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Forums - Sony - Sony close Studio Liverpool

pokoko on 22 August 2012
Kynes said:

What we should take into consideration is that this was a R+D studio, there are some third party developers who said that at the beginning the PS3 SDK was a mess and some first party studios decided to develop their own tools, that later got into a much improved SDK. I would bet that this is one of those first party studios that helped to improve the developers tools, as there were very technical oriented people.

I hope this don't affect the PS4 SDK, I don't want another generation of consoles with Sony PR guys telling us that they make a console hard to work with on purpose, and first and third party studios being canned left and right due to very costly projects because of stepping learning curves.

I thought Naughty Dog and XDev were Wordwide Studio's primary PS3 tools and support guys?  I know Naughty Dog is the go-to group for pretty much anyone struggling with the PS3 framework.  As far as XDev goes, that's pretty much all they do, work with other studios.  Are you sure you weren't thinking of them?

Also, from what I've read, ease-of-use and interface were the main focus of the Vita SDK, and they supposedly hit it out of the park.  Seems to be a lesson learned.  I see no reason to think they'd go backwards.



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ishiki on 22 August 2012

This is depressing they were my favorite sony studio from my favorite sony franchise... :(



amp316 on 22 August 2012

This is sad. I loved the WipeOut games. Destruction Derby and Lemmings were also very good.



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Ganoncrotch on 22 August 2012
okr said:

ganoncrotch said:
...
Edit : wow reading there on their wiki they also were the devs behind

Alundra - Amazing psone rpg
...
the 2 discworld games :[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[

These games were just published by Psygnosis. Alundra was developed in Japan by Matrix Software, the Discworld games were developed by Perfect Entertainment.

OT: For me this company already lost its relevancy when they were bought by Sony (EDIT 1: This is not meant in a negative way, it just means I didn't care for them anymore as they became a console developer and I was a PC-only gamer back then). Lemmings is by far the most important Psygnosis game in my book (EDIT 2: Ah wait, I just remembered they didn't develop Lemmings either, they just published it; Lemmings was developed by DMA Design, today better known as Rockstar North).

And I will always remember the unique Roger Dean cover artworks for games developed or published by Psygnosis from 1986 to 1992:
Brataccas http://www.mobygames.com/game/brataccas/cover-art/gameCoverId,30691/
Barbarian http://www.mobygames.com/game/barbarian/cover-art/gameCoverId,18384/
Terrorpods http://www.mobygames.com/game/terrorpods/cover-art/gameCoverId,68807/
Chrono Quest http://www.mobygames.com/game/chrono-quest/cover-art/gameCoverId,41546/
Obliterator http://www.mobygames.com/game/obliterator/cover-art/gameCoverId,58947/
Shadow of the Beast http://www.mobygames.com/game/shadow-of-the-beast/cover-art/gameCoverId,25496/
Infestation http://www.mobygames.com/game/infestation_/cover-art/gameCoverId,63739/
Amnios http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/amnios/cover-art/gameCoverId,80129/
Agony http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/agony/cover-art/gameCoverId,69591/


ah okie I was just going by the wiki and stopped every time I read over a game I loved, sorry for getting some of it wrong from the Dev side of things, but saying that studios like that who take great japanese games and turn them into fuctional games for the western market are really needed. Imma take a look see if Matrix software made any other games that got localized tho, thanks for the info.



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Dallinor on 22 August 2012
Chandler said:
Dallinor said:
Chandler said:
Hmm Wipeout...imagine Nintendo hiring those devs and putting them on a new F-Zero. With Sony shutting down all their good studios, outsourcing to nihilistic must be really cheap.


I'm sorry...what? 


Well I really liked the Destruction Derby games and Rollcage and I consider Wipeout a huge franchise in name. Also, Zipper produced at large good games, Unit 13 is one of the better games on PS VITA, shutting them down for one bad game sucks. So yes, I consider them to be good studios.

You might consider Wipeout to be a huge franchise in name, but the reality is it's probably a successful small tier title in the playstation portfolio, with it's glory days in the past. According to the data on this site the franchise didn't break a million with a single release.

Zipper was not closed for one bad game, far from it. They were closed for producing nothing critically or financially sucessful over a 6 year period. They are SCEWS least successful developer this generation. Their two biggest projects combined have sold less than 2 million copies, despite over 100 staff working at Zipper. An online-only Socom game from Slant Six Games, a much smaller less experienced developer, has sold more copies than Zippers main entry sequel in the series; Socom 4. That was the writing on the wall. They were incompetent and the reality is they have probably been nothing but a money sink for Sony this entire generation.



 

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Dallinor on 23 August 2012
BasilZero said:
Dallinor said:

You might consider Wipeout to be a huge franchise in name, but the reality is it's probably a successful small tier title in the playstation portfolio, with it's glory days in the past. According to the data on this site the franchise didn't break a million with a single release.

