Tag: Industry - Page 36
News Ex-Witcher, Hitman, Dying Light Devs Form a Fresh Studio Named Strange New Things
Face the strange
We don't usually write about the opening of a new studio until we know that it's working on something PlayStation related, but the newly formed Strange New Things already sounds too promising not to mention. Made up of developers who have worked on The Witcher series, the most recent Hitman game, Dying Light, and more, the outfit is...
News Ubisoft Acquires DJ Hero Developer from Activision
FreeStyleGames becomes Ubisoft Leamington
Here's a surprise: Ubisoft has acquired DJ Hero developer FreeStyleGames from Activision. The UK-based team – which most recently made Guitar Hero Live – will be renamed Ubisoft Leamington, and will be headed up by Ubisoft Reflections chief Richard Blenkinsop. Presumably the developer will be integrated...
News Kojima Productions Is Quietly Poaching the Top Talent from Konami
Brain drain
Hideo Kojima has departed Konami – and he's bringing all of the top talent with him. The new Kojima Productions, which will launch Death Stranding exclusively on the PlayStation 4 as its first project, has quietly been fultoning high-ranked employees and adding them to its office. We already know that art director Yoji Shinkawa,...
News Sony Set to Close Guerrilla Cambridge Studio
MediEvil developer shut down after 19 years
It's always sad when we have to report on a studio closure, but it's even worse when it's a developer that, over the last 19 years, has clearly shown it has real talent. Game Industry reports that Sony is going to shutter Guerrilla Cambridge, the UK branch of Killzone and Horizon: Zero Dawn developer...
Talking Point Has Holiday 2016 Devalued New Games?
Cheap as chips
Booting up a £19.99 copy of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare over the Christmas break, we couldn't help but ponder whether this holiday gone has seriously devalued new games. All games get price drops eventually, of course – some sooner than others – but this feels different. On the European PlayStation Store right now you can nab...
News PS4 Physical Game Sales Increase As UK Industry Suffers Blow
Overall sales down 13.4 per cent
Worryingly, the PlayStation 4 was the only home console to see sales of physical software in the UK increase year-over-year in 2016. The Nintendo 3DS also built upon its previous year's tally, but every other platform shrunk. That's resulted in a 13.4 per cent decline in game sales compared to 2015 in Britain, with...
News Merry Christmas! Crytek Closes a Whopping Five Studios
In Crysis
Crytek, the major developer perhaps best known for the Crysis series, has broken silence on rumours regarding its inability to pay staff, confirming that it's closing down a whopping five of its wholly owned studios. The move means that its Budapest (Hungary), Sofia (Bulgaria), Seoul (South Korea), Shanghai (China), and Istanbul (Turkey)...
Rumour Warner Bros Montreal Scraps Suicide Squad Game
Harley fin
Word is that Warner Bros Montreal has scrapped its long-in-development Suicide Squad game – despite it being in production for two years. The title – which would have seen you take control of the eponymous band of anti-heroes – was never formally announced, but was rumoured to be a co-op title. Apparently, it failed to impress...
News Westworld Writer Recruited to Help Pen 'Intense' The Last of Us: Part II
Halley Gross brought on board
Neil Druckmann won't be the sole writer on The Last of Us: Part II, as the director will be aided by Westworld's Halley Gross. According to IMDB, the American is credited with writing episodes such as 'Trompe L'Oeil' and 'The Adversary', while she's worked as an editor on several others. Writing on Twitter, Druckmann...
News Bruce Straley Will Not Co-Direct The Last of Us: Part II
Astray
This is a little bit of a bummer: Bruce Straley will not co-direct The Last of Us: Part II. The veteran game director, who's been with Naughty Dog for many years but is best known for his partnership with Neil Druckmann on The Last of Us and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, is taking a year-long sabbatical from game development after many years in...
News Advertising Standards Passes Judgement on No Man's Sky, Says It Didn't Mislead Customers
Off the hook
We were wondering when we were going to hear about the outcome of this. Back in September, it was revealed that the UK's Advertising Standards Authority was looking into No Man's Sky following complaints that the game's marketing and pre-release media didn't represent the finished product. Since then, developer Hello Games has released...
Talking Point Why Are Fall's Biggest Blockbusters Flopping?
Signs of decline
It's not been a good few months if you pay attention to the UK sales charts. There have been a handful of success stories: Mafia III, against all odds, exceeded expectations – while Battlefield 1 has done well for itself. But by and large, it's been a quarter of catastrophic sequels: Titanfall 2? Down. Gears of War 4? Down. Call...
