Chinese giant NetEase has purchased a minority stake in French developer Quantic Dream, as the Detroit: Become Human maker turns its attention to the “development and creation of next-gen games”. The independent Parisian outfit has been a close partner of PlayStation for over a decade now, but French media reports that its contract with Sony has been terminated – although there’s no wording to corroborate that in the official press release.
Nevertheless, it’s perhaps safe to assume that the studio’s future titles will be multiformat. “The landscape of the gaming industry will go through major evolutions in the coming years, with new hardware to come, new business models to explore, and new ways of playing to invent,” said CEO David Cage. “We want Quantic Dream to take a key role in this exciting future and having NetEase by our side as a strategic partner will allow us to expand our creative vision and develop the company to its fullest potential.”
It’s unclear how much money NetEase has invested, but it’s said that it will support the studio’s “vision of becoming a global, multi-franchise entertainment company, and to develop advanced technologies and games for the future”. Polygon points out that it used similar language after investing $100 million into Destiny developer Bungie last year. To be honest, as long as Quantic Dream continues to evolve its interactive storytelling techniques, we don’t really care who’s cutting the cheques.
Update (17:00 GMT): In an interview with Variety, co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumière confirmed that the developer is going multiformat moving forwards: "Our objective is to be present on all platforms where there is an audience that can enjoy our experiences. We will, of course, continue developing on PlayStation, a platform that we know very well after having worked with Sony for 12 years, but we will also be present on all other relevant platforms."
[source prnewswire.com, via polygon.com, lefigaro.fr]
Comments 27
It seems that QD will be going Multi-platform as they won't be relying on Sony's money to buy exclusivity and I bet NetEase will want as many avenues open as possible to see a return on their investment.
At least they haven't been bought by MS so PS gamers should still get to play QD games...
So that's the exciting news they were hinting?
Kind of creepy:
https://twitter.com/Quantic_Dream/status/1090264691090149376?s=19
In the end all gaming devs/pubs will be bought by netease/tencent
"Chinese giant" = mobile
Or maybe they'll be making games for the Nvidia Shield?
@Suren1998
Seems very much the type of games you could stream from any device. I'm sure it was on Ms radar too.
@Neolit I doubt Quantic Dream would agree to any of this if there wasn't some sort of assurance they'd be able to continue to keep making the games they want to.
they may go mulitplatform but no way that they will ever release a game that will NOT release on a sony system.
their releationship is to strong for that.
although i would have realy thought that they would become a true sony studio at some point,guess not.
@Suren1998 Detroit is owned by Sony. That'll be like saying Bloodborne will come to other platforms just because it was made by a third party developer.
Updated with confirmation that they will be going multiplatform.
That’s a lot of spin to announce Quantic Dream has been ditched by Sony.
So does this mean no DLC for Detroit ?
As long as they keep making good games, then this is fine. Plus, multiplatform means that even more people can enjoy their next game.
Looks like Sony has to build some new studios, cause MS already got them beat.
Still, despite this, I'm sure QD might still consider making another PS exclusive if Sony ever desires. Just look at Insomaniac, for example.
I've said before that if Sony were going to buy them then they would have done it a long time ago. Will be interesting to see cos most studios that try to move away from making games with Sony tend to struggle to find an audience due to a lack of a fanbase on other platforms.
The benefits of making an exclusive (especially on PlayStation) are guaranteed investment, the opportunity to focus on one platform to get the most out of it rather then having to make cutbacks to fit other devices. And much more focused marketing since it's in the publisher's interest to push the system. Going multiplatform is no guarantee of success, in fact it's just as likely to end up going wrong, history tells us this.
@LuisCruz13 In what way have MS got Sony "beat" it's more like the opposite if anything.
This makes sense. Game developers are exploring ways to remain solvent and a cash infusion through a minority share buy-in is a good way to achieve this. Of course the investor is going to want maximum exposure for its investment. Yes, Sony is dominating with over 91.6 million in sales, but excluding the 41 million Xbox Ones and 23 million Switches isn’t the way investors work.
RIP Quantic Dreams, it was nice knowing you but don't be surprised when you fail to see the same success.
95% chance this studio will die out now.
So all that gloating and s**t stirring they did towards MS back when Detroit was coming out and now they go multiplat?
I don't get these mediocre game developers.
@LuisCruz13 Quantity is not the same as quality. 😁 😃
Blegh, Chinese investment in video game companies always makes those companies' products start going down the toilet
This is terrible news. QD will likey go the way of Ready At Dawn, making low tier games and VR titles. What a shame.
@LuisCruz13 lol you do know MS bought those studios because of Sony destroying them in exclusives right not to mention two of those studios were already making games exclusive for MS for years so those two really didn’t matter.
@Kogorn733 Just like how Epic Games received a huge investment from Tencent, and hey, their one game is going strong as is their incredibly popular middleware (UE4) and new distribution platform for PC games (EGS).
I mean...Ubisoft also got an investment from Tencent but we dont talk about them.
It can go either way.
All I can say to this news though, if anyone here knows me this isn't a shock:
You can now press A to Jason, and oh dear God no, David Cage can reach more people. The end is nigh
When asked if there were plans to bring their games to mobile with the help of NetEase, de Fondaumière said that the company wants to make its games accessible to a wider audience.
“Our objective is to be present on all platforms where there is an audience that can enjoy our experiences,”
Low quality mobile games coming, RIP Quantic Dreams.
@Kogorn733 As per community rules
Do not use profanity; Use of unsavoury language including profanity and swearing is not acceptable, please remember that this website has users of all ages.
So let's.watch the language ok
Thanks for understanding
Obviously Quantic Dream doesn't know how bad NetEase is.
Detroit didn't sell very well, so I wasn't surprised that Sony didn't buy them.
Still believe Sony should have QD as an exclusive development team. It looks like Microsoft will have QD games on the next box.
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