It's always odd to see people assigning "blame" when we have absolutely no idea what was happening behind the scenes.
Were they exceeding budget on a consistent basis? Were they missing goals? Were they pitching ideas that weren't well received? If they were working on a game, did it fail to meet expectations? I have no idea and I doubt anyone here does, either. All I know is that Sony does a review every few years where they probably look at all of that, plus payroll, taxes, and every other economic factor.
Any kind of judgement without knowing any of the pertinent data is nothing but empty talk.
One thing I can say is that "second-party" development is going to continue to be a more attractive solution, especially for smaller games and secondary franchises. It's like buying milk by the jug instead of buying the whole cow.
