PlayStation is laying off around 900 people across the world [Discussion]

[Yurinka]

Almost 5 years later and we still can't see nothing from Hermen's tenure as head of Worldwide Studios... 5 years from now you'll still be defending his incompetence since it would kill you to ever be honest or critical of playstation.

The fact we haven't seen anything he has greenlighted except cancellations, studio closures, overblown budgets, remakes and PC ports under his watch. I can't wait for the day he is demoted or better yet fired

Then he'll truly have all the time for his most important job going on yachts and drinking beer.

there's always an excuse for this guy according to some. what matters in the end is results and hermen has come in way below expectations.

Imagine scenario were people even didn't have any in the first place

Total bullshit. Since 2019 PS Studios is now maybe 3 or 4 times larger than i was then: they acquired Insomniac, Housemarque, Bluepoint, Firesprite (resurrecting Liverpool + Evolution), Nixxes, Bungie, Haven.

They grew all these studios and the previous ones, allowing teams like Bungie, Insomniac but also Guerrilla, Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, XDEV (including their Japanese team too) work in morre games at the same time, or helping smaller teams like Housemarque, Bluepoint or Firesprite (or in 2nd party teams like Arrowhead or Shift Up, but Ballistic Moon maybe was before him) now handle bigger projects.

They published many top tier critically acclaimed, award winning and in many cases also very successful in sales, in several cases to the point of breaking all time history records for a Sony game or exclusive. Days Gone (Hermen still wasn't there), MLBs, Death Stranding, Dreams, GoT, TLOU2, Nioh stuff, Morales, Sackboy, Demon's Souls, Astro's Playroom, Returnal, Rift Apart, HFW, GT7, GoWR, Horizon CoM, GT7 VR, Spider-Man 2, Helldivers 2 and this month Rise of the Ronin plus several DLCs, remasters, remakes, VR games and ports a handful unsuccessful games like Destruction All Stars and Firewall Ultra.

As far as we know Hermen greenlighted Death Stranding 2, Physint, the new Bend IP (first pitch they sent after DG), current Sucker Punch game (apparently GoT2), minimum 2 new SP ND games (plus he cancelled the ND GaaS that pretty likely was greenlighted before him), the next Team Asobi game (plus multiple prototypes they are incubating), Wolverine, the next Housemarque game, next Ratchet, Horizon3, pretty likely GT8, a new GoW set in a new mythology, apparently Venom, Spider-Man 3, X-Men, Insomniac new IP. Plus pretty likely several projects we still don't know about.

Successfully released GaaS previosly greenlighted by Yoshida like GT7, Firewall Ultra (this apparently tanked) and Helldivers 2, (the GaaS MLB were greenlighted by him), is being very successful implementing the expansion in PC planned by Shawn Layden, and also allowing/overviewing/supporting the movie/tv adaptations of their IPs.

Also shut down Pixel Opus and London Studio (cancelling the games pretty likely not greenlighted by him, their previous games were from 2019) and restructured Japan Studio helping their internal development team focus on that and grow and also their 2nd party publishing XDEV team also grow and only focus on it because now have separate offices.

The only project we know was greenlighted by him that went wrong was the Deviation game, which everybody thought it was promising and apparently got cancelled but maybe moved or rebooted in the new SIE team that has some of their workers.

All this in 4 years and 3 months. After of which they are making more money than ever with their first party games. Seems a ton of work and overall great to me. You may not like some decision but nobody can be serious saying this is incompetence and that he's always in the yatch not working.

 

[ApolloHelios]

Total bullshit. Since 2019 PS Studios is now maybe 3 or 4 times larger than i was then: they acquired Insomniac, Housemarque, Bluepoint, Firesprite (resurrecting Liverpool + Evolution), Nixxes, Bungie, Haven.

They grew all these studios and the previous ones, allowing teams like Bungie, Insomniac but also Guerrilla, Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, XDEV (including their Japanese team too) work in morre games at the same time, or helping smaller teams like Housemarque, Bluepoint or Firesprite (or in 2nd party teams like Arrowhead or Shift Up, but Ballistic Moon maybe was before him) now handle bigger projects.

They published many top tier critically acclaimed, award winning and in many cases also very successful in sales, in several cases to the point of breaking all time history records for a Sony game or exclusive. Days Gone (Hermen still wasn't there), MLBs, Death Stranding, Dreams, GoT, TLOU2, Nioh stuff, Morales, Sackboy, Demon's Souls, Astro's Playroom, Returnal, Rift Apart, HFW, GT7, GoWR, Horizon CoM, GT7 VR, Spider-Man 2, Helldivers 2 and this month Rise of the Ronin plus several DLCs, remasters, remakes, VR games and ports a handful unsuccessful games like Destruction All Stars and Firewall Ultra.

As far as we know Hermen greenlighted Death Stranding 2, Physint, the new Bend IP (first pitch they sent after DG), current Sucker Punch game (apparently GoT2), minimum 2 new SP ND games (plus he cancelled the ND GaaS that pretty likely was greenlighted before him), the next Team Asobi game (plus multiple prototypes they are incubating), Wolverine, the next Housemarque game, next Ratchet, Horizon3, pretty likely GT8, a new GoW set in a new mythology, apparently Venom, Spider-Man 3, X-Men, Insomniac new IP. Plus pretty likely several projects we still don't know about.

