PlayStation is “Reevaluating how we operate” due to recent layoffs. Twisted Metal Canceled due to layoffs! |UP| Guerilla loses 10% of its staff.

[Gamernyc78]

PlayStation Studios says it’s ‘reevaluating how we operate’, confirms cancelled games | VGC

Delivering online games, and launching on PC, “requires a different approach”…

www.videogameschronicle.com

PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst has said the platform holder is “reevaluating how we operate” as part of its decision to lay off 900 employees worldwide.

On Tuesday, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced a round of layoffs across its development studios, including Insomniac and Naughty Dog in the US, and Guerrilla and Firesprite in the UK. PlayStation’s London Studio will close entirely.

Commenting on the news, Hulst confirmed that the lay offs have also resulted in the cancellation of unnamed game projects, which almost certainly includes London Studio’s online co-op game set in a fantasy London.

“Our goal at PlayStation Studios has always been to make the best games for PlayStation fans, and our global community of studios represent some of the most creative and talented teams within the gaming industry,” Hulst wrote.

“PlayStation 5 is in its fourth year, and we are at a stage where we need to step back and look at what our business needs. At the same time, our industry has experienced continuing and fundamental change which affects how we all create, and play, games.

“Delivering the immersive, narrative-driven stories that PlayStation Studios is known for, at the quality bar that we aspire to, requires a re-evaluation of how we operate.

“Delivering and sustaining social, online experiences – allowing PlayStation gamers to explore our worlds in different ways – as well as launching games on additional devices such as PC and Mobile, requires a different approach and different resources.”



Also Twisted Metal Canceled as part of this...



Also on guerilla...

Round of layoffs at Dutch game maker Guerrilla, dozens of employees on the street​

Guerrilla, the largest game studio in the Netherlands, has laid off 10 percent of its staff as part of a larger reorganization at parent company Playstation.

Horizon studio Guerrilla is reportedly cutting 10% of its workforce | VGC

About 40 staff at the studio are being laid off as part of wider Sony cuts…

www.videogameschronicle.com

 

[Satoru]

The way I interpret this is that for them to deliver what they are known for, in light of how their business evolved, they had to reevaluate everything. Of course it's corporate speak, but the way I read it is "we want to deliver potatoes but can't do that while trying to deliver carrots and onions, and thus have to make changes".

I'd love for them to cancel their PC strategy (minus certain GaaS), but I suspect this could be it

• Focus on SP games
• Couple of Live Service MP games shared with PC (HD2, etc) via their dedicated studios only (Firesprite, Bungie)
• Select SP games on PC, AAA bangers console exclusive

 

[Gamernyc78]

The way I interpret this is that for them to deliver what they are known for, in light of how their business evolved, they had to reevaluate everything. Of course it's corporate speak, but the way I read it is "we want to deliver potatoes but can't do that while trying to deliver carrots and onions, and thus have to make changes".

I'd love for them to cancel their PC strategy (minus certain GaaS), but I suspect this could be it

• Focus on SP games
• Couple of Live Service MP games shared with PC (HD2, etc) via their dedicated studios only (Firesprite, Bungie)
• Select SP games on PC, AAA bangers console exclusive

I'm sure they are constantly re-evaluating and yeah you are right "it's corporate speak". The evaluation goes on in perpetuity.

 

[ethomaz]

They indeed needs to refocus what is good for them.
Their last attempt to diversify failed miserably.

 

[Gamernyc78]

They indeed needs to refocus what is good for them.
Their last attempt to diversify failed miserably.

I mean Thyve done pilots in alot of things and they know their bread and butter is mainly in their IP strengths and sp but with tht as Thyve done before their mp components can also generate alot of money. Helldivers is a hit and there is always room for that but I think their main focus should always be creating those great so experiences with mp portions and dlc attached and secondary.

 

[Gediminas]

Boot Hulst

I'd love for them to cancel their PC strategy (minus certain GaaS), but I suspect this could be it

• Focus on SP games
• Couple of Live Service MP games shared with PC (HD2, etc) via their dedicated studios only (Firesprite, Bungie)
• Select SP games on PC, AAA bangers console exclusive

fixed comment

 

[Nhomnhom]

And I'll be evaluating my support of PlayStation.

 

[Gamernyc78]

And I'll be evaluating my support of PlayStation.

As you should. Nothing wrong with tht. I evaluate how I spend my money on consoles depending on their stance and moves.

 

[xollowsob]

How about making some fucking games.
Strange concept I know but it seemed to work out well before...

 

[Nhomnhom]

As you should. Nothing wrong with tht. I evaluate how I spend my money in consoles depending on their stance and moves.

It sucks, I like PlayStation hardware so much but Sony just keeps making decisions that displease me and that give owning and playing games on PS5 a sour taste.

I just need to get used to the mindset that although I enjoy my PS5 I'm not a PlayStation fan at this point. I really wish we had another decent option for a traditional console.

I also need to set my expectations extremely low for everything that is going to be coming from PlayStation studios. It's probably time to stop following gaming news to close as well. It has been mostly really bad vibes since around 2019~2020.

 

[Gamernyc78]

How about making some fucking games.
Strange concept I know but it seemed to work out well before...

I don't know why thy would stray from what allowed them to turn PS3 around and focus on mp/gaas secondary or organically coming off solid ips. E.g. UNCHARTED AND UNCHARTED MP, Little Big Planet and LBP dlc and mp, Tlou and mp etc..

 

[Gamernyc78]

It sucks, I like PlayStation hardware so much but Sony just keeps making decisions that displease me and that give owning and playing games on PS5 a sower taste.

