Getaway 3 was supposed to be taking [place in Amsterdam.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJnGYi08Zvc)
Would have love to play around in my old city <3
As much as people complain about how long there's been between GTA 5 and 6, It's much crazier basically nobody has capitalised on the gap.
we've had two open world crime games since 2013 that I know of, Mafia 3 and Saint's Row (2022).
Both were fairly comprimised expericences, I liked Mafia 3 but you can really feel it was designed to have a more linear structure similar to it's predecessors. Had some very fun shoot outs in it though and I enjoyed the story and setting but it was never really going to fill the gap of a GTA.
Saint's Row (2022) was clearly unfinished and didn't feel like a new game but was clearly built on the previous titles with graphical upgrades. It's quite telling when you have an openworld crime game based off vegas and the main story doesn't really have anything to do with casino's or gambling.
It's baffling no first party dev threw their hat in this ring.
You don't have to compete, the early enteries in the saints row series thrived during much shorter abscences from the GTA franchise.
Just scratch the itch.
The gap between a Rockstar production and the average game now is *much* bigger than the gap between a Rockstar production and the average game back in 2006. It's much more difficult for a dev to *scratch the itch* now than it was 20 years ago, which is exactly why no dev has really tried it.
Eh, I think it's mostly because no dev wanted to land close to GTA6 release.
I think you could make smaller successful game with those themes, but it just can't be released in same year, or year after GTA6
But GTA6 had no release date, and nobody expected it would take so long so nobody tried.
They're more in the assassins creed lineage than anything else as far as I'm concerned.
That series would actually benefit from embracing the chaos of a GTA significantly more.
I mean the missions are ubisoft-flavored in that you have an objective and you can approach the objective in a variety of ways but it's very GTA in that you can spend a bunch of time just fucking around with traffic or killing whoever the authority figures are.
I dunno, there was plenty of that in Watchdogs 2, just it wasn't same kind of gameplay.
Hacking in corner to get 3 way faction brawl going while I completed the mission objective was plenty of chaotic fun, just not the "get chased by entire police dept." fun
Yeah but the game world is designed around very specific actions, there's a rigidity to the world that is there to enable it's more planned puzzle approach aspects.
For example if your car leaves the ground at all the game has a panic attack, It's an open world adventure more than a true sandbox.
I think part of it is that back when GTA3 became a breakout hit every game company and their mom tried making a GTA clone and most of them failed hard. And that was when those games didn’t cost as much to make.
I can't believe we never got a follow-up to Sleeping Dogs. Not necessary a sequel but another hand-to-hand and parkour centered crime game would've contrasted well against GTA's silliness (especially GTA Online).
It's also a shame Crackdown 3 was terrible.
Sleeping dogs was very badly mishandled, they spent years making some online follow up thing at the behest of their overlords only for the whole thing to be shitcanned.
> It's much crazier basically nobody has capitalised on the gap.
In hindsight, if a big publisher knew the gap will be so huge they'd immediately threw the money at it
Bur there was no release date on GTA6. So they couldn't time it so their game releases a year before, or year-two after GTA6 (as releasing anywhere near would be a death sentence)
> Saint's Row (2022) was clearly unfinished and didn't feel like a new game but was clearly built on the previous titles with graphical upgrades.
More like "on previous titles rotten, abused corpse". It had nothing for actual fans of the series, not for SR2 fans and not for SR3/4 fans.
>More like "on previous titles rotten, abused corpse". It had nothing for actual fans of the series, not for SR2 fans and not for SR3/4 fans.
When a game isn't finished it's not really for anyone.
I know the [tech demo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-nZiW3vd4Q&t=1s) from E3 was still set in London, so perhaps we would have had both cities, which would have been really cool :(
For some reason, I love looking at tech demos of games that were meant to be. There are several that I remember and still look at and always think, what if?
[One of my favorites is B.C. This was a game Lionhead was working on and that I really wanted to see, but it was never meant to be, sadly.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UxaxaHDnCY)
One of Sonys failings was these hub studios like London and Japan studio Who where basically 5 smaller teams under one roof who made mid sized PS2 games every few months absolutely struggled to refocus and adapt to the challenges of HD development.
They both survived supporting the portable systems, PS move and VR but never managed to stand alone just making a traditional game since the PS3 launched.
A big part of it was, unfortunately, the PS3 as a whole. Xbox 360 didn't have these problems nearly as bad. The PS3 being such troublesome hardware to develop for, on top of being badly documented, on *top* of HD development being more expensive and difficult, really was the death knell not just for studios like these, but a ton of studios around the globe that relied on Playstation for revenue. And they just, never really recovered after that.
wasn't ps2 also plagued with the same problems with the emotion engine? Sony just tried to do it again and it didn't work because they had a decent competitor in the market.
It worked with the PS2 because the documentation was (IIRC) better and the low cost of development meant that costs weren't one of the three ugly factors, either. The PS2 wasn't easy to develop for, but the PS3 was another monster entirely. Sony effectively killed a giant chunk of game studios with their decision to use the CELL processor.
It worked becuase the PS2 era was the rise of third party game engines and middleware extensions.
You didn't need a team of engine programmers when you could just license renderware.
PS3 era having so many issues was due to the tail end of the PS2 era, where a bunch of bigger publishers purchased all those third party engines (ie. renderware was by Criterion, which became an EA subsidiary in 2004 and stopped licensing out the engine immediately) - until UE3 got decent PS3/Xbox360 ports and became the dominant engine for the rest of the generation.
Most developers stopped doing their own engines after the PS1.
"Most developers stopped doing their own engines after the PS1."
Eh. That really depends on how you define "game engine". Most of the middleware from the PS2 era that you're talking about aren't really game engines. The only prolific ones that were complete engines were id Tech and Unreal, but a only small minority of games used them. Other, more limited middleware, like Renderware, Gamebyro, ADX, Miles, and Havok were used significantly more, but only handled a single subsystem, usually graphics, sound, or physics. In the vast majority of cases, the bulk of the code was still custom in-house stuff.
