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HappySqurriel on 14 September 2012
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Kresnik said:
HappySqurriel said:

Closing the studio that makes Wipeout and Formula One games (SCE Liverpool), the studio that makes Socom and Mag (Zipper Interactive), the studio that makes Twisted Metal and Warhawk (Incognito Entertainment), or the studio that made Pursuit Force and Little Deviants (BigBig Studios) may not be that significant on their own but as a group they're quite significant; and if matched by a similar number of closures of studios of similar size and quality it would be a dramatic blow to Sony's ability to produce quality games.


I don't think that's necessarily true at all.  Take your example of Incognito Entertainment (Twisted Metal Black & Warhawk).  The studio closed in 2007.

Have we had sequels to both of those games?  Yes, we have. 

What happened?  Development shifted from being 100% internal to being 80% external with about 20% help from a Sony Studio (In this case, Santa Monica).  Sony still own the IP, they still put some work in to the game, but it was made by a third-party company under an exclusivity contract for that particular game.

I feel like Sony is shifting at the moment from fully owning all the studios they can get their hands on, to owning a few key studios and 'loaning' out their IP's to have games made.  Like they've done with God of War (Ready at Dawn), Ratchet (High Impact Games), Sly (Sanzaru Games), SOCOM (Slant 6), Resistance (Nihilistic) and so on.  Sure, some of thse were crap choices, but the point is they've got choices for the time being.

I don't doubt that at some time in the future, we'll see at least a new SOCOM game - probably a new WipEout game too, despite Zipper and Studio Liverpool being shut down.

But that only works if Sony has the cash-flow to support external development ...

If Sony is closing studios because they can't afford to keep them open and operating, I'm doubtful they can afford to fund similar development at an external studio. Likely the IPs won't die off, but rather than getting 6 or 8 games a year (in total) from the studios that closed we will likely see 1 or 2 games released involving these IPs each year.

If these were the only closures that are going to happen it might not be that bad, but if you add to it another series of closures of similar studios it will start to put a big hole in Sony's PS4 line-up compared to their PS3 line-up.