Report – Sony cans, streamlines projects at UK studios

Oh dear.

This is actually really creepy I was just saying to my friend Alexis last night that I thought something like this was going to happen within Sony.

Sucks.

It’s because market is oversaturated with exclusives on Sony’s part. They never sell more then 2 million in most cases.

Look for example at LBP2. Fantastic game. Sales? Not so much. 9+ rated game.

but these weak UK development teams can’t make games that will be over the top with 9+ rating not to mention that they sell pretty poorly.
Sony this generation just don’t have that MUST HAVE IP, except for Gran turismo 5 that i think sells pretty well.

Look at Nintendo. They just need to have a Mario or Donkey Kong and they sell a lot. Or Microsoft with Halo or Gears.

Opinion of course and nice to have an Edit button. Now my english won’t be SO much broken i hope.

@3

I completely agree with everything you say. Can we be best friends?

Also, those studios are in the UK, and not Canada or California.

All of those are must-haves, really Fin? Uncharted 2, LBP2 and GT5 I could understand, but two console shooters, a quicktime game and a peripheral-pushing karaoke game are must-haves? Times are a’changin’.

So basically …they got too much exclusives this year, this needed to happen? I don’t get it really. A shame though.

@4, Killzone, Resisntace are not must have titles.
Both crappy shooters for people who started playing FPS games this generation. BOTH are C R A P at best. Killzone 2-3 just have OK multiplayer.
Killzone 2 sold less then for 2 million units and was hyped as a graphical benchmark for eternity or Halo killer. Killzone 3 for now did same crappy sales.
Uncharted 2 as a great game sold less then 4 million units.
Infamous sold for 1 million units at best.
SOCOM is a tactical shooter, you expect it to sell more then for 1 million units?
Resistance – CRAP. Sold 1 million units at best, except for first Resistance that sold well because it was a first game for the platform
God Of War 3 – 2-3 million units + Wow… hyped and sales worse then for this generation titles like gears Of War.
Heavy Rain – 1.5 million units at best
LBP 1 is successfull with sales and second game sales are not great. First one was successfull because of hype and as a first good game for the system.

you forgot to mention MGS4 that sold for 4+ million units. That is at least good achievement for that platform.

STOP being a fanboy. If these (not all of them) are good games that does not mean they sell well or they are must have. You can’t speak for the consumers.

Look at the Halo or gears Of War games that sell 5+ million units. Now that are a REAL sales. Or look at Nintendo where they sell Mario games for 20 million units. So your point? VANISHED. + you can see news for yourself where sony cancel them for the reason.

Is that a no? =(

@Erthazus: Quick look at wikipedia suggests that most of your estimates are a bit off. Not to mention that there isn’t specific number of sales that is true for all games that needs to be reached in order for them to count as a financial success.

@9 Woah man, don’t try to bring logic or facts into his argument, that’s just crazy talk.

there will still be a steady line of ps3 exclusives,there will be another wipeout and so forth, i think its streamlining the portfolio, maybe 3-6 first party exclusives a year and not over ten.

i bought killzone 3 and really enjoyed it, uncharted 3 is only the other exclusive on that system so far this year that interests me, starhawk aswell when thats finally announced. socom, r3 and all the rest i couldnt give a shit about, the amount of money they are investing into exclusives i would love to see the return they are making on them.

Fanboyism aside, it’s one thing to argue whether a game is worth playing, and another to argue whether it’s a must-have.

A must-have really has to be, you know… A must.

@12 uncharted series is a must have for me and if starhawk is as good or even a bit better than warhawk its also a must have.

there’s no such thing as a must have game. what if the genre and setting makes me sick? you should choose the titles based on your tastes, not the other way around.

Selling 1 millions of one game like Infamous on single platform is solid achievement.

Hard Rain’s sales, given its relatively niche direction, are fairly impressive.

As for this news, I’m wondering if this is as much a reflection of financial year end reorganising as anything else. Not as enticing as conspiracy theories or stat-wars. Sorry.

You really do spill some bullshit Erthazus. I for one am happy Sony continues to support these “epic failure lolz they only sold 2 million units” franchises. Mainly because many of the games mentioned are ace (even if you think they are crap).

I’m sure many of these cancelled projects were just NGP/PSN concepts that they’ve decided to put aside and focus resources on stuff like Little Deviants instead, etc.

@14 Right, everything is somewhat relative.

