retain talent if they keep churning out sequels and remakes? It's just a matter of time and the talent already started bleeding. It's not just 1 or 2 guys now.
 
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Sega is the answer.... a massive back-catalog of games that can be used as Indies, like Sonic 2d games, Golden Axe and Streets of Rage, Shinobi which can all have modern versions made for cheap.

Then they would have Persona, Shin Megami Tensei and Yakuza as exclusives forever.... could do cool things like add Shuhei and other execs to Yakuza.

Other games like Bayonetta, Football Manager, Super Monkey Ball etc would be very well received by PS audience.

Virtua Fighter would be great for EVO

The for VR..... Ecco the Dolphin and all the House of the Dead shooting gallery games could be brought to PSVR2.

It's an all in one solution basically.
MS already bought out Sega last Wednesday though
 

Arkam

Member
If true, definitely not good, but not as bad as it's probably being painted.

The Days Gone stuff is unfortunate. Even if the game did have some development issues, it seems like the game did sell very well and a sequel would've probably been a smoother dev cycle. I can see it increasing the pressure on these devs to not only deliver a hit, but deliver a hit that doesn't hit any snags in development.
How about just asking to deliver without game breaking bugs? Days Gone was a trainwreck of a release....after a trainwreck of development. Game shipped waaaay later than planned and was fucking broken at launch. Seriously I ran into an unskippable, game breaking bug 10min into the game on launch day. Game ended up collecting dust for a year before I revisited.... and people want to reward this kind of development? I am not a Jim Ryan fan, but I personally would keep Bend on a short leash for their next couple releases.
 
What key talent was lost? The creator of Gravity Rush and a half dozen no-name producers? Hell, half of the titles you list -Japan Studios played little more than a supporting role.

Look, I love the first Gravity Rush, the Team ICO games, and Puppeteer as much as anybody but as a business, you can’t ignore an organization’s failure to deliver. There is still some incredible talent at Japan Studio and I would much rather Sony invest in a Team Asobi than continue to run money through teams that spend 3+ years on ultra niche games that are average by most standards. Japan Studio at the rate it was going would have fallen to Rare levels of mediocrity.

...And squandering potential at Studio Bend with Days Gone? Again, the game was panned critically and commercially. Sony trying to save a studio by having them work on a much more successful franchise doesn’t sound like a negative. Days Gone had its shot and it was an air ball.

I agree with all you said except the thing about Days Gone. It was their first attempt to AAA game in years. Days Gone 2 should have been greenlighted and that should have been the litmus test instead.
 
It is funny that people act as if Sony doesn't do small games ore new IP, Horizon, Days Gone and Ghost of Tsushima were all AAA new IP's released on the PS4 so yes they focus on something with big potential but that's what makes the most sense. Saying they don't do small games is also not true, they make we had Sackboy's adventure at launch and Dreams and concrete genie launched on PS4 not that long ago, over the life of the PS4 there were a lot of smaller types of games and those are usually the ones people say "don't waste time with that stuff" when it's shown at a press conference lol.

I think Jim Ryan will be saved as soon as they show the blockbuster games they're working on.

They say they're doubling down on AAA games. I expect not only sequels but also new IPs.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Many gamers are hypocrites, they complain about sequels but if they don't get a sequel to a game they like they complain about that as well.

It is funny that people act as if Sony doesn't do small games ore new IP, Horizon, Days Gone and Ghost of Tsushima were all AAA new IP's released on the PS4 so yes they focus on something with big potential but that's what makes the most sense. Saying they don't do small games is also not true, they make we had Sackboy's adventure at launch and Dreams and concrete genie launched on PS4 not that long ago, over the life of the PS4 there were a lot of smaller types of games and those are usually the ones people say "don't waste time with that stuff" when it's shown at a press conference lol.
Well for what it's worth those are 3 takes on the same genre, with quite a few structural similarities.

Which I love personally, because I'm a sucker for open world action games.. but it's not like people have nothing to complain about. Their other games have moved in a similar direction, towards being open world action/adventure games.
 

Old Empire.

