Sony & Microsoft throw money at third parties but close their own studios

Yep, you read that right. This isn't a post attacking Sony. This isn't a post attacking Microsoft. This is a post attacking BOTH.

This gen, Microsoft and Sony have both went diehard for the third party giants. Let's do a roll call:

2014, EA partners with Microsoft for the first person shooter IP, Titanfall

2014, Activision partners with Sony for exclusive marketing rights of Bungie's new IP, Destiny.

2015, Activision again partners with Sony for Black Ops 3 and Assassins Creed for marketing, exclusive timed DLC.

2015, Bethesda partners with Microsoft for exclusive marketing rights of Fallout 4.

2015, EA partners with Sony for exclusive marketing rights of Star Wars: Battlefront

2016, Ubisoft partners with Microsoft for exclusive marketing rights of new IP, Tom Clancy's The Division.

You get the picture.

But why, why you say, does this matter? Who cares?

Microsoft and Sony throw millions, no let's say they waste millions, on third party games trying to outdo each other and the PC instead of utilizing resources for their own first party. In many instances, these deals have been a bust. For example, Fallout 4, marketed by Microsoft, still sold more on PS4. I haven't checked recent numbers, but I think Xbox One and PS4 went close with sales of Star Wars Battlefront, even though Sony had the marketing for the game.

To add insult to injury, both major companies have recently closed big studios (Lionhead, Evolution) while spending this entire gen focusing more on third party exclusive marketing rights than boosting their own first party franchises and studios.

Yes, I am aware there have been games exclusive to Sony this gen, and yes I am aware there have been games exclusive to Microsoft this gen. I am aware some of them are totally awesome and a blast to play. I am also totally aware of the long list of games coming this year and next, exclusively to both of these companies. The point still stands.

Do you, System Warriors, fault Microsoft and Sony for starting dick measuring contests with third party companies, while in the next breath closing the doors of their own first party studios? Why or why not? Discuss.

It is kind of pathetic, but I guess they don't want to end up like Nintendo. Strong 1st party, paltry 3rd party.

I can't fault either for 2 reasons.

1 - Both studios made bad games in the eye of the public / i like Driveclub and have it, would probably have the Fable game too and if i didn't, someone else would/

2 - No one wanted their games. /One side wanting Motorstorm, the other Black & White/

The only thing i can fault is Sony droping the Vita. Don't care what sins MS did.

Both are trimming fat from unproductive studios, frankly I don't see the problem with either of them closing the studios they closed.

If I'm going to criticize them it's they give their studios too much freedom, and surely some of these studios think they have a sugar daddy going to money-hat them no matter what like they got tenure.

Look at how Sony closed Psygnosis / SCE Liverpool. They kind of deserved it. Instead of making WipeOut games, or the various kinds of creative and cutting edge games they had in the past like Colony Wars, G-Police, Destruction Derby, whatever. Instead, Sony let them adopt boring ass niche F1 pet projects which they pumped out on an annual basis, and eventually that was all they did. Well **** them. They were the architects of their own demise.

For the recent MS layoffs, it's the same thing on a worse levels. 5/8 of those recent studios didn't even make games, a couple studios made some 360 Kinect games and nothing since, others haven't even announced a single game since opening. One studio made indie shovelware that was unremarkable by indie-shovelware standards. Another made Project Spark... 'nough said. Then there's Lionhead, the hardest pill to swallow, but let's get real. The only game they had owned by Microsoft was Fable 2 in 2008, 8 years ago, and since then it's just been shit. Fable Journey. Fable Legends. Fable 3. Now free-to-play game that was missing milestones left and right. It got the ax.

As for Sony, they were right to close Evolution, as sad as that was too. Frankly, they too haven't made a good game since 2008, the year Motorstorm Pacific Rift released, 8 goddamn years ago. Their projects that sunk them into non-productiveness include Motorstorm Arctic Edge, Motorstorm Apocalypse, Drive Club, Drive Club PS+ whatever that was, and then Drive Club with motorbikes. Poo, just poo. And I'm not glad to see it go, I'd of loved to see a Motorstorm HD collection of first two games at least or a new Motorstorm game on new PS4 hardware, it was never meant to be. After seeing how Apocalypse shit the bed I'm guessing I'd of only been severely disappointed anyways.

Yes, MS and Sony are the same in this regard with how they shut down studios, but you shouldn't fault either of them for doing what they did. Problems are on studio ends. Maybe the problems MS and Sony share were not keeping those studios on a path to success and maybe giving them the slack to become complicit with their own mediocrity. Giving them a false sense of security. Well, you gotta spill a little blood as the big man to let the rest of those still working under you, to let them know where they stand and where they'll be if they don't get their shit together.

Less risk involved going through third parties.

