no way they will shut down studios, if anything they should increase the amount. If Sony wants to make some money back they need to increase 1st party sales.

@NJ5

fist three days had more revenue than PS video store full launch week,,,so it shouldn't be that low (revenue from home i mean)

Buying Insomniac would cost far too much. It has over 200 employees. Sony owns the IPs of Ratchet and Clank and Resistance, and I'm sure Insomniac would like to stay independent, so Insomniac makes only PlayStation games, and remains independent.

However, a second party contract would be nice. Insomniac are great developers, and they're fast.

2006: Resistance: Fall of Man

2007: Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

2008: Ratchet and Clank Future: Quest for Booty and Resistance 2

2009: Ratchet and Clank Future 3.

I think they'll be able to pump out one R&C a year, and one Resistance every two years.

Thats a given but the ones which would not turn in profit are probably not huge budget games. For example GT5 prologue has sold 2 million along with PSN downloads so that has probably paid for much of the dev costs of GT5, Uncharted must have made profit with 2 million sales, R:ROM, LBP and Motorstorm all profit.

Killzone 2 and Team ICO's game are 2 I dont think will make money but dont see Guerrilla going anywhere, let alone Team ICO.

I agree that the biggest studios are not going to be closed down. In fact it's possible they don't close any studios. Some studios will probably get downsized to make them more profitable though, after all Sony has to tighten the belt and save cash.

Guerrilla has 1059 employees, NG 85 and Sony London Studios 250, I think they could purchase Insomniac no problem.

That would simply br a clean up job, a clean up job which would save them a tiny bit of money and in time those studios could become very handy, do you think it would be worth it?

@RPG: I think Sony's gaming division has to tighten the belt somehow. It's not fair to the other Sony divisions for this one to be untouchable, especially considering they're the least profitable.

Whether they can do this cost cutting without affecting the studios, only Sony knows. It's just my hunch that some studios will get affected. Things will get much clearer in January/February with Sony's financial report coming out. If things are as bad as it seems they will be, they will have to lay more cards on the table as to how they're going to cope with the crisis.

You have a hunch that studios will be affected after Sony has lost so much money, how did you come up with that one? :P

I cant see any of the big studios getting affected, at most some employees getting the kick but like I said, first party games are the ones where Sony make the most money. Every penny goes to them, which is not the case for 3rd party games.

I can tell you without any doubts, people care, esp... the ones who have invested in those studios.  Every company has its own internal deadlines and goals.  And when you get companies that are continually blowing those they will eventually have huge problems.   If some of these games had come out a year or 2 ago do you thing Sony would be in as big of a mess as they are now?  I would tend to think that it wouldn't be as bad and Sony would probably have a few more sales under its belt.

As for my example with Gears, which company would you rather invest in  1 who has a release every 2 years and doubles the sales of the other.  Or one that continually delays, and sells half as much?  It doesn't matter if the game is similar or whatever, it matters that it has a successful game period.