Pixelopus is Shutting Down [Confirmed]

[Kokoloko]

I’m not sure why that would be news lol

Do people not see playstation as a business?

We do, but if its all about business then Sony woud of dropped PS because it wasnt exactly making loads of money. PS5 has made more profit than PS4’s whole generation. PS4 made more money than PS2. PS3 struggled at the start.

Infamous only sold 1.3 million. Killzone Shadow fall was a dud. But they got chances to make Horizon and Ghost of Tsushima which sold 10x mores.
The smaller studios deserve more chances as it cost them a fraction as the AAA games.
Returnal, who knows how much its made but it didnt sell great, like how Demons souls orifinal didnt sell great. House Marque deserves a handful of chances and as long as it doesnt lose PS money, they should stay to provide fans with great games.

 

[Swolf712]

Was the same thing with Japan studio. People acted so sad when they shut down and yet almost none of them bought The Last Guardian. Or Gravity Rush. Or Knack. But because they had a "legacy", it was so tragic, and Sony just didn't care about Japan... even as they folded JS into Team Asobi, which is Japanese. And turned the rest into the Japanese/East Asian wing of XDEV.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

We do, but if its all about business then Sony woud of dropped PS because it wasnt exactly making loads of money. PS5 has made more profit than PS4’s whole generation. PS4 made more money than PS2. PS3 struggled at the start.

Infamous only sold 1.3 million. Killzone Shadow fall was a dud. But they got chances to make Horizon and Ghost of Tsushima which sold 10x mores.
The smaller studios deserve more chances as it cost them a fraction as the AAA games.
Returnal, who knows how much its made but it didnt sell great, like how Demons souls orifinal didnt sell great. House Marque deserves a handful of chances and as long as it doesnt lose PS money, they should stay to provide fans with great games.

I’m not sure how you can compare PixelOpus to Suckerpunch and Guerrilla, who has made Infamous, and Guerrilla has a whole tech incubation unit, and Killzone 2 is a 90+ on metacritic. The Decima engine itself is far more valuable than anything PO has done. Theres a reason so many of GG management is moving onto executive positions at SIE

Housemarque and Bluepoint bring prestige and interest to the platform, for the hardcore niche audiences especially.

When you miss a step or two its whatever, when you’ve been a studio for almost 10 years and you’ve only managed to produce a mere two small games that were both critically panned and did badly commercially, what more is there?

We have to assume that PixelOpus had been pitching or working on something else for the last 4 years, if it wasn’t good what else can you really do for them? 3 strikes over the course of a decade, you want them to go another 4 years to make a AA game?

Sony isn’t running a charity, whats the point of keeping around a staff of people who aren’t putting out games for a significant amount of time? Pixelopus haven’t afforded themselves grace, they have no real history with Sony outside of being Layden’s pet project

The other small studios are getting chances, Team Asobi, Housemarque, London Studio, they are making games.

 

[Kokoloko]

I’m not sure how you can compare PixelOpus to Suckerpunch and Guerrilla, who has made Infamous, and Guerrilla has a whole tech incubation unit, and Killzone 2 is a 90+ on metacritic. The Decima engine itself is far more valuable than anything PO has done. Theres a reason so many of GG management is moving onto executive positions at SIE

Housemarque and Bluepoint bring prestige and interest to the platform, for the hardcore niche audiences especially.

When you miss a step or two its whatever, when you’ve been a studio for almost 10 years and you’ve only managed to produce a mere two small games that were both critically panned and did badly commercially, what more is there?

We have to assume that PixelOpus had been pitching or working on something else for the last 4 years, if it wasn’t good what else can you really do for them? 3 strikes over the course of a decade, you want them to go another 4 years to make a AA game?

Sony isn’t running a charity, whats the point of keeping around a staff of people who aren’t putting out games for a significant amount of time? Pixelopus haven’t afforded themselves grace, they have no real history with Sony outside of being Layden’s pet project

Im not really comparing them Im just saying Guerilla has had a dud like Killzone which cost lots of money and Sucker Punch has made games like Infamous that didnt sell huge amounts. Then they had a huge success with GOT and Horizon. Some studios deserve more than a couple of chances, especially if its not costing Sony much money.