Console gamers aren't interested in exclusives. They want limited sub-PC's and that's what they'll get. PC gaming will embrace Ninty but the others are a lost cause.

@beardmad: i think thats what it boils down to. cost of development is too high to, essentiially, set the benchmark on your platform (which is what first party is all about). its going to be exclusive to your platform which means sales will be more limited. 3rd parties have access to many platforms so they reduce the risk and they can always outspend sony or MS.

if these first party games were selling a lot of consoles then it could still be worth it...but they are not. i dont think the release of any first party game this gen has caused a spike in console sales. the closest is, maybe, MK8. but even then it wasnt massive.

first party is usually a differentator, a reason to choose 1 console over another but its just not having that effect this gen.

I mean when you think of it, all the studios that closed either made a bad, broke game or hasn't made anything in years. I wish they would have just reassigned them to something else but it's clear why they did what they did.

Honestly exclusives are not the big thing anymore so why not close them.

If it dont make Sony money, they will abandon it. I also find it funny that Sony is now focusing first party on mobile games. Which with their 1st party being so weak on PS4, i find hilarious. But their fans dont care, so it doesnt really matter.

@iandizion713: Why are you lying? They opened a new studio to make mobile games the rest are making PS4 games.

@brn-dn: I didnt lie. Sony are opening 1st party mobile studio to focus on mobile gaming. Sony stated it would also use Playstation IPs with them.

@iandizion713: nintendo is probably focusing more heavily on mobile gaming right now than sony is. Pokemon go is a larger and more expensive effort than anything sony is doing I'm sure

@jcrame10: I hope so, i cant wait for Miitomo.

It's not the 90's anymore

First party doesn't matter, it hasn't mattered in over a decade.

With tax write offs and what happens between companies that is unheard by the consumer, trying to figure this out as if we can see it all is ridiculous.

@jcrame10:

I have been saying this for a long time. People laugh when I back Nintendo's business decisions. Microsoft and sony are playing short term,and relying on the product of others for financial gain. These outside sources have already overcome the console manufacturers. Big third party developers are running the show, not sony.

Guess 3rd parties are the real deal these days..

yes, but whether its admitted or liked, its working what Sony and Microsoft do as a business model has generally been more successful in moving hardware units than anything Nintendo has done for the past 5 years. And, as all three are hardware manufacturers, in this business to sell consoles, that is what matters more than anything else.

Activision, EA and Ubsioft run the shitshow, even though most of their games have been half assed and reviewed poorly. But they still sell millions, and can delivery low quality products because they know they have the monopoly. If these three decided on Monday that they were strictly going to support Microsoft and Xbox One and not Sony at all anymore, PS4 would dramatically tank in the next couple years. Guaranteed.

Third party>Microsoft and sonys first party studios. Commercially speaking it's not even close.

@jcrame10:

I do not know the answer to this question, but compare the financial reports over the last 20 years. Who is really making money?

@Heirren: I love that they spend so much to hold on to third party knowing Nintendo can take it back without paying a dime. Same way PC is taking it back. You live by third party, you die by third party. It aint nothing but fools gold.

I agree, it's a case of misguided priorities.

Exclusives do matter despite what many of you morons think. You just want quality studios making them.

I think its really hard to cultivate strong teams with corporate culture. I've been on a few development teams and they set the bar so low, or if the developer is... bad they are also really bad at firing, they have to give the employee room to grow with the company and improve. It can be years before they can fire someone and by then managers have probably alienated and driven the talent with developers that drag teams down like anchors. The also tend to think you can just toss more people onto a project during crunch time to get stuff done faster... usually it just results in massive slow down getting everyone up to speed, additional communication overhead, and more overlapping work where people trip over each over each other..

Software development is still a relatively new discipline. It's also radically changing, and in the video game world probably severely undervalued. Companies are going to close all the time and big companies are always going to struggle to adapt to how a team works.

Im alright with them closing studios if those devs are sucking, costing too much, and not providing much.

Get rid of the bullshit.

Close them up if they are dragging.

They have one job, to make games, and make those game decently well at the very least. If they cant do that, why waste more resources on it.

There are plenty of third party devs out there that are very well established with better track records for developing succesful games, I too would place my money on them.

It's because both companies are creatively bankrupt.

Thats not too smart though, the studio can still be put to work. Sony could have had them helping on other games. This is what Nintendo does, they have all their studios helping each other out. So if one studios game does bad, it doesnt matter much cause they make good money helping other studios out.

Publishers often, in any industry, lose money on upwards of 7+ projects for every high-money maker. Video games included. So yeah, Sony/MS can shift that risk to 3rd parties very easily.