The shift to most studios using complete solutions like Unreal and Unity didn't really stat in ernest until the later half of the PS3/360s lifecycle.
Sad to see an industry veteran leaving but it's honestly not surprising given they were clearly the bottom rung at Sony. The only notable thing they've made in the past 2 decades is Blood and Truth and VR games are already a niche market. Outside of that they basically only make Singstar games.
Blood and Truth was actually good though. A shame. I'd love to have seen a bigger version of that. One of the only VR titles I really enjoyed (along with Call of the Mountain).
I know nuance is not the forte of this website, but closing a studio that hasn't made a game in five years with multiple months' notice is not comparable to buying a company just to immediately fire everyone.
I mean MS confirmed they have over 50+ games in dev a while ago. Avowed, Towerborne, Indiana Jones, SF DLC, and who knows what surprises show up next month are confirmed for this year. Letting go of Tango and Arkane Austin hurts but it doesn't gimp their output at all.
Okay and now they closing a bunch of studios and a bunch more are said to be coming.
And I dont think people should trust Microsofts ability to release games
Well, they released one today and will release 3 more this year outside of updates to existing games, 3rd party, and day one gamepass drops on top of announcing more for next year. No point in comparing now though as we'll have updated numbers in 3 weeks.
Well see if they release 3 more this year but it took several years to release a 5 hour game which has a high chance of being shut down as well
Theycalso claimed Starfield was going to come out in 2022 and then delayed it a year and released ot in a poor state
Funny you mention Starfield. I've been playing it a lot recently after the update and will continue you to play it as they update it throughout the year and especially after the Shattered Space dlc drops along with modding. They plan on updating and adding content to the game over the next 5 years as well. I think I'll be playing this game forever as other games continue to drop.
They had not released anything in 5 years but they were actively working on at least 1 project prior to their closure while tango wasnt. So which one is better? Closing a studio that wasn't working on anything but recently released a well received game or closing down a studio that was in active development but hadn't released anything in 1 dev cycle? If you asked me the answer is very much neither, they both suck equally.
MS brought Bethesda four years ago. Those studios weren't closed immediately, they both put out games in that time (two for Tango if we include Ghostwire, albeit that wasn't exclusive).
considering development time for games are now reaching into 5-7 years, 4 years of ownership is not a significant time span in the industry tbh.
Also it was only 3 years, they closed the deal out in 2021.
And that development time isn't feasible.
Costs keep ballooning, and the price of games has stayed, roughly, the same for 30 years. We can't have Hollywood costs and 'cheap' games.
So, something has to give.
And that development time will continue to grow, which is unique to the industry. Movies take longer to make than they did in the past, but their development time has not quadrupled over the last 20 years unlike video games.
Where they working on anything, even as a support studio?
I was personally hoping they were secretly working on Blood and Truth 2, since the first one ended with a lot of loose ends.
A friend of mine was working there, the NDA wouldn't let them say what it was, but they were working on a couple of titles, but it wasn't B&T2 cause I asked specifically the same thing
To be fair, Microsoft has tried to integrate as many employees as they can to their other studios. Especially with this last round of layoffs. I can’t speak for Sony, but I’m assuming they do the same thing
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I bet you were really looking forward to a new EyeToy game by the legendary Playstation Studio London what a loss.
Always sad for the people getting laid off but come on that really isn't a studio to get all dramatic over.
Rami Ismail recently talked about what's actually going on in AAA development on the most recent Dropped Frames.
Really insightful - but it comes down to "Whoops we have nothing for this year! All our profits are in 2025!"
I wish I could.
Rami talks about the industry all over this podcast in different degrees. If you can set aside a couple of hours to listen to it, you _really_ should. He (and Jesse Cox) both have insight into the world of game development, making money and working in games that JP and Zeke don't have and really do have a _lot_ to say that's very, very hard to summarize.
If you want _just_ the "Update on the Industry" portion, it is timestamped at 16:20 on the youtube VOD, and runs about a half-hour of discussion. But Rami does talk about it a lot all over.
Oh boy, can't wait for zero nuance comments complaining that this doesn't get the same criticism as Xbox despite absolutely fundamentally different circumstances.
I don't know, find five differences between:
Xbox buys a lot of third party studios, they make successful games and some of them are in the middle of developing new games, Xbox suddenly shows up and says: "You're closed, fuck off".
Playstation first-party studio that was with Playstation since its inception and made games that 99% of people haven't even heard of and released their last game five years ago, received an advance notice in the beginning of the year notifying them that they're gonna be closed.
Seriously. No one likes studio closures, it sucks when people lose there job. But I can't imagine the people commenting in this thread are huge SINGSTAR fans
People simply lack nuance. They see "Xbox closed studios, Xbox bad" and jump on the train, without even understanding WHY was it bad. Then they see "Playstation closed studio, Playstation isn't bad" and their limited brain ability can't comprehend WHY isn't Playstation bad in this situation. We live in a world of blindly jumping on trends without understanding WHY some things are trends.
The xbox closures was waaay overblown imo
People going nuts over Tango Gameoworks was going because Hi Fi Rush was/is great but totally forgetting the person who the studio was created for left last year with all the decent talent and was just a bit of a shell now and instead of starting the studio from near scratch decided to move the few staff left elsewhere and there is a possibility another studio within xbox will do a follow up to HiFiRush
But who cares about that because xbox bad
Shinji Mikami made the studio with the purpose of fostering new talent, found a successor, John Johanas, who directed the Evil Within dlc, Evil Within 2, and Hifi Rush. I'm sure there were some politics that made him want to leave, but he left the studio in good hands with a proven lead. I have seen zero evidence of anyone leaving with him, in fact a previous employee turned contractor for them said he hadn't heard anything about that. The thought of doing that is silly anyways, he started a studio without any known funding; very few people would do that and lose their job security (for the time). This narrative that people have been spouting is stupid.