I just need to get used to the mindset that although I enjoy my PS5 I'm not a PlayStation fan at this point. I really wish we had another decent option for a traditional console.

I hear you, it's also gd to criticize their bs and it's been obvious for awhile suits and execs are taking over more and more and meddling, thts just my opinion.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next 5+ years.
Clearly the GaaS experiment has been curtailed heavily at this point.

At the same time, which way are they going towards? A refocus on SP games is obvious. But what kind of release strategy?
They initially made this big GaaS pivot because they saw the shrinking margins due to the inflation of cost for their big marquee titles. If they go back to that, how will they tackle this problem they were trying to avoid?

Do they say fuck it and just keep betting on 250-300M titles or do they attempt to make smaller scope games more often, even though most of those lower budget title were rejected during the PS4?

 

[xollowsob]

I don't know why thy would stray from what allowed them to turn PS3 around and focus on mp/gaas secondary or organically coming off solid ips. E.g. UNCHARTED AND UNCHARTED MP, Little Big Planet and LBP dlc and mp, Tlou and mp etc..

Think about the negativity from the press, most gamers, the financial papers and even Sony HQ right before PS4 was dropped.

Not once did Sony try anything new. They released an affordable, high powered console with games. A console that went on to smash records.

But nahh, fuq dat, let's race to bankruptcy by copying a competitor that has done nothing but fail for 14 years.

I blame Sony for moving their HQ to California. They've gone mental.

 

[flaccidsnake]

If there's an obvious problem with How Playstation Operates today, it's project management at the big prestige single player teams. Especially Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, and Bend. We should know what these teams' next projects are. Those projects should be well along. It wouldn't be unreasonable to know what Santa Monica and Guerrilla are doing next, and they've had games released on PS5.

At the publisher level at playstation, it's just lack of any cadence for 1st party releases. 2023 and 2024 are pretty soft. The generation as a whole is pretty soft considering some of the real magic-level games like Ragnarok and Forbidden West are fine on PS4. You can't stake an entire year on one october game multiple years in a row. We don't just need great games, we need some sense of a release schedule.

 

[Nhomnhom]

If there's an obvious problem with How Playstation Operates today, it's project management at the big prestige single player teams. Especially Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, and Bend. We should know what these teams' next projects are. Those projects should be well along. It wouldn't be unreasonable to know what Santa Monica and Guerrilla are doing next, and they've had games released on PS5.

At the publisher level at playstation, it's just lack of any cadence for 1st party releases. 2023 and 2024 are pretty soft. The generation as a whole is pretty soft considering some of the real magic-level games like Ragnarok and Forbidden West are fine on PS4. You can't stake an entire year on one october game multiple years in a row. We don't just need great games, we need some sense of a release schedule.

They are clearly not well along tho and are taking way longer then before. So now they start divesting from their own studios and firing people? I don't see how that solves the problem.

The problem this entire gen has been bad leadership that was not able to anticipate the obvious (AAA games taking more time to be made).

AAA GaaS was always a stupid angle to begging with and so were turning every game into a high production value open-world/semi-open-world epic.

PS4 slogan used to be "best place to play", "only on PlayStation", "greatness awaits", none of those work for PlayStation anymore. PS5 slogans should be "mid place to play", "also on PC", "something awaits, maybe", "

 

[flaccidsnake]

They are clearly not well along tho and are taking way longer than anyone would have anticipated. So not they start divesting from their own studios and firing people? I don't see how that solves the problem.

We don't know, but that is a reasonable bet. I don't think layoffs solve the problem, layoffs are the result of a huge publisher going several years without games to sell from many of their biggest teams.

I think Totoki laid out the problem honestly. There are great creative people at the studios, but they're not business minded. You need to get project managers at the studio level and at the publisher-wide level who plan effective milestones.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

If there's an obvious problem with How Playstation Operates today, it's project management at the big prestige single player teams. Especially Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, and Bend. We should know what these teams' next projects are. Those projects should be well along. It wouldn't be unreasonable to know what Santa Monica and Guerrilla are doing next, and they've had games released on PS5.

I agree with Sucker Punch, but Naughty Dog's next game is a new IP and the main project that was being worked on post TLoU Part II was Factions and we all know how that panned out.
Even worse with Bend, we actually know that it hasn't been that long since they got their pitch approved for their new IP when they decided they didn't want to do Days Gone 2.

Santa Monica has a second team that has been working on Cory Barlog's project, I feel like we should be seeing this soon? If not, I got questions.

Guerilla, well, if things were actually working out with the multiplayer game, we would've seen that game already.
But things don't look too hot right now.
Horizon 3 is obviously pretty far off.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

its almost like sony knows what they need to do stay winning.

edit: Not like some of you that the only answer is to buys studios/publishers.

 

[Nhomnhom]

We don't know, but that is a reasonable bet. I don't think layoffs solve the problem, layoffs are the result of a huge publisher going several years without games to sell from many of their biggest teams.

I think Totoki laid out the problem honestly. There are great creative people at the studios, but they're not business minded. You need to get project managers at the studio level and at the publisher-wide level who plan effective milestones.

We do know, they are not going to announce and release games at a faster rate than they have been doing. Even in the unlikely event we get a showcase in a few months with big game announced the announced games would more likely than not be two years away or even more.

We even got a game announced for the PS6 already, Physint. Wolverine a 2026 game was announced in 2021.

its almost like sony knows what they need to do stay winning.

It's almost as if they don't. All they keep doing is following Xbox footsteps and we all know where that leads.