News Media Molecule Opens Satellite Studio in Brighton
Pier we go
Media Molecule's borderline cringe working culture has culminated in the creation of a new satellite studio based in Brighton. The Guildford-based organisation has opened the new workspace in order to accommodate a group of devs who have been commuting from the seaside town for many years. While those on location will still make regular...
News Sleeping Dogs 2 Hopes Put Down as United Front Games Shuts Shop
You won't be seeing Wei Shen again
Sleeping Dogs deserved so much more. The Hong Kong-based, pork bun-wielding cult classic didn't exactly set the cash registers alight, but it was universally adored by those who played it – primarily because it was essentially Grand Theft Auto without crap controls. While many held out hope for a sequel, however,...
News PS4 Pro Requires Very Little Investment from Developers
One or two people working on Sony titles
CD Projekt Red's decision not to update The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for the PlayStation 4 Pro has prompted some people to ponder just how many resources developers need to commit to the new machine. According to Digital Foundry, the answer is very few, as it's reporting that just one person from Sony Bend is...
News Job Losses at London Studio as PlayStation VR Worlds Dev Is Completed
Team restructuring around new projects
Sony San Diego's not the only team in the platform holder's stable to sadly lose staff this week, as London Studio has also been struck by a round of layoffs. The first-party team has led the charge on PlayStation VR over the past few years, and it's behind one of the peripheral's showpiece launch titles:...
News MLB The Show Survives as Sony San Diego Restructures
Drawn to Death not dead either
Sony San Diego has seen a large number of layoffs – thought to be in the region of 40 to 50 employees – but the MLB The Show team has been unaffected. Despite being one of the Japanese giant's lower-profile exclusives, the baseball series sells strongly every year in the United States – and is widely considered...
Rumour MLB The Show Developer Sony San Diego Shuttered?
Caught out
MLB The Show rarely gets much coverage on websites like ours, but it's a strong seller for Sony in the United States every year. However, reports are swirling that the studio may have been shut down. Not exactly the kind of news that will go down well at a time when the Japanese giant seems to be attracting waves of negative press. We...
News Sony: We Don't Discriminate Between AAA or Indie
"It's all about great games"
Sony often gets criticised for paying too much attention to so-called "smaller" games, but speaking at Gamescom 2016, likeable PlayStation exec Jim Ryan has said that the platform holder primarily cares about great titles – regardless of whether they're made by massive studios or minuscule ones. Asked if the company...
News Buzz! Developer Relentless Software Shuttered
X
In the days before the Nintendo Wii, it was actually Sony that ruled the casual games space – especially in Europe, with franchises like Singstar, EyeToy Play, and… Yes, Buzz!. For those of you who don't remember it – the series only seemed to be popular in the Old World – it was essentially a multiplayer quiz title, where you controlled...
News Sony Profits as PS4 Sales Continue to Surge
PlayStation offsets earthquake disaster
Sony is still in the black, though it can thank PlayStation for offsetting the costs inflicted by Japan's recent earthquake disaster. Profits plunged 42 per cent year-over-year in the three month period ending 30th June, with the company racking up ¥56.2 billion ($542 million) in operating income. The...
News Burnout Makers Begin Work on New Racing Game
Burn rubber
Three Fields Entertainment recently released Dangerous Golf, a kind of twist on Burnout's very popular Crash mode. But while the title offered a nice warm-up for the UK-based studio, we've all been waiting for it to begin work on a racing title really. Fortunately, the outfit announced yesterday that work has begun on a "driving game"...
News Ex-Sony Exec Adam Boyes Enters the Lang Zone at Iron Galaxy
Oh Boyes
In news that will elate Giant Bomb fans, ex-Sony executive Adam Boyes has joined Iron Galaxy as its CEO, replacing founder Dave Lang, who will continue to have a very active role in the studio's business development. Iron Galaxy, for those who don't know, is perhaps best known for Killer Instinct on the Xbox One and Windows 10 – but it...
News Don't Panic, Shu Yoshida Has Reclaimed His Twitter Account
And he's living the life of riley in Montpelier
Normal service has resumed on Shuhei Yoshida's Twitter account, after it was hacked earlier today by a group of ne'erdowells. The cheerful chap didn't seem to be too bothered by the infiltration, though, as he spent his afternoon supping wine and scoffing snails in the idyllic French city of...
News Pokémon Go Makes Nintendo More Valuable Than Sony
And we don't just mean the PlayStation business
Pokémon Go fever is so obnoxiously enormous that even we've been relegated to writing about it, as Nintendo's stock has climbed so high over the past couple of weeks that the company's currently more valuable than Sony. And, to be clear, we're not just talking about the PlayStation division – we're...