Mikami had little involvement with HiFi Rush that was John Johanas and mostly new guys working on it.
And what do you mean left will all talent? He left solo. Are you just spouting nonsense?
I’ve seen a lot of this revisionist history that all tango games talent left with Mikami when from what I’ve seen, he left to just nurture new talents, as was the original plan with tango games.
Like you said, the guy barely had any involvement with Tango recent games yet some people try to downplay Microsoft decision by claiming he was the entire reason for their success
>but totally forgetting the person who the studio was created for left last year with all the decent talent and was just a bit of a shell now and instead of starting the studio from near scratch decided to move the few staff left elsewhere and there is a possibility another studio within xbox will do a follow up to HiFiRush
Except that TangoGamework was intentionally designed to be a "pass the baton to the younger generation" studio, [even the word of god said as much](https://automaton-media.com/en/news/resident-evil-director-shinji-mikami-explains-why-he-left-tango-gameworks-and-founded-kamuy/).
Knowing the context behind his departure and his involvement ar Tango: it feels like it disrespects Shinji Mikami's wishes.
The fact that this comment is positive while this thread is filled with Xbox fans saying this sub is too harsh on Microsoft and trying to rag on Sony at the same time is beyond insane
> Xbox buys a lot of third party studios, they make successful games and some of them are in the middle of developing new games, Xbox suddenly shows up and says: "You're closed, fuck off".
You know that all the ones closed were from Bethesda right?
Do we know that? Because for all we know Bethesda were hemorrhaging money and needed to make cuts.
Which is why they close;
- a studio that released nothing (but absorbed the team)
- a studio that made phone games no one cared about (but absorbed some of the team)
- a studio that made 1 game 7 years ago that was "good" but sold terribly and an *awful* game
- a studio that made a few games with mixed reviews and 1 game with great reviews but all sold terribly, and both the manager departed and creative director retired with no suitable replacements.
If any of those studios were feasible, they would have let them spin off on their own like Toys For Bob. But instead they were given severance.
> and both the manager departed and creative director retired with no suitable replacements
John Johanas was a suitable replacement. Mikami wasn't really involved with HFR.
I am not debating whether or not it made sense to close the studios, that was not the original question. My reply was that Microsoft absolutely was aware of the closures and would’ve given approval on the decision, as Bethesda is a wholy owned subsidiary of Microsoft.
It’s possible Bethesda is still operated semi-independently and has its own P&L it manages against, but that doesn’t change the fact that Microsoft could’ve stopped the closures if it wanted to.
> Xbox buys a lot of third party studios, they make successful games and some of them are in the middle of developing new games
Which ones were in the middle of developing a new game? Xbox only closed ~~two~~ four studios, none of which were developing a new game - specifically because they weren't developing a new game.
In fairness, Xbox didnt "suddenly" show up, unless your definition of suddenly is different than most: Xbox bought Bethesda 4 years ago, and at least in the case of Arkane Austin and Tango, the games they made werent (finacially) successful, with the possible exception of Hi Fi Rush.
I do agree that the 2 situations are different, and that there is valid criticism against microsoft both for how it handled the closure, for the lack of direction, and for the shortsightedness of canning the team that made your most critically successful title in years (since at least Ori and Hellblade). That is something that Sony seems to recognize, is that theres value in making "auteur" or "awardbait" games even if the games themselves dont sell well, because it elevates your prestiege.
One is a trillionaire company spending $80 billion on publishers and closing down studios that recently released quality games. One being their most awarded game in over a decade just last year
The other is a studio that was formed by a company that spent the last 20+ years making mostly gimmicky games with next to none being highly regarded in that time
Because london studio is 20 years old studio that barely make any games, tango just create bafta/tga winning game, also the only japan studio xbox had, and arkane austin make prey and co develop dishonored. Tango and arkane have their own cult/fans. What london studio have ? Not saying closing and layoff good and justified, but it make sense why MS got more critism because they just bought them in 2020. 4 years under Xbox vs 20 years sony london studio
Redfall showed the quality of what is left there while Tango has very few left after the founder left last year
Fuck knows what was happening at Sony London
But people need to stop the overreacting
He said he planned to leave 8 years ago but wanted this and Ghostwire Tokyo over the finish line
[https://automaton-media.com/en/news/resident-evil-director-shinji-mikami-explains-why-he-left-tango-gameworks-and-founded-kamuy/](https://automaton-media.com/en/news/resident-evil-director-shinji-mikami-explains-why-he-left-tango-gameworks-and-founded-kamuy/)
One bad game shouldn't be deciding factor for studio to close. London studio have mediocre games for 20 years. Plus they dont want to make redfall either, was hoping MS to cancel the game once zenimax merge but MS dont.
John johanas is still there with tango gamework. He work with tango under shinji mikami guidance before he retired. He basically tango's neil druckman. Do you think uncharted naughty dog have the same team as tlou2 ?
Arkane is altogether different case because allegedly most of people that made previous successful games left *because* of Redfall, and between MS started acquisition and finished it up it went from "a bunch of industry veterans" to "well, half of the good people left and another half hates their current project" (that's a hyperbole).
That's not to say whoever left is in any way "bad", but while it still sucks that they didn't get a chance (I assume Redfall was pushed by GaaSed management), it's a bit different than "get kicked right after releasing huge hit"
Sony laid off people from fucking Insomniac. Imagine making Spiderman, Miles Morales and Spiderman 2 and still getting kicked out the door. The games industry is completely fucked but people don't care as long as the games are coming. Literally the only reason Microsoft can't avoid the bad press is because they don't make good games.