Really it’s just a question of consensus. If you don’t like flight sims, you don’t like flight sims. But if everybody who’s tried a certain flight sim finds it an amazing specimen, then you could still call it a must-have flight sim, regardless of what you might think of the genre itself. Your personal inhibitions doesn’t make the game worse.

I’m sure you could do science on it, and arguably certain types of games appeal to broader audiences, and that plays into it (flight sims are a horrible example) but really it’s just a question of a game being so good that few people will ever disagree. Common sense rules.

@DSB that’s true, I thought you obviously meant that in a different way. although common sense =/= popularity. unless you know people who tried it have been playing ie flight sims for years.

er, there’s no evidence of any game selling better when going multiplatform (solely for that reason that is), unless it’s CoD of course. the whole point is that exclusive titles might make you buy the console.. thus if anything, they likely perform better than the multiplat analogs.

@4, Killzone, Resisntace are not must have titles.
Both crappy shooters for people who started playing FPS games this generation. BOTH are C R A P at best. Killzone 2-3 just have OK multiplayer.
Killzone 2 sold less then for 2 million units and was hyped as a graphical benchmark for eternity or Halo killer. Killzone 3 for now did same crappy sales.
Uncharted 2 as a great game sold less then 4 million units.
Infamous sold for 1 million units at best.
SOCOM is a tactical shooter, you expect it to sell more then for 1 million units?
Resistance – CRAP. Sold 1 million units at best, except for first Resistance that sold well because it was a first game for the platform
God Of War 3 – 2-3 million units + Wow… hyped and sales worse then for this generation titles like gears Of War.
Heavy Rain – 1.5 million units at best
LBP 1 is successfull with sales and second game sales are not great. First one was successfull because of hype and as a first good game for the system.

you forgot to mention MGS4 that sold for 4+ million units. That is at least good achievement for that platform.

STOP being a fanboy. If these (not all of them) are good games that does not mean they sell well or they are must have. You can’t speak for the consumers.

Look at the Halo or gears Of War games that sell 5+ million units. Now that are a REAL sales. Or look at Nintendo where they sell Mario games for 20 million units. So your point? VANISHED. + you can see news for yourself where sony cancel them for the reason.

Your post dosn’t make sense.
Halo is bigger franchise then killzone 3 it’s the bigger game of xbox so you shout compare gran turismo to halo
Uncharted 2 pass the 4 millions sale it’s not below 4 millions
Infamous sold nearly 2 million.
Socom could pass 1 million mag do it so i don’t know why socom can do this.
resistance 2 sold 1 millions at least
God of war 3 sold more than 3 millions and it become the best saling game in the franchise.
Heavy rain sold nearly 2 millions and you forget that alan wake in xbox360 sold less than 1 miilions and alan wake suppose to sell better than heavy rain.
Little big planet 1 sold 4 millions it’s god the decline of sale of lbp2 is that little big planet was put in the market in holiday.
mgs4 sold 5 million.
Uncharted 2 and 3 and little big planet 2 and maybe god of war should pass 5 millions of sale.
So xbox has halo and gear of war,sony has gran turismo and mgs 4.
You are a xbox fanboy you don’t speek about game who don’t sale well in xbox360

@7

do no IDEA!

kz2 = 2,59m – no -2m
http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/12253/killzone-2/
uncharted2 = 4,46 – no -4m
http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/28733/uncharted-2-among-thieves/
infamous1 = 1,89m
http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/13108/infamous/
resistance1 = 3,74 – no -1m jajaja you no idea!
http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/1893/resistance-fall-of-man/
resistance2 = 2,10
http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/15255/resistance-2/
god of war 3 = 3,65
http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/12533/god-of-war-iii/
heavy rain = 1,65
http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/7703/heavy-rain/
LBP1 = 4,28
http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/12390/littlebigplanet/
METALGEAR SOLID4 = 5,14
http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/6970/metal-gear-solid-4-guns-of-the-patriots/

@7 you are fanboy, shut

halo reach = 7,88m
gear 1 = 6,13
gear 2 = 6,16
Kinect Adventures! = 8,65 lol jajajaj

I like statements without links to sales reports or anything.. Halo Reach should pass the 30 million mark by now imo.

Seems like everyone is tightening their purse-strings. whose next I wonder?

