Sony Reportedly Investing Over $250 Million in Bend Studio’s Next Game

xollowsob

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>spend $250 million on a new IP
>Sells the same as a new IP
>Shuts down studio
>Why are there no games?

The absolute state of modern gaming.
 
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Yurinka

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250 seems like too much. Is it justified?
I think he's saying $250M as a guess because this is more or less what a AAA cost today, >$250-300M. Remember that the budget of HFW and TLOU2 were 212M and 220M and since every generation get more expensive should be above this (and if it's MP GaaS even more).

And well, the budget normally is considered as confidential, in a big studio basically only the studio head and a few producers and the finances guy know the number and can't be revealed, which includes to former coworkers.

Considering he didn't have a good relationship with the studio boss/bosses, one of the few main studio producers friend of him would have leaked it to him and that person would get in trouble and would be easy to spot.

How's that gonna affect game development and talent retention, though? Do they expect entire teams to move over to the UK or work from home? That can be a bad situation.
I could see Nishino moving back to Japan and running Playstation out of there while Herman runs the studios out of California.
When Hermen did talk about the costs in the west coast he wasn't talking about the SIE HQ, he was talking about the cost of gamedev studios instead, because he was talking about reducing the costs of game development in general and one of the typical ones to reduce gamedev costs.

Their gamedev studios of the west coast have many hundreds of people combined. Most of them wouldn't want to relocate to a different continent and see their salary reduced, even less when that includes some of the most talented people in the world that is working in places like SSM, ND or Insomniac.

And Hermen and Nishino didn't say absolutely nothing remotely close to having plans to relocate anything. Hermen just explained how any publisher reduces costs in AAA game development by outsourcing and codeveloping.

In fact, Hermen is opening a new team in California with former Deviation devs.

First, I've heard no such chatter about relocating their California studios in the UK. It simply doesn't work like that.

Furthermore, that's not what Herman meant. Is California expensive? Absolutely and are they investing in cheaper areas where they can be more aggressive about talent recruiting by not being one of many in the area? Absolutely.

Haven is in Quebec, Firewalk is in Washington, Bluepoint is in Austin, Firesprite is in Liverpool, Housemarque is in Helsinki, and Nixxes is in the Netherlands.

All of these studios are investments outside of California.

In time, these studios can be grown out to similar sizes of Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Santa Monica Studios... but these are still the crown jewels of Sony (with Guerrilla being in Netherlands).

Blundell's new internal studio though... most likely in California...
Blundell's new SIE studio that Hermen is building with ex-Deviation workers is in Los Angeles, California. Same city where Deviation was.

We also have to remember that in addition to acquire new studios, they also heavily invested on growing the manpower of most of their existing studios, which include ones from California like ND, or SSM, now working on more projects at the same time -and having more people per project- than ever were before.

And well, even if in Washington (which I assume shouldn't be way cheaper) let's remember they also almost doubled Bungie's manpower since they acquired them. And well, they also have Firewalk and Sucker Punch there, who I assume also have been growing.

Regarding acquisitions in other locations, they basically acquired talent wherever the team is, teams that deliver good enough projects and maybe some IP they had. This is what it's really important for them when acquiring. I think cost of the studio is secondary but obviously is a plus.

Same goes with being in an area where they don't have other studio: it's something secondary but helps to their HR to don't have multiple studios from their own company competing for the same talent.

He said that but he is now after the fact blaming it on Herman Hulst, saying he had no interest in the IP.
If Hermen wouldn't have interest in the IP then he wouldn't have made a PC, wouldn't have included it in PS Plus Collection and wouldn't be making a movie adaptation.

Maybe they thought that when the sequel was going to start they were already working on a lot of other sequels and wanted a new IP instead, and liked DG so asked them for another new IP.

They can always make a sequel later in the road.
 
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Eternal_Wings

Eternal_Wings

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Remember when I said two years ago Jim Ryan would resign and people didn't believe me? Well look now where Jim Ryan is. To clarify I am not the insider but the guy who shares his info with me is indeed. At this point I don't know if he is a Sony employee but he definitely knows stuff. It was a lucky coincidence that I have met him. Anyway he told me there are big internal changes coming. I trust him with that Sony will reallocate their HQ back to Japan. Japan is with its state of economy and pricing, very much attractive for a profit oriented corporation like Sony. Example is here that Hermen and Nishino didn't hide that they are not satisfied with the expenses and development in California overall, they literally said it at PlayStationBusiness meeting. And yes everyone still denying that California is not expensive, should awake from his bubble. Marvel Spider-Man with a 330M budget does greet.
 