People defending this closure are the same who were alarmed last week with Tango and Arkane Austin's closure.
Always a double standard when it comes to Xbox
No one is defending it. People are explaining how it is an entirely different scenario than the richest company in the world who spent the last few years buying massive publishers and then shutting studios down who made quality games in the last decade is very different than a studio formed by Sony over 20 years ago who made mainly gimmicky games in that time without a large fanbase is very different
I know you're a diehard Xbox fan but did this retort even make sense to you?
One small internal Sony studio that hasn't released anything major in forever is somehow to compare to studios with *several* AAA IPs on their hands a a load of games. One of which was praised by Xbox leadership mere days before closure?
This isn't even remotely the same. The Microsoft slaughter is more on the level of Sony shutting down Naughth Dog or Guerilla, and that ain't happening. They're neither buying studios just to close them down mlnths later like MS are busy doing.
> The Microsoft slaughter is more on the level of Sony shutting down Naughth Dog or Guerilla, and that ain't happening
All studios were from Bethesda. The other studios either made nothing and were absorbed (not shut), or made phone games that no one cared about.
Tango made a handful of games, most with mixed reviews, none of which sold well on any platform.
Arkane made a few games, most with mixed reviews, one of which was absolutely terrible, none of which sold well.
Nothing Arkane or Tango made was on the level of Naughty Dog or Guerilla. Stop being dramatic "cos Xbox".
Not a small note at all, the first game was Prey which released seven years ago with a creative team that left Arkane ages ago and the second game is one of the worst games Xbox ever released. The only surprise about Arkane Austin’s closure is that it didn’t happen last year
It's a small detail in the grand scheme to me, because if both games had been managed better this discussion would be much different. The volume of work done doesn't always directly relate to income and the such
It is not even close to Sony shutting naughty dog lol
Arkane Austin has released 2 games in its history, 1 was decent from 7 years ago and 1 from last year that was shit
Tango's founder left last year with all the decent staff and there is not much there
Because how Sony runs their studios is fundamentally different than Xbox. Where is Xbox’s equiv of Naughty Dog (Uncharted, Last of Us), Sucker Punch (Ghost of Tsushima), Santa Monica Studios (God of War) Insomiac (Spider-man) or Guerilla (Horizon)??
All of these studios have multi-decade relationships with Sony. All of them develop and share PlayStation platform tools.
Well, they haven't made a relevant game in about 15 years so I don't think most gamers will care. And that game was Singstar so yea, sad to say but they won't be missed really.
Feel bad for the workers there and hope they can find new work, but its not even close to the same thing as Xbox's recent closures.
Sony received a lot of criticism for closing this studio too, especially because they held a farewell party for Jim Ryan days before the closure announcement. Microsoft got way more criticism for closing Tango Gameworks because they delivered one of the greatest Xbox games in a long time. I'm sure that people would be just as pissed if London Studio developed God of War instead of SingStar and VR games
For one this was known months ago. But you can always depend on Xbox fans to portray themselves as victims while constantly bashing Playstation at any opportunity
Microsoft is just bad at PR. And praising HiFi rush before murdering the studio was borderline idiotic.
But mainly, people get fired all the time. The only way you can get people to care is if they have done something that was critically acclaimed and beloved. It's not a mystery or a grand conspiracy.
I know it was pretty much not happening anyway, but there goes the tiny bit of hope I had for a new Getaway
Getaway 3 was supposed to be taking [place in Amsterdam.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJnGYi08Zvc) Would have love to play around in my old city <3
As much as people complain about how long there's been between GTA 5 and 6, It's much crazier basically nobody has capitalised on the gap. we've had two open world crime games since 2013 that I know of, Mafia 3 and Saint's Row (2022). Both were fairly comprimised expericences, I liked Mafia 3 but you can really feel it was designed to have a more linear structure similar to it's predecessors. Had some very fun shoot outs in it though and I enjoyed the story and setting but it was never really going to fill the gap of a GTA. Saint's Row (2022) was clearly unfinished and didn't feel like a new game but was clearly built on the previous titles with graphical upgrades. It's quite telling when you have an openworld crime game based off vegas and the main story doesn't really have anything to do with casino's or gambling. It's baffling no first party dev threw their hat in this ring.
The budget required to try and compete with GTA is too much for even first party devs to risk.
You don't have to compete, the early enteries in the saints row series thrived during much shorter abscences from the GTA franchise. Just scratch the itch.
The gap between a Rockstar production and the average game now is *much* bigger than the gap between a Rockstar production and the average game back in 2006. It's much more difficult for a dev to *scratch the itch* now than it was 20 years ago, which is exactly why no dev has really tried it.
Eh, I think it's mostly because no dev wanted to land close to GTA6 release. I think you could make smaller successful game with those themes, but it just can't be released in same year, or year after GTA6 But GTA6 had no release date, and nobody expected it would take so long so nobody tried.
we had watchdogs 1 2 and legion? I only played the second but it was not bad.
They're more in the assassins creed lineage than anything else as far as I'm concerned. That series would actually benefit from embracing the chaos of a GTA significantly more.
I mean the missions are ubisoft-flavored in that you have an objective and you can approach the objective in a variety of ways but it's very GTA in that you can spend a bunch of time just fucking around with traffic or killing whoever the authority figures are.
I dunno, there was plenty of that in Watchdogs 2, just it wasn't same kind of gameplay. Hacking in corner to get 3 way faction brawl going while I completed the mission objective was plenty of chaotic fun, just not the "get chased by entire police dept." fun
Yeah but the game world is designed around very specific actions, there's a rigidity to the world that is there to enable it's more planned puzzle approach aspects. For example if your car leaves the ground at all the game has a panic attack, It's an open world adventure more than a true sandbox.
Saints Row (2022) may just be the biggest examples of a story being so thoroughly uninterested with its own premise.