Zipper was not closed for one bad game, far from it. They were closed for producing nothing critically or financially sucessful over a 6 year period. They are SCEWS least successful developer this generation. Their two biggest projects combined have sold less than 2 million copies, despite over 100 staff working at Zipper. An online-only Socom game from Slant Six Games, a much smaller less experienced developer, has sold more copies than Zippers main entry sequel in the series; Socom 4. That was the writing on the wall. They were incompetent and the reality is they have probably been nothing but a money sink for Sony this entire generation.


I wouldnt really look at the data on this site...most of it is way off like the God of War sales and the PSVita sales.

Either way, the series went from 3 releases on the PS1, to 2 releases on the PS2 then only one release on the PS3 and it was initially only as a PSN title. I think the franchise may have been on the decline. 



 

Dallinor on 23 August 2012
BasilZero said:
Dallinor said:
BasilZero said:
Dallinor said:

You might consider Wipeout to be a huge franchise in name, but the reality is it's probably a successful small tier title in the playstation portfolio, with it's glory days in the past. According to the data on this site the franchise didn't break a million with a single release.

Zipper was not closed for one bad game, far from it. They were closed for producing nothing critically or financially sucessful over a 6 year period. They are SCEWS least successful developer this generation. Their two biggest projects combined have sold less than 2 million copies, despite over 100 staff working at Zipper. An online-only Socom game from Slant Six Games, a much smaller less experienced developer, has sold more copies than Zippers main entry sequel in the series; Socom 4. That was the writing on the wall. They were incompetent and the reality is they have probably been nothing but a money sink for Sony this entire generation.


I wouldnt really look at the data on this site...most of it is way off like the God of War sales and the PSVita sales.

Either way, the series went from 3 releases on the PS1, to 2 releases on the PS2 then only one release on the PS3 and it was initially only as a PSN title. I think the franchise may have been on the decline. 


What if the reason for that is because there were two titles on the PSP and one title on the PSVita o.O? Maybe they divided the releases?

Well I'm just logically trying to put things together.

I would say the switch to handheld releases is also indicative of the series being on the decline. They are smaller projects, requiring less resources. If the franchise was still successful and making Sony bank, I would imagine they would have offloaded the handheld games to another studio to allow Studio Liverpool to continue to work on the home console releases.

The very fact that the studio closed should be screaming at you that the games were probably not making tons of profit.



 

Jazz2K on 23 August 2012
kowenicki said:
leatherhat said:

I think there is. Activision has gutted its UK development. Sony is closing down UK studios, and this whole gen they focused less and less on UK development and more on mainland studios. The reason would be the removal of tax breaks for gave devs in the UK- if this turns out to be the reason why. 


Odd timing seeing as those tax breaks are coming in the UK for the FIRST time.  There havent been any tax breaks in existance for Gaming for the last 20 years and yet now they are about to start they close UK studios?     Sorry but that makes zero sense.

Sony is closing down its UK studios?

Studios:

UK: 5 (now 4)

Japan: 2

US:  7 (now 6)

Rest of world: 1 (Netherlands)

 

I've seen others blaming this on the UK for no tax breaks for gaming. Its a red herring. It is because Sony is down sizing, pure and simple.  They said they had too many studois and they are shrinking them. 

 

 

 


I don't know all the details but here in Quebec (especially in Montreal) we offer either subventions or tax breaks for videogame companies a reason why we have so much in here. Ubisoft, EA, Warner Bros, THQ and many many more. Even studios like Quantic Dream said that they might migrate their studio here...



Dgc1808 on 23 August 2012

This sucks...

I know they weren't the most productive devs on SONY's roster though... Really makes one wonder what happens to Team ICO once the Last Guardian is out.

Also, guys, this likely has nothing to do with the Vita.



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Kresnik on 23 August 2012
Dallinor said:

Either way, the series went from 3 releases on the PS1, to 2 releases on the PS2 then only one release on the PS3 and it was initially only as a PSN title. I think the franchise may have been on the decline. 


Rubbish.

3 releases on the PS1, 2 releases during the PS2's life and 3 releases during the PS3's life.  WipEout was still here - they were just spread out over handheld/home console rather than being solely on one.

All the other points you make are true, though.  The series did top 1 million sales with WipEout Pure (PSP launch title - 'chartz numbers are off), but it's never been a stellar seller.  It's more been indicative of Playstation culture than anything else.  I suspect you're right about putting it on handhelds because there was more money to made from it there (smaller budgets and all).  And to be honest, Psygnosis themselves never really made a runaway 'hit' game.  Everything they've made has been small and niche at best.

Still devestating to see them go though.  It's one of the reasons I love(d) Sony's WWS program so much, they supported the smaller studios developing niche stuff who would have gone bust years ago as independents.  The case is kind of different with Psygnosis because they were such a big publisher in the 80's/90's, but other British publishing houses seem to be really struggling these days and I'd imagine Studio Liverpool as independents would struggle too (Codemasters having to pull back to just racing games; Eidos bought by Square Enix etc.)



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