I do declare! I just love how quality games are based off what everyones playing and not what effort the devs did to make the games great. Gears and halo are definetly only bought because of word of the mouth. And, killzone wasn’t the official halo killer, resistance is halos competitor. Killzone is suppose to compete against games such as modern warfare and crysis. But, then again killzone was a dedicated theme way before cod or crysis hit. So I would say killzone is just doing its thing.

Erth stop basing your gaming experiences off of false sales records. Just enjoy the games that are being sent out to us.

both Halo and Gears have perfect online multiplayer, which is why they’re being bought. most people don’t play games for the graphics or pseudo realistic features, they do so for the well balanced and polished gameplay.

btw how come Gears got that kind of word of mouth when it was first released, yet say Killzone can’t come close after three games? how come Alan Wake didn’t sell, when it was heavily promoted?

For Daman
http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/13817/alan-wake/
it will pass one million this week.
I think that game dosn’t sale well because shooter is only type of game that sell so well

That is a simple answer daman. Remember the wide spread talk of the town on 360 and halo/gears? How everyone was praising it? Remeber the equal amount of slander the ps3 and resistance/killzone was getting? I often went into a gamestop and heard the most ridiculous slander that the employees were stating as facts and it made me sick. These are the employees to the most accessible store for gaming that all state these falsities.

And it was all in the name of reservations. Now I go into a gamestop and see the same employees and laugh because I catch them lying again to the customer on multiple occassions. I’ve had it a couple of times where I out sold the employee to the customer just stating facts. Then the customer would be like “oh wow, you should hire this guy!” I was like I’m cool I already have a job.

But, the way things have been selling for the last 3-4 years have been because of people spreading their personal preferences as facts. Gears and halos online are far from perfect, in fact I have to many xbox friends who complain about the exploits and glitches that people use all the time in them. to the point where they just stopped playing them.

yeah, well vgchartz numbers have zero credibilty behind them.

lex,

btw just fyi, Killzone was heavily hyped as a Halo killer in the days of ps2, I rememebr that. ie: http://ps2.gamespy.com/playstation-2/killzone/507821p1.html

thus you’re saying that some random examples of townsmen talking in the local shop of yours would be evidence.

and you see, there’re 150k+ playing say reach every evening, I could hardly believe they would keep on torturing themselves, and it must be positive experience that leads to the word of mouth. i dunno, perhaps you think someone would ever make a decision based on what commenters of vg247 state?

there’re shortcomings in every game, besides unlike say Black Ops it doesn’t really have them in a ny considerable amount. and the polished, tight mechanics and weapons being in the game not for the reason that it might look cool is one of the reasons people continue playing them.

These threads are great … a few relevant posts near the top and then boom, we’re talking about lifetime sales and 360 games. I can’t wait for VG’s awards for community members again this year.

- With respect to this blog posting — I hope these layoffs don’t require a reduction in personnel from these studios, that would be a shame. From the wording in the original post, I’m assuming that Sony is shifting folks to to focus on release/near release games for the NGP/PSP2 and improving the quality of games currently in the PS3/NGP pipeline that have been heavily invested in up to this point.

cool story bro. well, vgchartz have zero evidence behind them. sorry.

lex,

btw fyi the ps2 Killzone was heavily hyped as the Halo killer. ie http: //ps2.gamespy.com/playstation-2/killzone/507821p1.html

so you’re saying that some townsmen at your local shop is evidence of that. okay.

see, there’re 150k+ people playing say, Reach every evening. so sorry, it doesn’t just ‘sell’. it would take more than statements like that to persuade me that they would be torturing themselves. so it must be positive experience that leads to the word of mouth which you seem to hate so much.. besides, i dunno perhaps you believe some make decisions based on what commenters of vg247 say?

also there’s negative feedback for every title, that’s fine actually unless it’s to the extents of Black Ops. one huge complaint I have is the armor lock, there’re tons of people ruining my experience by overusing it. the game is still very balanced. doesn’t change how players choose tight mechanics and weapons that aren’t just there because they look cool, but because they’r usable. see, most play these for stuff like that, and they will probably continue to choose it over recoil sims. I’m just saying, you probably happen to have a different taste, have you ever considered that?

I knew that some idiot will drop the sale figures from Vgchartz that have no evidence on them on whatsoever.

For what it’s worth the numbers are pretty much identical to those used on wikipedia and they mostly link to statements from Sony or the specific developer.

well, they adjust theirs after some official statements, most of them are as good as the lottery.