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TigerFang

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Thie is exactly why Sony wants to go away from California overall. Hermen, Nishino and Sony overall don't like the pricings in California. Industry insider said that Sony is considering moving their PlayStation HQ back to Tokyo. In relation Japan with its low prices is very attractive for cosy oriented companies like Sony. The chatter is also Sony reallocate their Californian studios to UK. That's why the SoP was focused heavily on Asian titles. Sony will now target the Japanese, Asian and European market overall.
Oh shit you're right ...

Where wind meets (Chinese), MonHun wilds, Silent Hill 2, infinite Nikki, Astro Bot, (Japanese).

All of these looked great.

As much as i love studios like Santamonica, Naughty Dog, Guerilla, Insomniac, etc. I Love to see this focus on Asian games as well which I think PS has lacked in several years.

Love to see this.
 

Gediminas

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Thie is exactly why Sony wants to go away from California overall. Hermen, Nishino and Sony overall don't like the pricings in California. Industry insider said that Sony is considering moving their PlayStation HQ back to Tokyo. In relation Japan with its low prices is very attractive for cosy oriented companies like Sony. The chatter is also Sony reallocate their Californian studios to UK. That's why the SoP was focused heavily on Asian titles. Sony will now target the Japanese, Asian and European market overall.
UK ain't that great. i think better places would be Spain, Italy for californians. better weather. even Greece.
 
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Eternal_Wings

Eternal_Wings

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UK ain't that great. i think better places would be Spain, Italy for californians. better weather. even Greec
UK ain't that great. i think better places would be Spain, Italy for californians. better weather. even Greece.
I think (if they really move their studios to UK), then probably it's primarily because of the language.
 

Kokoloko

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Im glad Sony is investing tbh. Even though Bend is probably one of my least favourite PS studios, its good to see PS investing in an older studio that makes single player games.

Plus this should of been done back in 2019.
 

ChorizoPicozo

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This is Damage Control.

Sony needs for their Showcase/PS5 Pro to reveal big hitters. people are done waiting.
 

TigerFang

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People demand for huge hitters is something I fail to understand when there's constantly huge games going on. & they act like huge AAA quality titles are made in 1-2 years. It's so fucking stupid.
 

anonpuffs

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Ross doesn't know what he is talking about, but one can conclude based on time and staffing how much a game could cost.

Day's Gone came out in 2019, if the next game came out next year that would be 6 years of development. That's 40 million dollars per year. That's slightly high, and my guess given that we haven't seen anything on this game, is that it's probably more likely 2026 than 2025, so 7 years. That brings it down to 35 million a year, with probably some ramp up next year in cost towards the last two years.
That doesnt include cost of bringing in outside resources. Which every Sony studio does.
 

Danja

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Sony Bend is a great studio. One of the technical magicians of PlayStation Studios. They are just underrated. Days Gone is still more impressive than a lot of PS5 games..I have faith in them.

I wanna see them succeed.
 
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2spooky5me

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Somewhere... in the shadows, a WILD (David) Jaffe is ready to pounce (on this news)!

@Eternal_Wings
It would also be a great course correction (moving the HQ back to Japan), if both Noshino and Hulst are serious about reviving the Japanese market, and bring it back up to level with N.A./Europe.
 
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Eternal_Wings

Eternal_Wings

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How's that gonna affect game development and talent retention, though? Do they expect entire teams to move over to the UK or work from home? That can be a bad situation.
Probably a mix of both. Setting the office in UK but also enable to work from home/small office. Would migitate costs in resources and infrastructure imo.
 

quest4441

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Probably a mix of both. Setting the office in UK but also enable to work from home/small office. Would migitate costs in resources and infrastructure imo.
Londonistan should be the last place they should move their HQ too. If california is a shitshow then uk is a shit sandwich
 

2spooky5me

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Add Jeff Ross to the scorned lovers list. You now have:
David Jaffe
Jonathan Cooper
Chris Grannell

I'm noticing a pattern... these 4 have major anger/psychotic issues.