They let other companies like Ubisoft, EA, and Activision cycle around their collection of projects, and then latch onto the games that look to be surefire hits. I don't doubt more consoles have been sold off the backs of big games Destiny, The Division, and sports games than anything else. The only risk Sony/MS put up for those is maybe a few million for exclusive advertising. They don't risk the $100+ million to make and advertise themselves, nor are they paying for the devs to create a bunch of games hoping for one to stick. They just jump on the big ones. Neither company's first party can compete with third party in terms of success, so why bother trying in most cases.

It's easier throwing money at someone else to make it rather than having all the Problems

Some studios already do that, Santa Monica helping with the development of The Order 1886.

And there is such a thing as having too many devs that are unproductive.

Yes, well you can have them around to help other devs, but you are assuming other devs need a whole nother studios help. And that having two different studios open when one isnt doing much while the other one is, is a good thing.

Nintendo is very different, so applying their methods here doesnt help the argument. They also have smaller teams an not as many dev studios.

These studios are a ton of money and developing games is another ton of money, for then to either take too long in releasing a product and for that product to flop... You cant keep wasting resource/money on studio like that.

@kend0_kap0ni: This is true, i was assuming from the lack of 1st party games people complain about, that maybe it could be improved by using said studio to help release other games. If you remove the studio and dont replace them, well then your 1st party support that people complained about just got worst.

But i agree cost comes into play, i think this is why Sony is being so conservative and have just announced a new 1st party mobile studio that will focus on mobile games using Playstation IPs.

@Bigboi500: haha please don't tell me you're going to say this and then in the next breath tell me nintendo isn't? Last of Us, Sunset Overdrive, Scalebound, Recore, Until Dawn, Horizon Zero Dawn, Dreams, Ori and the Blind Forest for example are definitely not run of the mill and out of creativity.

Exactly. People who say exclusives don't matter are just salty people who are made that a certain game is not on their consoles or just PC gamers. Without exclusives, what would be the freaking point of multiple consoles????

They closed mediocre studios. They didn't make a good game in ages. The good studios that Microsoft closed were PC only studios; Ensemble and Digital Anvil. On other hand the decent studio sold by Sony was SOE, that made PC MMOs.

As for this topic, this is mostly true for MS because their first party is completely shit and small. MS barely has a first party, but worse their studios have ZERO talent. Yet they are closing more studios. The Coalition while I love what they did with Gears UE is still largely unproven...

On the other hand while I was mad that they closed Lionhead, because Fable use to be my favorite Xbox franchise and I still hoped that they would make a GOOD Fable game, I now see why MS closed that trash ass studio for good. For long Lionhead has promised(lied) that they would give us an amazing Fable game, but instead each Fable game became WORSE!!! Fable 1 was their LAST amazing game to me. Fable 2 was "okay" and lackluster compared to the first. Fable 3 was just the nail in the coffin for the series... And just showed how freaking lazy Lionhead has become. Thats what Lionhead has become lazy. All they had to do was create a Fable game like the first one but improved thats all, but that was too much to ask.

And I know this is very ruthless, but if I were Sony I would be hesitate about hiring their former Lionhead employees. They bring nothing to the table...

Also I am glad MS closed down all its Kinect studios. That at least shows us the Kinect is officially dead and wont be coming back. :)

But still MS as a first party is garbage. Look at their first party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Studios#Software_development_studios

Now look at Sonys...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment#Software_development_studios

And like I said again its worst due to the fact that MS first party LACKS talent. At least Sony has Santa Monica, Sucker Punch and the well known Naughty Dogs. But it still gets worse...MS studios not only lacks talent, but they don't know how to "multitask" or make other games. MS seems to make their studios specifically for ONE game. 343 is made only to make Halo. Coalition is only made to make Gears. Turn10 is only made to make Forza. Its sad.

At least Naughty Dog showed us they can make MORE than just Uncharted, they made something that arguable TOPPED Uncharted and that game is Last of Us. Guerrilla Games decided that they are not going to only stick to making Killzone and so they are trying something new and that is HORIZON.

MS studios simply do not do this...

Yeah Santa Monica has helped with a lot of games over the years. Journey, PS Allstars, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture, are the ones I can think of off the top of my head without researching.

Most games nowadays are taking longer development cycles, so we are seeing less and less exclsuives. Last gen it seemed that a studio could pump out a game every 2 years, now its turning into 3 and even 4 years for some companies.

