What we know about Bend was that Sony greenlit a sequel for Days Gone, but Bend themselves didn't want to do it.

At some point, if the studio doesn't have a good project and Sony has a clear path to make good use of them, they should just do it, they are the onwers after all.

I'm all if for Sony police of letting the studios decide what to make, it's great actually, but in some situations it's needed to give them direction if there is not a good one going on.

Way better than freaking closing the damn studio.

That's not how it reads to me.

"As part of the same report, Bloomberg also says that Sony Bend pitched a sequel to Days Gone after the game's release in 2019, but was rejected. Sony then apparently moved Bend developers onto two Naughty Dog projects – a multiplayer game (presumably the standalone Last of Us multiplayer game) and a new Uncharted project (which has also been rumoured recently).

Some Bend staff reportedly left as a result of having their autonomy taken away, and leadership allegedly complained to Sony and asked to be moved off of Uncharted development. Sony Bend is now apparently working on a new original game, but it's not clear if this is Days Gone 2, a brand new game, or a return to another back-catalogue game."

https://www.ign.com/articles/the-last-of-us-remake-reportedly-in-development-and-days-gone-2-pitch-rejected

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"When you have this many teams either not working on a live-service title, or developing one alongside their core strengths, it's hard to assume that BluePoint were forced to do anything."

I don't think so at all.  The existence of single player games doesn't really contradict the point that sony clearly had a live service agenda and subsequently would require X amount of teams to work on it. We don't need to assume either way but I think its especially naive for people to say confidently that BP chose to work on GAAS as if we know it was their preference. 

Team Asobi have an established Sony IP aimed at families, live service doesn't fit into that. Suckerpuch have a 10m+ selling IP that already has an online function. Firesprite were intended as a VR studio to support PSVR2, live service doesn't really play a role. Insomniac and Santamonica are responsible for the highest selling games on the system & they demand sequels, none the less Insomniac were developing a multiplayer spiderman that was cancelled in 2024. These facts don't really negate the very obviously live service push sony initiated (12 games that they boasted about to investors initially) and the implications of that in terms projects they were greenlighting during the period.

Did anyone see sonys comment about ps5 pricing and sales? Their solution is to monetize current users even more. Lol, fun.

Glad I went PC.

I just took it as they'll be selling more software, which they inevitably will with a great line up ahead. But yeah, I do expect maybe we'll see some PSN price increases and monetisation tricks here and there.

I for one had no issues with Sony planning multiple live service games. But I'm just sick of all the studio closures, project cancellations, and getting their single player studios involved. Terrible mismanagement.

They're essentially just saying hardware is going to take a hit so they need to increase software/services sales.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, it depends on how they achieve that. 

It could be just trying to increase software/services spending with more promotions, advertising and additional content (good).

Or it could be raising prices and shitty MTX/milking of the customer (bad).

I'll wait for them to actually do something before making judgement.

fair, but I worry PSN is going to increase in costs.  

Whoah. Gut punch.

Are we really giving credit to Bluepoint for GOWR when SMS did the bulk work? 

Not to say they didn't help, but that certainly isn't enough to claim they are more useful than Naughty Dog, who again is able to produce original IP, and also has a second game in development alongside Intergalactic. 

ND has probably been my biggest disappointment this generation. They remade TLoU... and... nothing.