Media Molecule is reportedly laying off 15-20% of staff (around 20 of its 135 employees.)

[shrike0fth0rns]

You shouldn't say that about your colleagues. And fellating the shitty leadership PS has won't get you a promotion.

What colleagues I don’t work in the games industry or for ps! And don’t be rude! I’m speaking as a gamer who has been support ps day one. I care about the studios that give me what I want to play I don’t care about the studio’s that don’t. Do u just give your money away and support games u aren’t interested in? Yeah I didn’t think so

 

[Yurinka]

No one’s ignoring dreams! Dreams went over budget too too long and was a commercial failure. I follow a lot of dream content creators and played a lot of the games in it. I bought it day 1 like every ps exclusive. But it was a failure. It should have been one of the first games ported to pc and it should have launched as a pack in with the ps5 day 1. It was a big gamble for MM and it didn’t pay off!
A decade over 200 employees and zero financial success is an L for MM. ps is a business not a fcking charity and everyone needs to pull their weight. Is not cool that other studios are busting their asses supporting studios like MM. MM has to do more with less and earn their place at the table.

Media Molecule never went over 200 employees and I'm pretty sure the money earned from LBP and especially LBP2 allowed them financial cushion. I dunno where you are getting it from their studio was in the red and money made from other studios was bailing them out.

As I remember Media Molecule mentioned around the Dreams release that all their games have been profitable.

Which makes sense, because they always have been a small team (for the AAA publisher scale) and a big portion of their workers were young recently graduated juniors, juniors that were creators from their community or juniors who were talented artists but from outside gaming.

In addition to this, unlike the AAA games their games didn't need hundreds or thousands of outsourcing devs helping them.

That studio is pretty cheap to run so they don't need big sales to be profitable, but most of their games plus games made by other studios using their IPs had good or very good sales.

They aren't and never have been in the red.

I am not sure what, but it seems Sony is preparing for something big. A big acquisition maybe?

Sony said they don't plan big acquisitions until the mid to long term. And for this year they had $140M budget left for acquisitions + investments + stock repurchases before acquiring Audeze.

 

[shrike0fth0rns]

As I remember Media Molecule mentioned around the Dreams release that all their games have been profitable.

Which makes sense, because they always have been a small team (for the AAA publisher scale) and a big portion of their workers were young recently graduated juniors, juniors that were creators from their community or juniors who were talented artists but from outside gaming.

In addition to this, unlike the AAA games their games didn't need hundreds or thousands of outsourcing devs helping them.

That studio is pretty cheap to run so they don't need big sales to be profitable, but most of their games plus games made by other studios using their IPs had good or very good sales.

They aren't and never have been in the red.


Sony said they don't plan big acquisitions until the mid to long term. And for this year they had $140M budget left for acquisitions + investments + stock repurchases before acquiring Audeze.

140mil? Where did u get that number from? The had 5.1 billion left in March 2023 until the end the fiscal year in March 2024. Hiroki was looking to raise that by spinning off the financial services until which could generate 8-10billion. But what remains of the billion if not spent will just be re-allocated if they don’t spend it. Hiroki has said he is “ obsessed “ with growth and he sees one of the best means of growth as ip acquisition through m&a. He has repeatedly mentioned consolidation in the entertainment industry and he sees m&a as necessary for Sony to continue to survive and grow. He is the future head of all of Sony and he wants more m&a so Sony and especially the ps unit will be doing more of that.

 

[shrike0fth0rns]

Honestly Sony probably would have to open the pockets and buy some small studios since their output has not been great

Sonys out put has been a little light this year but nothing to worry about. Ppl have very short term memories and forget how little there was from first party at the beginning of the ps4 generation. In terms output we’ve gotten way more on ps5 than we did at the same point in the ps4 life cycle. And considering how much they have in development and every few months we get a new leak about another potential game ppl need to relax. As they have said they will keep buying and are actively hunting for new exclusive partnerships and acquisitions. We have so much toook forward to and I’m happy they haven’t official revealed so much.

 

[Yurinka]

140mil? Where did u get that number from? The had 5.1 billion left in March 2023 until the end the fiscal year in March 2024.

I got that number from Sony's fiscal reports, it's explained in this thread:
https://icon-era.com/threads/sonys-...is-fy2023-is-only-16-9b-yen-around-147m.3577/

More info here:
https://icon-era.com/threads/sony-p...-yoy-in-this-next-fiscal-year.3429/post-92376

What they have remaining of the budget for acquisitions, investments or stock repurchases in the whole Sony -not only gaming- for this FY is 19.9B yen (now $133M with the current exchange, not 140M or as it was then, $147.3M).

The $5.1B left is misinformation. In addition to these 19.9B yen there was 0.2+ Trillion yen (was $1.48B+ back then) available for this FY but was realocated to spend to make image sensors for another divisions and servers for R&D SIE (I assume servers for MP games to be released next year as could be Helldivers 2, Concord or Marathon and PS cloud servers that now will stream also PS5 games -so need different servers- and stream in up to 4K HDR + 3d audio).

And from that $133M you have to substract whatever the Audeze acquisition did cost them, an acquisition made this FY.

Hiroki was looking to raise that by spinning off the financial services until which could generate 8-10billion.

Yes, and he said that the process of making that spinoff and sell 80% of it will take 2-3 years. And obviously won't be able to spend that money until they have it.

But what remains of the billion if not spent will just be re-allocated if they don’t spend it.

There's no billion remaining.

Hiroki has said he is “ obsessed “ with growth and he sees one of the best means of growth as ip acquisition through m&a. He has repeatedly mentioned consolidation in the entertainment industry and he sees m&a as necessary for Sony to continue to survive and grow. He is the future head of all of Sony and he wants more m&a so Sony and especially the ps unit will be doing more of that.

Yes, but also said that don't plan to make acquisitions in the short term and to analyze them and the timing more carefully due to unfavorable market changes, and that instead will continue with acquisitions in the mid to long term (probably matching when they got the money from selling 80% of their finantials division you mentioned).

I assume that the reason is that they knew that the dollar vs yen exchange did suck back then and was going to suck even more now, but in a few years the dollar will collaps, so since they use yens it will be better for them to wait a few years to make acquisitions.

In addition to that, they saw regulators being too aggresive with the ABK acquisition and in the case of MS being a loser in their gaming market, meaning these regulators would be much more aggresive with Sony because they are the market leader in consoles and console game subs, the top 2 company in overal gaming etc.

And in addition to that, in recent year Sony -not only SIE- made a ton of important acquisitions, so it's better for them to take some time to properly integrate all these companies before continuing to acquire more. We also have to understand that in the case of SIE they are also highly growing all their teams, which often raises some issues (happened in ND when they tried to make Uncharted 3 and TLOU at the same time and didn't work so they went back to have a single big team to work on TLOU2. Now they are trying again to grow to multiple teams), so need some work to ensure it's done properly.