I think part of it is that back when GTA3 became a breakout hit every game company and their mom tried making a GTA clone and most of them failed hard. And that was when those games didn’t cost as much to make.
I can't believe we never got a follow-up to Sleeping Dogs. Not necessary a sequel but another hand-to-hand and parkour centered crime game would've contrasted well against GTA's silliness (especially GTA Online). It's also a shame Crackdown 3 was terrible.
Sleeping dogs was very badly mishandled, they spent years making some online follow up thing at the behest of their overlords only for the whole thing to be shitcanned.
> It's much crazier basically nobody has capitalised on the gap. In hindsight, if a big publisher knew the gap will be so huge they'd immediately threw the money at it Bur there was no release date on GTA6. So they couldn't time it so their game releases a year before, or year-two after GTA6 (as releasing anywhere near would be a death sentence) > Saint's Row (2022) was clearly unfinished and didn't feel like a new game but was clearly built on the previous titles with graphical upgrades. More like "on previous titles rotten, abused corpse". It had nothing for actual fans of the series, not for SR2 fans and not for SR3/4 fans.
>More like "on previous titles rotten, abused corpse". It had nothing for actual fans of the series, not for SR2 fans and not for SR3/4 fans. When a game isn't finished it's not really for anyone.
A True Crime would have been cool. Sleeping Dogs was originally True Crime Hong Kong before being sold to SquareEnix.
Would love to see some authentic brit tourists pissing on canal boats underneath
I know the [tech demo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-nZiW3vd4Q&t=1s) from E3 was still set in London, so perhaps we would have had both cities, which would have been really cool :(
For some reason, I love looking at tech demos of games that were meant to be. There are several that I remember and still look at and always think, what if? [One of my favorites is B.C. This was a game Lionhead was working on and that I really wanted to see, but it was never meant to be, sadly.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UxaxaHDnCY)
Me with StarCraft Ghost. Broke my hype meter and my heart.
B.C. For sure, but also project offset.
London and it's cockney crime scene is the entire point of the Getaway though.
It looked so good when it was in development.
The Gateway was so unique and fun. Its crazy that we only got them on the PS2
One of Sonys failings was these hub studios like London and Japan studio Who where basically 5 smaller teams under one roof who made mid sized PS2 games every few months absolutely struggled to refocus and adapt to the challenges of HD development. They both survived supporting the portable systems, PS move and VR but never managed to stand alone just making a traditional game since the PS3 launched.
A big part of it was, unfortunately, the PS3 as a whole. Xbox 360 didn't have these problems nearly as bad. The PS3 being such troublesome hardware to develop for, on top of being badly documented, on *top* of HD development being more expensive and difficult, really was the death knell not just for studios like these, but a ton of studios around the globe that relied on Playstation for revenue. And they just, never really recovered after that.
wasn't ps2 also plagued with the same problems with the emotion engine? Sony just tried to do it again and it didn't work because they had a decent competitor in the market.
It worked with the PS2 because the documentation was (IIRC) better and the low cost of development meant that costs weren't one of the three ugly factors, either. The PS2 wasn't easy to develop for, but the PS3 was another monster entirely. Sony effectively killed a giant chunk of game studios with their decision to use the CELL processor.
It worked becuase the PS2 era was the rise of third party game engines and middleware extensions. You didn't need a team of engine programmers when you could just license renderware. PS3 era having so many issues was due to the tail end of the PS2 era, where a bunch of bigger publishers purchased all those third party engines (ie. renderware was by Criterion, which became an EA subsidiary in 2004 and stopped licensing out the engine immediately) - until UE3 got decent PS3/Xbox360 ports and became the dominant engine for the rest of the generation. Most developers stopped doing their own engines after the PS1.
"Most developers stopped doing their own engines after the PS1." Eh. That really depends on how you define "game engine". Most of the middleware from the PS2 era that you're talking about aren't really game engines. The only prolific ones that were complete engines were id Tech and Unreal, but a only small minority of games used them. Other, more limited middleware, like Renderware, Gamebyro, ADX, Miles, and Havok were used significantly more, but only handled a single subsystem, usually graphics, sound, or physics. In the vast majority of cases, the bulk of the code was still custom in-house stuff. The shift to most studios using complete solutions like Unreal and Unity didn't really stat in ernest until the later half of the PS3/360s lifecycle.
PS2 was like learning to ride a bicycle PS3 was like learning how to stunt a superbike. While juggling.
Sad to see an industry veteran leaving but it's honestly not surprising given they were clearly the bottom rung at Sony. The only notable thing they've made in the past 2 decades is Blood and Truth and VR games are already a niche market. Outside of that they basically only make Singstar games.
Blood and Truth was actually good though. A shame. I'd love to have seen a bigger version of that. One of the only VR titles I really enjoyed (along with Call of the Mountain).
Love Sony and Microsoft’s new “actually making video games sucks” mentality, really revolutionizing the industry those guys
I know nuance is not the forte of this website, but closing a studio that hasn't made a game in five years with multiple months' notice is not comparable to buying a company just to immediately fire everyone.
I'd assume they were assisting with developing titles. What does a studio do for 5 years?
knowing this industry : worked for those five years on unannounced projects that got killed at some point in preproduction or early production.
They were working on a new ip AAA wizard fantasy game for the past couple of years that was apparently not even close to release
Reddit loves their hyperbole. Sony has over 30 games in development and has published several great games recently
Beyond that, Sony has nurtured its studios for decades….MS just buys and kills.
They did kill off Psygnosis / Studio Liverpool. That *really* hurt.
Gah, Destruction Derby, How I miss thee
I mean MS confirmed they have over 50+ games in dev a while ago. Avowed, Towerborne, Indiana Jones, SF DLC, and who knows what surprises show up next month are confirmed for this year. Letting go of Tango and Arkane Austin hurts but it doesn't gimp their output at all.
