As most of you know Sony shut the doors on SCE Studio Liverpool over a year ago. This move crushed many PlayStation gamers’ hearts, because this studio has had a long and rich history with PlayStation. A recent trademark filed by Sony has me curious about a few things concerning Studio Liverpool’s revival, except this time it seems they may be going back to the studio’s roots.
Please understand this is all speculation and not fact, all I can confirm is that several days ago Sony filed a trademark for “PSYGNOSIS”, which was once the name of an established developer bought out by Sony before it was rebranded into SCE Studio Liverpool in 2001.
Psygnosis was a highly established developer in it’s glory days, and is responsible for creating series that many gamers still know and love. The big question now is, why is Sony trademarking the term Psygnosis?
I have a couple of theories, and obviously the one most people would want, would be a revival of SCE Studio Liverpool. This would be a great move by Sony to bring something back that gave PlayStation such a rich library in it’s early days. I’m pretty sure this move will also please many hardcore Amiga fans as well.
Another theory is that this could have something to do with Sony’s revival of “Shadow of the Beast”. Shadow of the Beast is one of the early titles responsible for putting Psygnosis on the map as a publishing company. It’s already been said that the PS4 version of Shadow of the Beast is being developed by Heavy Spectrum Entertainment Labs, so it’s hard to see what role Psygnosis would play in this other than licensing.
One last theory is that it has been reported that before SCE Studio Liverpool was shut down for good, they were working on two PlayStation 4 titles. One game is said to have been a motion capture game similar to Splinter Cell, while the other game was said to be a different take on Wipeout. It hasn’t been confirmed if these titles were outsourced to other development studios in Sony’s house, or dropped completely. If Sony were to bring back Psygnosis, this may be the perfect reason to do so.
Here’s a screenshot for those who can not see the listing below. (Thanks Bitbydeath)
Whatever the case is, Sony has for a fact filed a trademark for Psygnosis, and only time will tell what it means to them and for gamers.
http://www.junkiemonkeys.com/is-sony-reviving-studio-liverpool/