Member
I don't see why this is bad for Sony, based on what i read

Naughty: Dog making a new multiplayer game- that not a surprise?
Uncharted new game.
Sony Bend working on new franchise game after asking to be taken off the uncharted game development. Seems Sony gave in and allowed them to work on a new project.
 
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I don't see why this is bad for Sony, based on what i read

Naughty: Dog making a new multiplayer game- that not a surprise?
Uncharted new game.
Sony Bend working on new franchise game after asking to be taken off the uncharted game development. Seems Sony gave in and allowed them to work on a new project.

yep and who knows, maybe Bend making a new IP is a good thing.

days gone was good but it lacked a bit of an identity and seemed somewhat derivative. Bend needs their ghost of Tsushima moment

honestly I think if nobody else is going to make a western rpg for Sony, they should try it. Their horde tech could be re-used for massive braveheart style battles

Sony also could use their own wrpg with Bethesda being purchased
 

Shmunter

Member
Remaking TLOU is not as crazy as it sounds if it’s trying to accomplish specific goals.

Namely utilising a popular franchise for sales while experimenting with next gen only tech. No effort needed on building narrative or gameplay, simply concentrating on maximising r&d into streaming tech for example.

From memory, this is exactly what naughty dog did with TLOU from PS3 to PS4. Their work there translated to their newer titles, specifically working around the limitations of Jaguar.


Not doing a Days Gone 2 however seems absurd. The game for a first time ps4 studio and open world is a remarkable achievement. Having those lessons and a strong established foundation would result in a mega sequel no doubt.
 
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Many gamers are hypocrites, they complain about sequels but if they don't get a sequel to a game they like they complain about that as well.

It is funny that people act as if Sony doesn't do small games ore new IP, Horizon, Days Gone and Ghost of Tsushima were all AAA new IP's released on the PS4 so yes they focus on something with big potential but that's what makes the most sense. Saying they don't do small games is also not true, they make we had Sackboy's adventure at launch and Dreams and concrete genie launched on PS4 not that long ago, over the life of the PS4 there were a lot of smaller types of games and those are usually the ones people say "don't waste time with that stuff" when it's shown at a press conference lol.
People seem strange when you treat a group as if it was a single person.

Even if that was only one person, maybe I want a sequel to God of War and Axiom verge and I also want Kena + that quirky new 2D game coming out of nowhere...

But as you pointed out, there are so many exclusive indie games on the PS4 this is not even funny... Sony could probably do more to highlight them, but I would not know anyway, and they gave out a couple in the last "day of play" or whatever it's called.
 
Well for what it's worth those are 3 takes on the same genre, with quite a few structural similarities.

Which I love personally, because I'm a sucker for open world action games.. but it's not like people have nothing to complain about. Their other games have moved in a similar direction, towards being open world action/adventure games.
I don't really lump games together just because they are open world, Horizon has nothing in common with Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-Man or Days Gone other than the fact that you can traverse the world the way you want to, they give us bigger play areas but that's all they really have in common.
 
No Jason, the real story here is all about you
Funny how we are all supposed to shit ourselves over how bad these people who are well compensated have it because they aren't allowed to just do whatever they want to do but nobody online ever talks about the poor people who actually make all of the hardware we play games on and the crap work conditions they have at low wages.
 

Hunnybun

Member
I don't see why this is bad for Sony, based on what i read

Naughty: Dog making a new multiplayer game- that not a surprise?
Uncharted new game.
Sony Bend working on new franchise game after asking to be taken off the uncharted game development. Seems Sony gave in and allowed them to work on a new project.

I think people are mainly upset that Days Gone 2 isn't happening, and also somewhat that TLOU remake seems like a waste of resources.

Personally I think it'll turn out that the remake is relatively small in scope: basically just redone with TLOU 2 graphics at 60fps. Then they'll release it along with TLOU2 remastered for PS5 as a full priced game. Something like that. Maybe they'll bundle the MP with it but I doubt that.
 

bender

What time is it?
Guess I'm the only one who would be psyched for a TLOU remake?

All the other news is shit though.

What's to be remade though? TLOU -> TLOU2 isn't drastically different in the game play department. I guess you could do some redesign and add-in those pseudo open world segments from TLOU2, but those aren't super meaningful.

*shrug*
 
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