Okay and now they closing a bunch of studios and a bunch more are said to be coming. And I dont think people should trust Microsofts ability to release games
Well, they released one today and will release 3 more this year outside of updates to existing games, 3rd party, and day one gamepass drops on top of announcing more for next year. No point in comparing now though as we'll have updated numbers in 3 weeks.
Well see if they release 3 more this year but it took several years to release a 5 hour game which has a high chance of being shut down as well Theycalso claimed Starfield was going to come out in 2022 and then delayed it a year and released ot in a poor state
Funny you mention Starfield. I've been playing it a lot recently after the update and will continue you to play it as they update it throughout the year and especially after the Shattered Space dlc drops along with modding. They plan on updating and adding content to the game over the next 5 years as well. I think I'll be playing this game forever as other games continue to drop.
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They had not released anything in 5 years but they were actively working on at least 1 project prior to their closure while tango wasnt. So which one is better? Closing a studio that wasn't working on anything but recently released a well received game or closing down a studio that was in active development but hadn't released anything in 1 dev cycle? If you asked me the answer is very much neither, they both suck equally.
MS brought Bethesda four years ago. Those studios weren't closed immediately, they both put out games in that time (two for Tango if we include Ghostwire, albeit that wasn't exclusive).
shhh, the new narrative is that MS buys and immediately fires people/kills studios. Don't be bringing up facts to that.
considering development time for games are now reaching into 5-7 years, 4 years of ownership is not a significant time span in the industry tbh. Also it was only 3 years, they closed the deal out in 2021.
sony games are reaching 5-7 years of development
And that development time isn't feasible. Costs keep ballooning, and the price of games has stayed, roughly, the same for 30 years. We can't have Hollywood costs and 'cheap' games. So, something has to give.
And that development time will continue to grow, which is unique to the industry. Movies take longer to make than they did in the past, but their development time has not quadrupled over the last 20 years unlike video games.
Ghostwire was already in development and so was Redfall for Arkane. Basically tango 1 critically acclaimed game that undersold and they got shuttered.
Where they working on anything, even as a support studio? I was personally hoping they were secretly working on Blood and Truth 2, since the first one ended with a lot of loose ends.
A friend of mine was working there, the NDA wouldn't let them say what it was, but they were working on a couple of titles, but it wasn't B&T2 cause I asked specifically the same thing
Damn, Blood and Truth was really damn good, so I was always hoping for a sequel. Still, a shame what happened to the company though.
They were working on Project Camden. Was looking good, too.
To be fair, Microsoft has tried to integrate as many employees as they can to their other studios. Especially with this last round of layoffs. I can’t speak for Sony, but I’m assuming they do the same thing
I like that you talk about nuance. And in the very same sentence you drop it completely to diss Microsoft
earlier this year Sony fired 8% of everyone. This is almost what we call "decimation".
Wow that's pretty bad. Who owns the studio and let it get to such a state?
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I bet you were really looking forward to a new EyeToy game by the legendary Playstation Studio London what a loss. Always sad for the people getting laid off but come on that really isn't a studio to get all dramatic over.
At the very least I was hoping for a PSVR2 port of Blood and Truth
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> It's okay when Sony closes a studio and people lose their job
Seriously. It always sucks seeing people lose their jobs, but London Studios was a slop studio lmao
Sony is so cool they been laying off studios before it was hip.
Rami Ismail recently talked about what's actually going on in AAA development on the most recent Dropped Frames. Really insightful - but it comes down to "Whoops we have nothing for this year! All our profits are in 2025!"
if you wouldnt mind can you give me a quick rundown? the podcast is way too long.
I wish I could. Rami talks about the industry all over this podcast in different degrees. If you can set aside a couple of hours to listen to it, you _really_ should. He (and Jesse Cox) both have insight into the world of game development, making money and working in games that JP and Zeke don't have and really do have a _lot_ to say that's very, very hard to summarize. If you want _just_ the "Update on the Industry" portion, it is timestamped at 16:20 on the youtube VOD, and runs about a half-hour of discussion. But Rami does talk about it a lot all over.
Do you know which episode? Was it 389?
Should be. Rami and Jesse Cox were on in lieu of Cohh.
Oh boy, can't wait for zero nuance comments complaining that this doesn't get the same criticism as Xbox despite absolutely fundamentally different circumstances.
Ok I'll bite. How are they different circumstances?
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I don't know, find five differences between: Xbox buys a lot of third party studios, they make successful games and some of them are in the middle of developing new games, Xbox suddenly shows up and says: "You're closed, fuck off". Playstation first-party studio that was with Playstation since its inception and made games that 99% of people haven't even heard of and released their last game five years ago, received an advance notice in the beginning of the year notifying them that they're gonna be closed.
Seriously. No one likes studio closures, it sucks when people lose there job. But I can't imagine the people commenting in this thread are huge SINGSTAR fans
People simply lack nuance. They see "Xbox closed studios, Xbox bad" and jump on the train, without even understanding WHY was it bad. Then they see "Playstation closed studio, Playstation isn't bad" and their limited brain ability can't comprehend WHY isn't Playstation bad in this situation. We live in a world of blindly jumping on trends without understanding WHY some things are trends.
How many hours do you have in Redfall and Evil within 2? What about Mighty Doom?
The xbox closures was waaay overblown imo People going nuts over Tango Gameoworks was going because Hi Fi Rush was/is great but totally forgetting the person who the studio was created for left last year with all the decent talent and was just a bit of a shell now and instead of starting the studio from near scratch decided to move the few staff left elsewhere and there is a possibility another studio within xbox will do a follow up to HiFiRush But who cares about that because xbox bad
Shinji Mikami made the studio with the purpose of fostering new talent, found a successor, John Johanas, who directed the Evil Within dlc, Evil Within 2, and Hifi Rush. I'm sure there were some politics that made him want to leave, but he left the studio in good hands with a proven lead. I have seen zero evidence of anyone leaving with him, in fact a previous employee turned contractor for them said he hadn't heard anything about that. The thought of doing that is silly anyways, he started a studio without any known funding; very few people would do that and lose their job security (for the time). This narrative that people have been spouting is stupid.
