Little bit more, it closed at $250m in fundraising which was one of the largest fundraisers ever for a videogame company, but Harold Ryan is the former CEO of Bungie so he has a lot of clout, Lol. About 83m each on average but obviously some studios will receive more than others. Don't even know what the other two studios are doing Tbh...They've yet to show anything, I think Firewalk was probably the biggest based on how quiet the others seem and received the most investment.

Though the fact that Harold sold it off makes me wonder if he didn't believe in it or if he was just fattening them up to sell them.

At the time Sony bought Firewalk:

Sony Interactive Entertainment to Acquire Firewalk Studios from ProbablyMonsters Inc - Sony Interactive Entertainment

>With nearly 150 employees and growing, Firewalk’s day-to-day operations post-acquisition will continue to be run by the studio’s management team in collaboration with PlayStation Studios External Development team.

>ProbablyMonsters has over 450 employees and continues to focus on growth, having closed a preferred Series A funding round of $250M in January 2022.

Be interested in knowing what they cost, though like I said it wouldn't be added to development costs, Lol.

You'd have to assume Sony wouldn't have spent that much unless they were nuts, the studio hadn't released anything at the time, it was a studio with nothing to its name, the only hard thing you can put a value on are the employees worth (all ~150 of them) and physical location itself. Plus with it being 2023...We're out of the pandemic where studios valuations were inflated, in 2023 everything's value had very much dropped back down to normal levels. So maybe ~150m like you said but I doubt it would be more than that.

Both were new studios which inevitably made them cheaper purchases. Neon Kai were already having issues last year and seems like ultimately the reorg of the dev didn't work out.

It's been speculated that Firewall were acquired because their original owner, Monster, were struggling. They ended up gutting 2 of their other devs.

So the idea is that Sony didn't want that to happen to Firewall after the initial investment they had put into the game, so acquired them in order to continue development and release of Concord.

Firewall was a talented team. So, it's a real pity this is what their fate ended up being.

Unlikely. Sony most likely has resources dedicated to live service that are different from the pool they use for non-live service. 

This money was never going to be spent on anything but live service initiatives. 

Considering how expensive their narrative games have become, live service revenue seemed like it was designed to help offset those costs. If anything, this failure is going to make what you want even less likely to happen.

Finished Ys Origin (Yunica's path), and got to chapter 16~ in Valkyria Chronicles. Two great games.

I started Ys 8 tonight (at chapter 2 currently, beat a couple of bosses) and I'm not feeling it right now. Ys Origin is an excellent game for its scope/perspective, the small budget isn't much of a detriment for its style. Ys 8 on the other hand is kind of butchered by the small budget, not a fan of the combat flow either so far, and it's sometimes hard to make out what small enemies are doing, maybe my eyes need time to adjust to the visuals.

I hope it grows on me because I loved Origin which I thought would be "my cheap entry to the series" vs 8 being "the ultimate Ys" lol. Love the soundtracks though, this series got some bangers.

Origin was my entry to the series too

Its a great entry.

At least you didnt start on Ys 1 and 2 with the bumping battle system and all lmao.

I just saw some comparisons between HZD and the PS5 remaster. I'm blown away with how much better the remaster looks for a game that is already gorgeous lol.

I started with Ys 1 and Ys 1 is my fave game of all time. Bump system is easy to learn. Only takes like 30 seconds to get it. Ys 1 is among the best in the series. I'd say Oath is the absolute best. Ys IX easily being the worst.

PS has been making so many bad decisions especially since the release of the PS5

Eh, I didnt like the bump system, I played 1 and 2 on PC through Steam and the latest version at it as well.

Oath indeed is great but I still like Origin as my favorite so far from what I played.

Ys Origin (PC): 91
Ys I Chronicles+ (PC): 74
Ys II Chronicles+ (PC): 82
Ys: The Oath in Felghana (PC): 90
Ys: Ark of Napishtim (PC): 85