Successfully released GaaS previosly greenlighted by Yoshida like GT7, Firewall Ultra (this apparently tanked) and Helldivers 2, (the GaaS MLB were greenlighted by him), is being very successful implementing the expansion in PC planned by Shawn Layden, and also allowing/overviewing/supporting the movie/tv adaptations of their IPs.

Also shut down Pixel Opus and London Studio (cancelling the games pretty likely not greenlighted by him, their previous games were from 2019) and restructured Japan Studio helping their internal development team focus on that and grow and also their 2nd party publishing XDEV team also grow and only focus on it because now have separate offices.

The only project we know was greenlighted by him that went wrong was the Deviation game, which everybody thought it was promising and apparently got cancelled but maybe moved or rebooted in the new SIE team that has some of their workers.

All this in 4 years and 3 months. After of which they are making more money than ever with their first party games. Seems a ton of work and overall great to me. You may not like some decision but nobody can be serious saying this is incompetence and that he's always in the yatch not working.

This would fall on deaf ears, it's much much easier to jump on the hate bandwagon.

 

[Yurinka]

This would fall on deaf ears, it's much much easier to jump on the hate bandwagon.

I know

 

[Danja1187]

Total bullshit. Since 2019 PS Studios is now maybe 3 or 4 times larger than i was then: they acquired Insomniac, Housemarque, Bluepoint, Firesprite (resurrecting Liverpool + Evolution), Nixxes, Bungie, Haven.

They grew all these studios and the previous ones, allowing teams like Bungie, Insomniac but also Guerrilla, Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, XDEV (including their Japanese team too) work in morre games at the same time, or helping smaller teams like Housemarque, Bluepoint or Firesprite (or in 2nd party teams like Arrowhead or Shift Up, but Ballistic Moon maybe was before him) now handle bigger projects.

They published many top tier critically acclaimed, award winning and in many cases also very successful in sales, in several cases to the point of breaking all time history records for a Sony game or exclusive. Days Gone (Hermen still wasn't there), MLBs, Death Stranding, Dreams, GoT, TLOU2, Nioh stuff, Morales, Sackboy, Demon's Souls, Astro's Playroom, Returnal, Rift Apart, HFW, GT7, GoWR, Horizon CoM, GT7 VR, Spider-Man 2, Helldivers 2 and this month Rise of the Ronin plus several DLCs, remasters, remakes, VR games and ports a handful unsuccessful games like Destruction All Stars and Firewall Ultra.

As far as we know Hermen greenlighted Death Stranding 2, Physint, the new Bend IP (first pitch they sent after DG), current Sucker Punch game (apparently GoT2), minimum 2 new SP ND games (plus he cancelled the ND GaaS that pretty likely was greenlighted before him), the next Team Asobi game (plus multiple prototypes they are incubating), Wolverine, the next Housemarque game, next Ratchet, Horizon3, pretty likely GT8, a new GoW set in a new mythology, apparently Venom, Spider-Man 3, X-Men, Insomniac new IP. Plus pretty likely several projects we still don't know about.

Successfully released GaaS previosly greenlighted by Yoshida like GT7, Firewall Ultra (this apparently tanked) and Helldivers 2, (the GaaS MLB were greenlighted by him), is being very successful implementing the expansion in PC planned by Shawn Layden, and also allowing/overviewing/supporting the movie/tv adaptations of their IPs.

Also shut down Pixel Opus and London Studio (cancelling the games pretty likely not greenlighted by him, their previous games were from 2019) and restructured Japan Studio helping their internal development team focus on that and grow and also their 2nd party publishing XDEV team also grow and only focus on it because now have separate offices.

The only project we know was greenlighted by him that went wrong was the Deviation game, which everybody thought it was promising and apparently got cancelled but maybe moved or rebooted in the new SIE team that has some of their workers.

All this in 4 years and 3 months. After of which they are making more money than ever with their first party games. Seems a ton of work and overall great to me. You may not like some decision but nobody can be serious saying this is incompetence and that he's always in the yatch not working.

Typed up all of this and still can't state what we have actually seen green light by him.

Oh, I guess Concord and FairGame$ though we still haven't seen anything of them other than terrible trailers.

Almost sure he was the one who green lighted London Studios now cancelled game.

He didn't restuctureyJapan Studios he shut them down, no matter how you try to spin it.

Playstation studios expansion was happening before him and I don't see how this is relevant to anything? With so much expansion we still can't see anything from them? So why bother mentioning it.

Nobody cares if they are making more money. Considering Totoki is clearly not amused with their spending lol.

Where are the games greenlighted by Hermen? Everything we have gotten was still done by Shu from 4 - 8 years ago.

What has this Phil Spencer 2.0 been doing?

 

[Yurinka]

Typed up all of this and still can't state what we have actually seen green light by him.

Oh, I guess Concord and FairGame$ though we still haven't seen anything of them other than terrible trailers.

With so much expansion we still can't see anything from them?