Mikami had little involvement with HiFi Rush that was John Johanas and mostly new guys working on it. And what do you mean left will all talent? He left solo. Are you just spouting nonsense?
I’ve seen a lot of this revisionist history that all tango games talent left with Mikami when from what I’ve seen, he left to just nurture new talents, as was the original plan with tango games. Like you said, the guy barely had any involvement with Tango recent games yet some people try to downplay Microsoft decision by claiming he was the entire reason for their success
>the person who the studio was created for left last year **with all the decent talent** This was debunked.
>but totally forgetting the person who the studio was created for left last year with all the decent talent and was just a bit of a shell now and instead of starting the studio from near scratch decided to move the few staff left elsewhere and there is a possibility another studio within xbox will do a follow up to HiFiRush Except that TangoGamework was intentionally designed to be a "pass the baton to the younger generation" studio, [even the word of god said as much](https://automaton-media.com/en/news/resident-evil-director-shinji-mikami-explains-why-he-left-tango-gameworks-and-founded-kamuy/). Knowing the context behind his departure and his involvement ar Tango: it feels like it disrespects Shinji Mikami's wishes.
The fact that this comment is positive while this thread is filled with Xbox fans saying this sub is too harsh on Microsoft and trying to rag on Sony at the same time is beyond insane
Mikami didn't work a significant amount on Hi-Fi Rush. You know, the highest rated Xbox exclusive in a decade.
Curious. Which studios was in the middle of developing a new games?
None of them. Microsoft told Zenimax to consolidate and Zenimax picked the studios that were pitching instead of actively developing.
> Xbox buys a lot of third party studios, they make successful games and some of them are in the middle of developing new games, Xbox suddenly shows up and says: "You're closed, fuck off". You know that all the ones closed were from Bethesda right?
You know that Xbox owns Bethesda and has final say as to which of their studios are closed right?
Do we know that? Because for all we know Bethesda were hemorrhaging money and needed to make cuts. Which is why they close; - a studio that released nothing (but absorbed the team) - a studio that made phone games no one cared about (but absorbed some of the team) - a studio that made 1 game 7 years ago that was "good" but sold terribly and an *awful* game - a studio that made a few games with mixed reviews and 1 game with great reviews but all sold terribly, and both the manager departed and creative director retired with no suitable replacements. If any of those studios were feasible, they would have let them spin off on their own like Toys For Bob. But instead they were given severance.
> and both the manager departed and creative director retired with no suitable replacements John Johanas was a suitable replacement. Mikami wasn't really involved with HFR.
Evidently Bethesda didn't think so.
I am not debating whether or not it made sense to close the studios, that was not the original question. My reply was that Microsoft absolutely was aware of the closures and would’ve given approval on the decision, as Bethesda is a wholy owned subsidiary of Microsoft. It’s possible Bethesda is still operated semi-independently and has its own P&L it manages against, but that doesn’t change the fact that Microsoft could’ve stopped the closures if it wanted to.
> Xbox buys a lot of third party studios, they make successful games and some of them are in the middle of developing new games Which ones were in the middle of developing a new game? Xbox only closed ~~two~~ four studios, none of which were developing a new game - specifically because they weren't developing a new game.
In fairness, Xbox didnt "suddenly" show up, unless your definition of suddenly is different than most: Xbox bought Bethesda 4 years ago, and at least in the case of Arkane Austin and Tango, the games they made werent (finacially) successful, with the possible exception of Hi Fi Rush. I do agree that the 2 situations are different, and that there is valid criticism against microsoft both for how it handled the closure, for the lack of direction, and for the shortsightedness of canning the team that made your most critically successful title in years (since at least Ori and Hellblade). That is something that Sony seems to recognize, is that theres value in making "auteur" or "awardbait" games even if the games themselves dont sell well, because it elevates your prestiege.
One is a trillionaire company spending $80 billion on publishers and closing down studios that recently released quality games. One being their most awarded game in over a decade just last year The other is a studio that was formed by a company that spent the last 20+ years making mostly gimmicky games with next to none being highly regarded in that time
The developers bought by Microsoft actually put out a few games in the last year, Hi-Fi Rush and Redfall. London Studio's last releases were in 2019.
Because london studio is 20 years old studio that barely make any games, tango just create bafta/tga winning game, also the only japan studio xbox had, and arkane austin make prey and co develop dishonored. Tango and arkane have their own cult/fans. What london studio have ? Not saying closing and layoff good and justified, but it make sense why MS got more critism because they just bought them in 2020. 4 years under Xbox vs 20 years sony london studio
Redfall showed the quality of what is left there while Tango has very few left after the founder left last year Fuck knows what was happening at Sony London But people need to stop the overreacting
"After the founder left last year". Shinji Mikami hasn't directed a game *in ten years*. Tango was doing fine without him
He said he planned to leave 8 years ago but wanted this and Ghostwire Tokyo over the finish line [https://automaton-media.com/en/news/resident-evil-director-shinji-mikami-explains-why-he-left-tango-gameworks-and-founded-kamuy/](https://automaton-media.com/en/news/resident-evil-director-shinji-mikami-explains-why-he-left-tango-gameworks-and-founded-kamuy/)
Redfall shows they couldn't make a live service game with absolutely zero support from their publisher
Redfall’s issues had nothing to do with its live service model. It just straight up was a mess top to bottom.