Sony first party studios are still in high number (not even including second party companies that continuously work with Sony, like Insomniac Games and Quantic Dream), ripped from Wikipedia:

• Japan Studio – Ape Escape series - LocoRoco series - Legend of Legaia series - The Eye of Judgment series - Echochrome series - Everybody's Golf series - Everybody's Tennis series -Patapon series - White Knight Chronicles series - The Legend of Dragoon - Talkman - Rogue Galaxy - Mainichi Issho - Piyotama - The Last Guy - Demon's Souls - Trash Panic - Numblast -Kung Fu Rider - Beat Sketcher - Bleach: Soul Resurrección - Puppeteer - Knack - The Playroom - Destiny of Spirits - Bloodborne - The Tomorrow Children
  • J.S.E.D.D. - Soul Sacrifice - Soul Sacrifice Delta - Freedom Wars
  • PlayStation C.A.M.P. - Tokyo Jungle - Rain - Patchwork Heroes^[62][63] - Open Me!^[64]
  • Team Gravity – Siren series - Gravity Rush
  • Team Ico - Ico - Shadow of the Colossus - The Last Guardian
• Polyphony Digital – Gran Turismo series - Motor Toon Grand Prix series - Tourist Trophy - Omega Boost

North America

• Naughty Dog - Crash Bandicoot series - Jak and Daxter series - Uncharted series - The Last of Us - The Last of Us Remastered
• Bend Studio - Syphon Filter series - Resistance: Retribution - Uncharted: Golden Abyss - Uncharted: Fight for Fortune
• San Diego Studio - MLB: The Show series - NBA series - ModNation Racers series - Sports Champions series - The Mark of Kri - Pain - High Velocity Bowling - Pinball Heroes - Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest - LittleBigPlanet Karting
• Santa Monica Studio - God of War series - Twisted Metal series - PixelJunk series - Fat Princess series - Kinetica - Downhill Domination - War of the Monsters - The Con - Neopets: The Darkest FaerieBlast Factor - FlowCalling All Cars! - Warhawk - Everyday Shooter - Linger in Shadows - Flower - .detuned - Carnival Island - Escape Plan - Journey - Datura - Starhawk -Sorcery - Sound Shapes, The Unfinished Swan - PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale - Hohokum - Fat Princess: Piece of Cake^[65] - The Order: 1886 - Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
• Sucker Punch Productions – Sly Cooper series - Infamous series
• Pixelopus - A small team within SCE Worldwide Studios^[66] - Entwined

Europe

• Guerrilla Games – Killzone series - Horizon Zero Dawn
  • Guerrilla Cambridge – MediEvil series - C-12: Final Resistance - Primal - Ghosthunter - 24: The Game - LittleBigPlanet PSP - TV Superstars - Killzone: Mercenary - collaborated in the development of the Killzoneseries -Wipeoutseries -EyeToyseries -Heavenly Sword-PlayStation Home-PlayTV
• London Studio - SingStar series - DanceStar Party series - EyeToy series, EyePet series - Wonderbook series - The Getaway series - This is Football series - World Tour Soccer series -Passport To... series - PlayStation Home - NBA ShootOut '97 - Porsche Challenge - Rapid Racer - Spice World - Team Buddies - Hardware: Online Arena - Fired Up - Gangs of London -Aqua Vita - Operation Creature Feature - The Trials of Topoq - Mesmerize Distort - Tori-Emaki - Mesmerize Trace - Beats - RA. One: The Game - DON 2 The Game
• North West Studio – New studio in North West England focused on creating VR games for Morpheus
• Media Molecule – LittleBigPlanet series - Tearaway - Tearaway Unfolded - Dreams

@jcrame10: Them some cool old games. Would come in handy for the PS4 and Vita 1st party droughts.

And just about every one of those games are made by second or third parties, further strengthening my point.

@Bigboi500: and they're all exclusive to sony or Microsoft. How is this any different than yoshis woolly world being made by a third party company?

@iandizion713: wasn't talking so much about the games as much as the lengthy list of developers that are taking forever to release games, because games are getting so much more technicial and high budget to make.

Nintendos games are lower budget and don't take as much time to make so they have shorter development cycles. Sidescrollers can't even be compared to more modern games. Really the only nintendo studio you could compare to sony would be monolith soft since so far they are the only ones who have made any sort of open or 3d style game for wii U. And so far, they only have one game this gen and it will probably stay that way as their next game development is for sure for nintendos next console.

@iandizion713: and since were strictly talking about first party it seems, Bayonetta 2 and hyrule legends dont count

If those first party devs don't produce games that sell then it's the same waste of money that they spent on the 3rd party deals.

Who said anything about Yoshi or Nintendo?

3rd party studios close all the time too. Simple fact is you have to sell the game you make in order to stay in business.

Well then i guess greatness awaits. Also Monolith Soft works on many games, not just Xenoblade. They helped on Skyward Sword, Project X Zone, Animal Crossing New Leaf, Pikmin 3, Splatoon, A Link Between Worlds and Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer.

@Bigboi500: yoshis woolly world is an example of second/third party it's not like that business model is exclusive to sony and Microsoft.

it's their money not yours.

@iandizion713: those count about as much as the small stuff Santa Monica Studios does for all those other companies and games.

The main effort Monolth has done is Xenoblade and Xenoblade alone.