Where are the games greenlighted by Hermen? Everything we have gotten was still done by Shu from 4 - 8 years ago.

AAA games take around 5-9 years to be developed and he only has been there for 4 years and 3 months. Not enough time to see most of the games he greenlighted being released.

Firewalk was created in 2018 and Hermen got his position Nov. 2019, which means it's likely that Concord was greenlighted/signed by Yoshida.

Death Stranding 2, next Team Asobi game and Wolverine pretty likely will be the first games greenlighted by Hermen to be released, other than MLBs because they are yearly stuff. A more complete list of the games he greenlighted are is here. Basically the ones started some time after Nov. 2019, which we can know because of when their previous game of these teams (not studios) were released.

Also, to greenlight projects is a tiny portion of his job managing PS Studios.

Almost sure he was the one who green lighted London Studios now cancelled game.

The last games they released were Blood & Truth (May 2019) and to support Erica (August 2019).
I highly doubt they had the studio doing nothing until November 2019.

More likely their GaaS title was greenlighted somewhere early 2019, in order to make sure that once they shipped Blood & Truth and Erica everyone on the studio could jump to the next project.

Companies don't have over a hundred people doing nothing during months. So super likely it was greenlighted by Shuhei Yoshida.

He didn't restuctureyJapan Studios he shut them down, no matter how you try to spin it.

Then acording to you Team Asobi doesn't exist and also doesn't exist their XDEV Japanese team who released Death Stranding Director's Cut and is working in all their Asian 2nd party games: Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade, Concallaria, Lost Soul Aside, Death Standing 2, Physint etc.

I'm not spinning it, I'm just stating a fact: it got restructured firing some guys, changing its management, rebranding it and split into two teams (who continue in the same SIE Japan building they were before) that now are growing.

Playstation studios expansion was happening before him and I don't see how this is relevant to anything?

Insomniac acquisition, the first one completed under his command, was signed 3 months before he got in charge. It's the only one of the current batch signed before him.

Other than that, it's obvious that being the head of PS Studios has the most important role (in addition to the SIE CEO) in the decision to keep growing PS Studios and implementing it.

As an example, thanks to this growing, Naughty Dog was able to work in 2 new SP games greenlighted by Hermen at the same time they also worked on the GaaS greenlighted by Yoshida and the TLOU1 remake greenlighted by Yoshida.

Or did help Guerrilla work at the same time in the GaaS greenlighted by Yoshida, HFW and Horizon CoM but reducing or removing the crunch -as did in all PS Studios- because they had more people to work on them.

Nobody cares if they are making more money. Considering Totoki is clearly not amused with their spending lol.

If they don't make enough money they will make less games/cancel more, fire more people, shut down more studios and make less acquisitions. So people who wants games and acquisitions for them better care about them making more money.

Specially if you want their SP non-GaaS AAA games to continue existing. Because in the gaming market the revenue from GaaS are replacing the one from games and the game sales of SP non-GaaS AAA games in a single console outside the few top sellers no longer will be profitable in a single console, so will dissapear if they don't get extra money elsewere, like making GaaS, PC ports, movies, PS+ and so on.

A game that sells 7.5M units with getting Sony on average around $35/copy (more or less of Days Gone or Bloodborne generates to them $262.5M. This generation we're seeing games like Spider-Man 2, Halo Infinite, Diablo IV, Far Cry 6, Skull & Bones getting budgets of well beyond $300M.

So Sony better gets successful with GaaS, PC ports, movies etc. to get extra revenue and specially profitability if want to continue having AAA SP non-GaaS games other than the few top selling IPs they have.

So Totoki, as Chief of Finances of the Sony group, and interim CEO of SIE starting in April, obviously cares about it.

What has this Phil Spencer 2.0 been doing?

What I posted here and more.

 

[Puff]

Insomniac is hiring again

 

[rofif]

Insomniac is hiring again

After what we learned, work at insomniac looks to be hell.
Stress of being fired,
7 projects at the same time
All Marvel
Your ID leaks online.

nope

 

[Would_you_kindly]

After what we learned, work at insomniac looks to be hell.
Stress of being fired,
7 projects at the same time
All Marvel
Your ID leaks online.

nope

They also had to deal with sweet baby inc lol

 

[Yurinka]

After what we learned, work at insomniac looks to be hell.
Stress of being fired,
7 projects at the same time
All Marvel
Your ID leaks online.

nope

What we know is that they said that did stop crunching a few years ago.

In the leaked Venom they considered to be working now in 4 games, not all Marvel:

Two big teams working in Venom, and Wolverine and two small teams starting to work on Spider-Man 3 and the next Ratchet (and next year a small team would start to work in a new IP):

I just found this image today, it's the first time I see it. It considers two possible ways of balancing the budgets:

Mentioning "this fall" leads to think the document is from 2022.

That new slide also shows that they aim to release (these are just pitches, had to be appoved and later there could be delays):

• Spider-Man 2: Q2 2023
• Venom: Q3 2024 or Q2 2025
• Wolverine: Q2-Q3 2026
• Spider-Man 3: Q2 2028
• New Ratchet: Q2 2029