News Ubisoft Solves a Mystery That's Bugged Mankind Since the Beginning of Time
Finally
It was alluded to in Homer's Odyssey and it was brought up in the Bible, but now Ubisoft has attempted to solve a mystery that has cursed mankind since the beginning of time: just how do you pronounce the company's name? It's not You-Bee-Eye-Soft that's for sure. Muppets!
News Popular PlayStation Suit Adam Boyes Is Leaving Sony
Getting back to game development
Adam Boyes has one of the most recognisable faces at PlayStation – but the Vice President of Developer and Publisher Relations is moving on. The suit – perhaps best known for announcing Final Fantasy VII Remake and Shenmue III at last year's E3, as well as featuring in
News Sony Reveals Over 20 Million Users Are Subscribed to PlayStation Plus
Not bad, that
The PlayStation 4 continues to perform beyond even Sony's expectations, we know that much, but how's PlayStation Plus doing these days? The premium service, which is required to play most PS4 games online, has had its fair share of critics over the years, but the Japanese company has always been keen on racking up more profit in the...
News Criterion's Teased Racing Game Has Been Cancelled
Project burnt out after two years of silence
Back at E3 2014, Burnout creators Criterion Games showed some early footage of its multi-vehicle racer, showing players switching mid-race between ATVs, wingsuits, planes, helicopters, jet-skis, and other vehicles, exciting many people. However, it seems that, after two years of uncertainty on the...
News Sony CEO Kaz Hirai Is Absolutely Raking in the Cash
Exec's salary more than doubles
According to Variety, ex-PlayStation president and current Sony CEO Kaz Hirai received a salary of $4.9 million for the fiscal year which ended 31st March – more than double his compensation from the previous year. It's the most the company has paid to a CEO since the firm was forced to reveal the wages of its top...
E3 2016 Attendance Drops as E3 2017 Is Dated
Ready to go again?
Whether you enjoyed E3 2016 or not, we're going to do the whole damn thing all over again next year. The ESA has confirmed that E3 2017 – we suppose we better get the tag ready – will run between 13th June and 17th June in 2017, which is more or less identical to this year's show. That's despite attendance for this year's...
Soapbox Let's Be Honest, E3 2016 Was Disappointing
Sammy's not feeling all that stoked
In the cold, hard light of day – with more than four hours sleep under my belt – I've come to a bold, brave conclusion: E3 2016 was a bit disappointing, wasn't it? Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the spectacle of Sony's conference and the banter that accompanied the bad ones – but it's hardly been a vintage...
E3 2016 Sony's Added a New Studio to Its First-Party Family
Well, sort of
Sony has no shortage of first-party studios, but it looks like a new team has been officially recruited to the Worldwide Studios family. SIE San Mateo has always had a light role in game development – it houses various internal technology groups and Entwined developer PixelOpus – but it seems like it's going to have more...
News Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards Will Return on 1st December
On every gaming screen and VR
Oh, great. As we mentally prepare ourselves for a week of exorbitantly late night streams, industry icon Geoff Keighley has revealed that we can look forward to one more on 1st December, when The Game Awards will return. We thought that last year's show was just about as good as one could reasonably expect an awards...
News Is an Until Dawn Sequel Unlikely Now?
Supermassive Games eyeing multiformat move
We'd always assumed, following the surprise commercial success of Until Dawn, that Sony would have signed up a sequel straight away – but it sounds like developer Supermassive Games has other plans. Despite being one of the Japanese giant's closer partners, the developer has expressed interest in breaking...
News Quantum Break Dev's Next Game Could Come to PS4
Studio working on new game with new partner
Remedy released Quantum Break to a somewhat muted response a couple of months ago, but now the Finnish firm is beginning to look to the future. And its outlook may include the PlayStation 4, as it's stated on its website that it's "developing a brand new game with a new partner". The company has been...
News GameStop's Anticipating New Console Reveals at E3 2016
PS4, k?
Who's ready for new consoles? You're… Not? Well, it seems like you're going to get them anyway, with GameStop hinting that E3 2016 next month will host the reveal of new hardware. Sony is, of course, rumoured to be prepping the announcement of the rumoured PlayStation 4K, while recent reports have pointed to about a dozen different Xbox...
News Forget About E3 2016, It's Time to Get Hyped for TGS 2016
Event's main graphic released
'Tis the season for game conventions, alright! While it may be E3 2016 that's approaching fastest, the main graphic has been revealed for this year's Tokyo Game Show, which is set to run from 15th September through 18th September. Illustrated by Ippei Gyoubu, the theme for 2016's art seems to centre on changing...