My feelings are more towards Japan Studios and other smaller 2nd/3rd party studios who worked with Sony then Pixel Plus.
Next few years will tell for me. I miss the smaller games, I hope we still get them from the 1st party.2nd party etc. As much as I love Returnal, Id love games like Resogun, Stardust and Matterfall. I hope the direction at Sony isnt just AAA and Gaas games from the 1st party

 

[Danja]

Well we know Returnal sold over 610k in 3 months at full price. That's a gross revenue of close to 43 million. Sony called it a hit, so we can only assume it hit their internal metrics.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Im not really comparing them Im just saying Guerilla has had a dud like Killzone which cost lots of money and Sucker Punch has made games like Infamous that didnt sell huge amounts. Then they had a huge success with GOT and Horizon. Some studios deserve more than a couple of chances, especially if its not costing Sony much money.

but those are studios that put out successful games, infamous made money. Sony bought them after Infamous 2 and 3 Sly games.

I really don’t have a huge wanting for Sony’s “quirky” games. japan studio threw a lot of shit at the wall and people in these spaces look back at that era fondly but almost no one spoke fondly of Sony's first party until the late ps3 generation.

The long short of it is people don’t care about sonys smaller internal games, they come out, bomb spectacularly and no one talks about them ever again until something like this happens.

I’d rather sony do something only they can do which are these blockbuster games, and give marketing and spotlight to good AA and Indie stuff.

 

[ApolloHelios]

Forumspeople should stop overreacting to stuff like this, most haven't even played Concrete Genie!

 

[Box]

Games like Locoroco, Everybodys Golf and Gravity Rush arent world beats and sellers but they cost a fraction of Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon and could be supported easily.

These are all very great games, it is a shame they don't sell very well though. Same with Wipeout, which I'm actually surprised never sold well.

Maybe these games just need to be marketed in a different way.

 

[nongkris]

These are all very great games, it is a shame they don't sell very well though. Same with Wipeout, which I'm actually surprised never sold well.

Maybe these games just need to be marketed in a different way.

Nintendo is in a good spot in the fact that they can make those smaller AA style games but they still sell AAA numbers at full price solely because of the IP.

 

[Box]

Nintendo is in a good spot in the fact that they can make those smaller AA style games but they still sell AAA numbers at full price solely because of the IP.

I wish Ape Escape,Jak,Ratchet and sly could have pulled those numbers.

Nintendo must have a very good marketing department

 

[Swolf712]

I wish Ape Escape,Jak,Ratchet and sly could have pulled those numbers.

Nintendo must have a very good marketing department

Well a lot of it is also longevity. Many of these IP have been around since the Early '80s or longer. Add to this their fans being used to more underpowered hardware since the Wii, and being used to seeing many of these characters as sprites or thick polygons, and it's a bit easier for Nintendo to manage it. They're held to different standards due to different expectations and entire generations of nostalgia.

 

[kyliethicc]

Was the same thing with Japan studio. People acted so sad when they shut down and yet almost none of them bought The Last Guardian. Or Gravity Rush. Or Knack. But because they had a "legacy", it was so tragic, and Sony just didn't care about Japan... even as they folded JS into Team Asobi, which is Japanese. And turned the rest into the Japanese/East Asian wing of XDEV.

people fucked up and now we won't get knack 3

 

[LED]

Pretty smart timing from Sony, they did it at the same time the Phil Spencer and Redfall debacle happened.

 

[Yurinka]

I see,either they worked with Japan Studios for a long time and would of Been smart to bring them to the Japan Studios family/1st party family. They had a long running relationship with Playstation and then went on to make a great game (Octopath Traveler ) that didn’t come to PlayStation, which is a mistake on Sony’s part. Some that could of happened to Insomniac, did happen t Ninja Theory.

All console games made by Acquire after the last one published by Sony (Rain) have been published in PlayStation, with that one as the single one exception. I assume maybe Nintendo or MS paid for keepint it away from PS.

Octopath Travler didn‘t come to PS4 or PS5 and it was great.

True, time after releasing it on Switch, they released it on more platforms (PC, Stadia, XBO) and I thought PS was one of them but it wasn't the case. It was Octopath Traveller 2 the one released on PS, not OT1.

Driveclub and Motorstorm was good.

I'd love to see them working on Motorstorm and Wipeout.

Its not just about the teams. Its what the directors/the heads like Ueda and Keiichirō Toyama

These two plus a few key ones from their games effectively left Japan Studio. But make sure that their next games will be in PS, and at least the Toyama one supported by PS Indies / Shuhei Yoshida.

Its like Tango Studios and Xbox, that studio is worthless now without Mikami.

Nah, Astro or Puppeteer show that Japan Studio (now Team Asobi) can do great games without them.

