Despite its spree of buying studios to bring them into the PlayStation Studios fold, PlayStation doesn’t believe that it is taking these developers off the market. In response to recent conversations about the big video game companies consolidating video game development, head of PlayStation Studios Hermen Hulst said that PlayStation is helping the growth of new studios.
Having absorbed seven studios into its PlayStation Studios label so far, Hulst states that the acquisition of studios isn’t an arm’s race in an interview with French YouTuber Julien Chièze.
“We are always working with teams that have a strong creative vision that we feel fit PlayStation Studios culture like a glove, which they do,” said Hulst. “That’s really important to us. And also a lot of these teams we’re actually helping stem them up, so we recently acquired Haven and that’s our first studio in Quebec, first studio in Canada, founded by, amongst others, Jade Raymond.”
“We were really impressed with their ambition level, with their creative vision, and I think bringing them in-house actually enables us to help create a studio, to help stand up a studio much faster and much more rigorously than keeping them external, so the idea that we’re taking teams off the market is not necessarily true,” continued Hulst. “It’s sometimes quite the opposite that we’re helping come to life new studios that are going to deliver wonderful new experiences to the PlayStation community.”
PlayStation is currently using some of its resources to fight Microsoft’s impending acquisition of Activision Blizzard, with recent rumours stating that PlayStation boss Jim Ryan “personally visited” EU headquarters to voice his concerns over the acquisition.