It gets lost because of the sheer volume of studios and first party games that Sony has, but they have actually been shutting down more and more studios over the last few years. We’ve seen Zipper Interactive, Studio Liverpool, Evolution Studios, and Guerrilla Cambridge all close down, while entire franchises have been left by the wayside to die.
As gamers, this is a bit of a bummer- there are so many formerly great studios and franchises, so many genres and kinds of games, that players still miss till date. And it seems like Kenny Linder, who was a former developer at BigBig Studios, itself formerly a part of Sony UK, doesn’t seem to mind these closures much at all. Speaking in a NeoGAF thread made on this issue, Linder pointed out that “Profits are being gained BECAUSE they’re ditching non-profit making segments. It’s business, unfortunately.” He also added the following sarcastically, “Sony should DEFINITELY keeping spending millions of pounds developing games that don’t sell.”
If there is anyone who has reason to complain about Sony’s handling of their studios, a former employee at one of said studios would be it. However, it sounds like Sony’s former developers understand the realities of business and the market. As much as we would all like to see a new Wipeout, ModNation Racers, SOCOM, or Puppeteer, the fact of the matter remains that those are genres that few companies are able to find success in, outside of Nintendo and maybe Ubisoft. While I dislike Sony’s decision to close down these studios, I cannot ultimately blame them all that much- plus, unlike over at Microsoft where each closure or cancellation takes out a major chunk of their total overall lineup, it’s not like Sony has much of a shortage of games anyway.