@21/31 for not having the official sales numbers(no matter the official source of course), Erthazus did came pretty quite close to those numbers if you ask me.
P.D to see the comparision table go to @21 comment

Honestly, I go by a large corporations way of handling things. Not only do I know but I have dozens of friends who worked for them. And, their taught to push reservations on potiential heavy sellers. Its not because the game is great or a must play but because they know people will buy it. My friends have watched several of their co-workers lie about a title just to get a sale. If you don’t think a corporation like gamestop is a big influential point in selling and moving merchandise then you are sadly mistaken.

I don’t discredit that people are having fun playing reach but that doesn’t make it perfect. 150k a night is nice but same can be said for uncharted which I do see people playing online in the high 100k’s on up. Is u2 perfect online no, is it fun yes. A lot of people don’t buy things because its what they really like but because someone else told them its a great game. Wheither its word of the mouth, magazines, or the commercials that promote them.

@33
No idea about most of those figures, but Heavy Rain has done over 2 million:
http://vghq.net/2011/03/06/heavy-rain-sells-2-million-units/

@34 they should buy things what they really like, otherwise if something doesnt suit your personal taste whats the point?

That’s pretty much my point. But, a lot of people tend to go in the store and the first thing they say is. ” what’s that new game everyones playing? I forget what its called” and then the consumer is left to the workings of the distributor. And, I’ve seen it on numorous occassions. I’ve gotten to the point of just shaking my head and walking away. Because at the end of the day I see its just business. As long as I know what I’m there for I try to make it in and out

lex,

I believe a huge corporation like MS or Sony is. I also believe HR outsold AW. it would seem your posts dictate the selection of games hyped by them, see. also, there’re obviously more important things for people to consider, they aren’t as dumb as some seem to think.

100k for Uncharted daily, or you just came across that number once or twice? sure it’s not 15? I was saying *daily*, to this time. Reach is number two on xbl charts every week, since the launch (it was the first at the very launch).

I was saying perfect in the sense that what it does it does so well, besides obviously no computer program can be exactly that, right. more so an online multiplayer one.

last time i spent a couple of days of uncharted 2 online was early december and on average there was about 3k playing

Uncharted 2 posts how many people are online when you hop on so you can see it for yourself. When I was playin online it varied betwee 80k-140k. So I average it to about 100k, that’s a pretty nice following if you ask me.

“have a history of producing genre defining games such as MotorStorm, WipEout, SingStar and EyePet”

Not to mention all of the genre defining games when they were Psygnosis… Shadow of the Beast. Nitro, Awesome etc…

I was on a month ago and that’s the average I saw. But, I also so an influx of people on my list playing last month as well before kz3 and marvel launched

I ‘ve never ever heard anyone stating that game had those numbers, even at launch. sorry, I’m inclined to not believe that.

you might ‘ve came across this numbers occasionally, but those ‘re hardly daily ones.

it is a nice following because its a great game and online is fun, especially the co-op online missions but i dont believe the number you saystands today

I agree with this move good job SONY. This is a smart business decision.

Hey I said they’re are between 100k people playing online on average. I didn’t say daily, and from the times I was on It was definetly between those numbers. Now how is is hard to believe that outta 4mil copies sold 80-100k people could get online here and there? Idk but that’s on you. But I know what I saw when I was on there and playing. And I do recall certain mornings id go on and see between 3k-10k but I thought that was the morning its kindve expected.

Also, sony and their corps don’t post their numbers for online players like live. So the only way you’d know is if you were online playing? From the way you guys are talking I take it you either a. Have never been online with it or b. Don’t play it enough to see the average numbers.

So take it or leave it

if it happened occasionally to you then that’s it might be.

I’m just saying, see I haven’t checked the Reach ones at the very launch (September), and those were above CoD.. but since late last year and to this day the game goes from 30-40k to 150k and above (later I never play it). I’m saying hard to believe the top xbl game is being played by a comparable number.. uncharted 2 did 3.8 million sales in a year btw.

I dunno, perhaps you find the notion of Uc (not being a dedicated online game) being played by the amount comparable to Halo or CoD plausible, we have to just disagree then.

on the topic. I dont think this is such a big deal really. It just shows that Sony is handling busniess and is aware of what they have lined up for the future. At least we can say that for Sony, im not so sure about the other 2 big shot games companies.

oh, and I meant online at the same time actually.. perhaps you’re talking about total number of players in 24 hours? check out http://www.bungie.net then.

edit: right
http://community.us.playstation.com/thread/2117980?start=0&tstart=0