Firesprite is Liverpool Studio + Evolution Studios + Bizarre Creations and also has many former talent from Lionhead, Supermassive, plus less people from many other AAA studios.
There's a lot of talent there and Sony needed a flexible studio capable of doing both AAA and VR, and so far they did a great job with Horizon CoM. They weren't well known when acquired, so I assume were cheap to acquire. I think it was a good acquisition.
Same goes with acquiring Nixxes. The previous SIE/PS Studio heads before them already started the PC ports stuff, and if they had to make PC ports it was better to keep the devs of he original games focused on doing new console games, and keep the porting to separate dedicated teams. And Nixxes are the best in console to PC port, so I think it was wise to buy them.
I think these decisions were objectively good ones, not personal stuff.
But what did they do to elevate PS Studios?
VR is not selling, great product but it isnt doing enough to sell PS5 and they are not making money on them either...so it's busy work and the game likely made no money or lost.
PC ports make PS studio game more accessible and therefore less special, less desired and the only reason to havefirst party studios is either to make large profits or to attract people to the PS5.... Nixxes and Firesprite both do not meet these criteria and should be shut down or repurposed.
Sony need to cut costs badly and need to look at the necessity and effectiveness of each studio, as well as their efficiency after that.
There are studios in Korea, Japan, Finland and other lower cost locations making games that are more fun and a comparable level of quality to Insomniac and ND for a fraction of the cost.... that could be fully exclusive.
3rd party timed exclusives also do the same as these first party timed exclusives but cost a fraction of first party...so why continue having a first party at all if they are not fully exclusive?
Porting actually increased costs.... requires more developers and more oversight and more patches and support over the longterm. Cut it all.
Lean. They need to be lean and completely focused on the console and maximizing sales and profits.