News Hideo Kojima Modelling New Studio on Media Molecule
Small and intimate
Do you remember Hideo Kojima's recent worldwide tour? The auteur picked up a lot of tips for the running of his own independent studio, and he's modelling it on Media Molecule. Speaking with Game Reactor, the veteran revealed all about the new Kojima Productions, which is working on a PlayStation 4 exclusive under the Sony...
News Sony Expects to Sell a Lot of PS4 Consoles This Fiscal Year
Like, a lot
Sony's released its sales forecasts for the fiscal year which started in April, and they paint a very interesting picture for the PlayStation 4. According to the company, it expects to sell 20 million new-gen systems through the period which ends 31st March, 2017. That's a sizeable increase on previous fiscal years, with the console...
News Rockstar Games to Reveal Exciting Future Projects Soon
Red dead?
Could we get a glimpse of Red Dead Redemption 2 at this year's E3? It's still one of this author's big predictions for next month's show, and while label Rockstar Games is remaining quiet, publishing overlord Take Two has hinted that we may hear more soon. Indeed, speaking as part of the firm's latest round of financial results, CEO...
News Now Ubisoft's Saying Consoles Like PS4 will Be Replaced by Streaming Services
French publisher seems to agree with EA
Earlier this week, EA's Peter Moore stated in an interview that he thinks consoles as we know them will die out sooner or later, and will be replaced by streaming technology. Needless to say, this prediction didn't sit particularly well with everyone, and now, adding fuel to the fire, Ubisoft CEO Yves...
News Disney Infinity Dumped as Avalanche Software Shuttered
Company will license out brands
Disney Interactive is exiting the video game business for what feels like the umpteenth time. The publisher has announced today that it will no longer self-publish console titles, meaning that it's shuttering Avalanche Software and ditching toys-to-life release Disney Infinity. The latter will result in around 300 job...
News Consoles Like PS4 Will Die Out Sooner or Later, Reckons EA's Peter Moore
Here we are again
One conversation that never seems to end in this industry, the ultimate fate of consoles like the PlayStation 4 is always up for debate. Will similar machines still exist five, ten, or twenty years from now? Or will we be past the point of relying on boxes that sit beneath our televisions? According to EA's always talkative Peter...
News Destiny Continues to Be a Big Hit for Activision
Shooter has almost 30 million users
Activision's revealed some pretty impressive Destiny statistics during the company's most recent financial report, claiming that the game now has almost 30 million registered players. Those keeping pace will remember that back in November of last year, the publisher stated that Destiny had around 25 million users...
Soapbox Why Hitman Proves More Games Should Release Episodically
Sam Brooke makes a case for experimental releases
It's safe to say that plenty of gamers aren't fans of episodic releases. Apart from Telltale Games – and even then it took until The Walking Dead to get people on board – developers always seem to get a hard time whenever they opt for a less conventional release system. Sure, you could say that...
News Sony Has Now Shipped a Staggering 40 Million PS4 Consoles
Beast mode
PlayStation helped propel Sony to a very profitable financial year, with the company's operating income up 329 per cent to ¥294.2 billion (~$2.7 billion). The company's gaming division played a huge part in that, its own sales up 11 per cent, with profits doubling to ¥88.7 billion (~$819 million). For a snapshot of just how well the...
News PSN's Raking in More Cash Than the Entirety of Nintendo
It's true
Remember the days when Sony perpetually felt like one flop away from financial catastrophe? This author does – after all, Push Square was founded during some dark times for the Japanese manufacturer. The company's doing much, much better under the leadership of Kaz Hirai, however, and PlayStation especially is in a positive place. One...
News You Better Hope SEGA Publishes Persona 5 in Europe, 'Cause NIS America Won't Be
Uh oh
Persona 5 is probably getting a Japanese release date next month, but the painful wait for any kind of confirmation of a European launch looks set to continue. For years now, NIS America has been bringing Atlus' games to European shores, ensuring that the likes of Persona 4 Golden made it overseas. However, following SEGA's purchase of Atlus,...
News Oddworld's Lorne Lanning: Consoles Lasting 7 Years Is Becoming Less Viable
It's an odd world
While there are conflicting reports on where developers stand on the PlayStation 4K, industry veteran Lorne Lanning has hinted that Sony may be making the right move in an interview with Game Informer. The silver haired suit – who co-founded Oddworld Inhabitants – suggested that he personally believes the concept of seven year...