Also, their 2nd party Japanese 2nd party publishing now publishes more big Asian games than before (as it's the case of Death Stranding Director's Cut, Death Stranding 2, Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin etc).

And regarding smaller, more experimental Asian indie games they now get supported by PlayStation Indies in better conditions, with less pressure for both sides than when Sony published the games, got their IPs and got the exclusivity forever.

Asobi is good, but Id rather have Asobi plus Team Gravity, Team Ico

A good portion of them are still at Team Asobi

and then Sony bringing new studios to the Japan Studios Division like Clap Handz, Acquire, Pyramid run by Ejun, A team run by Tsutomu Kouno etc and also buy Level 5. That for me would be amazing.

People outside, in small teams will prefer to be in 3rd party indie teams getting supported by PlayStation Indies.

The expectation and pressure of being inside a platform holder is too high in terms of quality, type of game and sales. It's better for them to self publish to keep their IP and to don't depend on a publisher to make sequels, and also to get a bigger % of the revenue of the game, and also to be able to release it in more platforms giving Sony maybe only a timed console exclusivity to get more revenue. It also gives them freedom not only to have more creative freedom, but also to get extra money from other investors or publishers.

In addition to this, for Sony it's better since this more external relationship because requires them less work and money, so they can invest now in more small 3rd party exclusivities. Even if Sony doesn't own these IPs (which in any case they won't want for the future) or if games are also published elsewhere after -in most cases- a timed console exclusivity.

 

[Yurinka]

Was the same thing with Japan studio. People acted so sad when they shut down

Lies. Sony didn't shut down Japan Studio, read the thread

These are all very great games, it is a shame they don't sell very well though. Same with Wipeout, which I'm actually surprised never sold well.

Maybe these games just need to be marketed in a different way.

As I remember the first two in PS1 did sell very well (in their context of PS1 times), and then Wipeout Pure for PSP also sold well/ok. As I know, the rest didn't perform well enough.

In fact, apparently when Sony bought them they weren't in a good finantial shape. On top of that, in the later days of Liverpool studio they had the issue that the studio was very improductive: they had many senior people with huge salaries but the output/sales of the studio wasn't at that level, so at some point they had to stop.

P.S.: I'm a big Wipeout fan and bought all the games in the series.

Well we know Returnal sold over 610k in 3 months at full price. That's a gross revenue of close to 43 million. Sony called it a hit, so we can only assume it hit their internal metrics.

Housemarque was a relatively small AAish studio back then, so at that time the game pretty likely was already profitable/succesful. Add that the game must have selling during the next months, specially when discounted, and also more sales from PC version during some years too. They must be happy with it.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I wish Ape Escape,Jak,Ratchet and sly could have pulled those numbers.

Nintendo must have a very good marketing department

Like @Swolf712 was saying, Nintendo stuck with those IPs for a very long time, and have arguably the best IP retention in the industry when talking about the combination of longevity, marketing & quality. Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Pokemon...there are quite a lot of examples.

Sony didn't really do that for a good number of their legacy IP, when they could have. However, I think there is a future for those IP to gain more of an audience at reasonable production costs through the combination of PS+ and mobile. Whether Sony develop those games in-house or through independent 3P devs given the IP licenses (think what Sega's done with IP like Streets of Rage or Sonic, but with production scales I'd guess more in line with a Stray, Kena, or Sifu) is anyone's guess, but the opportunities are definitely there.

They makes the games for PlayStation & mobile, but on PlayStation you can buy them digitally or get them in PS+. Maybe depending on the game the tier would be higher, say PS+ Extra or Premium, but the option is still there to buy it digitally (they shouldn't be priced any higher than $40, I think price ranges of $24.99 - $39.99 would work depending on the game).

That would be ideal.

 

[Killer_Sakoman]

"I've never seen these games they're making, but I know they're garbage. Trust me bro."

Any GaaS has 90% chance of turning out garbage. 100% in my taste

 

[Swolf712]

Lies. Sony didn't shut down Japan Studio, read the thread

...maybe consider reading my entire post before calling me a liar.

 

[Aidendelaney95]

Any GaaS has 90% chance of turning out garbage. 100% in my taste

I'm not asking for metrics. You do you though.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Sony Studio PixelOpus, Best-Known for Concrete Genie, Is Shutting Down - IGN

Sony Interactive Entertainment-owned studio PixelOpus, best-known for its work on Concrete Genie, is shutting its doors. The studio tweeted that its "adventure has come to an end" and thanked fans, and will officially close on June 2.

www.ign.com