Sony is shutting down Bluepoint Games

[Sogreblute]

BraLoD said:

twintail said:

Bluepoint did not want to do remakes anymore. They also didn't want to co-develop games (like they did with Demons Soul). Obviously, them being acquired was contigent on these plans. Why else would Sony need to buy a studio if their sole purpose was to remake games? There are tons of studios that are capable of doing this. 

If we take Schreier's report into account, they were already supporting Ragnarok and continued to do that initially. This makes sense since they were already assigned to work, and supporting the development of a new game can provide them with some valuble experience to do their own thing. And working with SMS, they were not meeting up with deadlines etc.  I'm also not sure if their game was a GaaS title like Destiny or Fortnite as everyone assumes.

It seemed more live-service like GT7 or Astro Bot, in the sense there would be continued content. It was a GoW where you play as Atreus in Hades... sounds more like an extention of Valhalla and more akin to a rougelike like Saros.

Anyways, whoever involved in the management of the team couldn't find a solution. BP couldn't pitch anything that made sense or was doable for them. Just an unfortuante situation all-round. Hopefully most, if not all, get positions in other parts of Sony. 

Why can't Sony have a remake studio, even if only for a bit longer?

Bluepoint did end up pitching a Bloodborne remake and Sony greenlit, as per the same article you are mentioning, so Sony was okay with them being a remake studio for at the very least another game dev cycle, until when Bluepoint could find a promising original game idea to work on if that was the only plan Sony ever had for them (which would already be idiotic to begin with).

Even more when that studio was full of talent.

Sony has acquired Nixxes to mostly only port games, they have been doing it, there are still there, and they had basically the same ammount of employees Bluepoint had, both were acquire the same year even.

So why is that is okay with Sony, but Bluepoint was not? Nixxes is not producing anything original themselves either.

No matter how I look at it, even if Bluepoint was flumbing so bad to find a new game to work on, between Sony pointing them a viable project to at the very least make use ot their talent and give them more time to find better inspiration, and Sony closing down the studio, the better decision was so clear its not even comparable.

Funny enough this is kinda what Nintendo did with Retro Studios. They made Metroid Prime Remastered in early 2023 and released their new game nearly 3 years later. From 2015 - 2022 Retro didn't release anything except a Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze Switch port. Yet Nintendo still kept them open and running and it led to an excellent remaster and a good (not great) game. Though most the blame was on Nintendo for not listening to Retro about the hub area where it was too late in development to walk back.

I don't understand with all the money Playstation brings in why not keep Bluepoint open to support the God of War Remakes? Even though they're not the main developer their expertise in remakes/remasters would help a lot. I'm not worried about Nixxes since Sony isn't stopping PC ports for it's live service games, partnered games, or their own single player games.