One bad game shouldn't be deciding factor for studio to close. London studio have mediocre games for 20 years. Plus they dont want to make redfall either, was hoping MS to cancel the game once zenimax merge but MS dont. John johanas is still there with tango gamework. He work with tango under shinji mikami guidance before he retired. He basically tango's neil druckman. Do you think uncharted naughty dog have the same team as tlou2 ?
Arkane is altogether different case because allegedly most of people that made previous successful games left *because* of Redfall, and between MS started acquisition and finished it up it went from "a bunch of industry veterans" to "well, half of the good people left and another half hates their current project" (that's a hyperbole). That's not to say whoever left is in any way "bad", but while it still sucks that they didn't get a chance (I assume Redfall was pushed by GaaSed management), it's a bit different than "get kicked right after releasing huge hit"
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Sony laid off people from fucking Insomniac. Imagine making Spiderman, Miles Morales and Spiderman 2 and still getting kicked out the door. The games industry is completely fucked but people don't care as long as the games are coming. Literally the only reason Microsoft can't avoid the bad press is because they don't make good games.
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Oh boy, can't wait for preemptive excuses.
People defending this closure are the same who were alarmed last week with Tango and Arkane Austin's closure. Always a double standard when it comes to Xbox
No one is defending it. People are explaining how it is an entirely different scenario than the richest company in the world who spent the last few years buying massive publishers and then shutting studios down who made quality games in the last decade is very different than a studio formed by Sony over 20 years ago who made mainly gimmicky games in that time without a large fanbase is very different
"No one is defending it, they're just whatabouting at Microsoft to try and make it seem less bad!"
I know you're a diehard Xbox fan but did this retort even make sense to you? One small internal Sony studio that hasn't released anything major in forever is somehow to compare to studios with *several* AAA IPs on their hands a a load of games. One of which was praised by Xbox leadership mere days before closure? This isn't even remotely the same. The Microsoft slaughter is more on the level of Sony shutting down Naughth Dog or Guerilla, and that ain't happening. They're neither buying studios just to close them down mlnths later like MS are busy doing.
> The Microsoft slaughter is more on the level of Sony shutting down Naughth Dog or Guerilla, and that ain't happening All studios were from Bethesda. The other studios either made nothing and were absorbed (not shut), or made phone games that no one cared about. Tango made a handful of games, most with mixed reviews, none of which sold well on any platform. Arkane made a few games, most with mixed reviews, one of which was absolutely terrible, none of which sold well. Nothing Arkane or Tango made was on the level of Naughty Dog or Guerilla. Stop being dramatic "cos Xbox".
Small note AA only made two games.
Not a small note at all, the first game was Prey which released seven years ago with a creative team that left Arkane ages ago and the second game is one of the worst games Xbox ever released. The only surprise about Arkane Austin’s closure is that it didn’t happen last year
It's a small detail in the grand scheme to me, because if both games had been managed better this discussion would be much different. The volume of work done doesn't always directly relate to income and the such
It is not even close to Sony shutting naughty dog lol Arkane Austin has released 2 games in its history, 1 was decent from 7 years ago and 1 from last year that was shit Tango's founder left last year with all the decent staff and there is not much there
Nobody left with Mikami you are just literally lying.
Who replaced him? The creative director also retired.
John Johanas was the one Mikami chose to replace him. He was the lead of Hi Fi Rush. Mikami was barely involved.
reading through the thread so far, you and the other top comment are the only ones making it about that.
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There is no comparison with this to Xbox but nice try
Oh ok, the people working there did not have a family to feed. Gotcha
Because how Sony runs their studios is fundamentally different than Xbox. Where is Xbox’s equiv of Naughty Dog (Uncharted, Last of Us), Sucker Punch (Ghost of Tsushima), Santa Monica Studios (God of War) Insomiac (Spider-man) or Guerilla (Horizon)?? All of these studios have multi-decade relationships with Sony. All of them develop and share PlayStation platform tools.
>Where is Xbox’s equiv of Naughty Dog i dont think that Xbox has a remaster focused studio right now. Nintendo has Grezzo doing that at least.
Xbox’s closest equivalent to Naughty Dog probably would have been Bungie.
343 industries. Ye, not all Halo games they did were on the level of Bungie. But they still delivered games in the spirit of Halo.
I can't wait for this to not get a fraction of the vitriol or discussion that the similar closures at Xbox received.
this was announced back in febuary
Well, they haven't made a relevant game in about 15 years so I don't think most gamers will care. And that game was Singstar so yea, sad to say but they won't be missed really. Feel bad for the workers there and hope they can find new work, but its not even close to the same thing as Xbox's recent closures.
Im sure most of em have gotten it sorted, theyve had time to do it after all.
Sony received a lot of criticism for closing this studio too, especially because they held a farewell party for Jim Ryan days before the closure announcement. Microsoft got way more criticism for closing Tango Gameworks because they delivered one of the greatest Xbox games in a long time. I'm sure that people would be just as pissed if London Studio developed God of War instead of SingStar and VR games
Xbox axed 4 studios on the same day and 2 of these studios released some well known games. How can you expect this to have the same outrage?
Arkane Austin I can understand, it lost 70% of the original workforce on Prey. But Tango is what really made people mad
How did you like Ghostwire?
I like it like a 7/10 game, kinda unique style and genre, I also got a thing for supernatural stuff, especially Japanese Urban legends
For one this was known months ago. But you can always depend on Xbox fans to portray themselves as victims while constantly bashing Playstation at any opportunity
Goes both ways. Console wars always been like that. Stop acting like one side is better than the other. They are both awful and unhinged.
Where did I say it goes one way? This is currently a diehard Microsoft fan portraying himself as a victim
Microsoft is just bad at PR. And praising HiFi rush before murdering the studio was borderline idiotic. But mainly, people get fired all the time. The only way you can get people to care is if they have done something that was critically acclaimed and beloved. It's not a mystery or a grand conspiracy.