 Are you guys ready for this? Sony saying really bad things. Sony doing really bad things. Sony screwing over people. Sing it with me now. Sony doesn't care about you. Doesn't care about me. Only cares about the green money. That's right. Sony is screwing over some people within their own company chiefly when it comes to games. Essentially Sony doesn't give two shits about anything, but massive AAA blockbuster hits now. Sony's known for these games, right? You know, goes to Shishima. We just had Last of Us Part 2. Spider-Man, Spider-Man Miles Morales. You know, what was another one they have? Gosh, I'm drawn some links. You're sorry about this. I don't mean to upset Sony fans, you know, for not remembering some of the big excuses. I know God of War is one of them. The one I'm thinking of though, isn't that? There's a sequel coming out for this year. Anyways, the point is that Sony has a lot of big massive AAA blockbuster games, but you don't hear them getting praised for games like, I don't know, Cuphead. Don't hear about that. Granted, you could argue, well Spider-Man's a much bigger deal than something like Cuphead. Absolutely, but I think we need to understand there's a place in the marketplace for these other games. Like, imagine a world where a game like It Takes Two can't exist. It Takes Two is fantastic. Imagine a world with that, a game like that just can't be made. Imagine a world where a Hellblade, which was made on a budget, couldn't be made. That world sucks. And in the world of Sony, in terms of what they support and what they develop, it appears to exist. Now, this is an article on Bloomberg. This is actually written by Jason Schreyer. You guys probably remember him from the Kotaku days. And no, I don't always agree with everything Jason Schreyer says. I don't always agree with his opinions. He really doesn't like YouTubers that much. So I'm not here to sing the praises of Jason Schreyer, but he does do really good investigative journalism. He's one of the few journalists out there that does do investigative journalism in the video game realm. And he does point out a lot of things. He's pointing out crunch in the past and all that. And here he's focusing on actually Sony having an obsession that is a little bit unhealthy even though it seems to be working out. Because after all, Sony only cares about the bottom line, right? They care about money. As I said at the beginning, they only care about money. Like they just want your money and they want it now. And they think this is the best way to do it. And to their credit, it works for PlayStation 4 and it's probably gonna work for PlayStation 5. So what the way to see, of course, we're in the early days of PlayStation 5. Once it's in regular supply, once we're, you know, say three years into the generation, we'll have a greater understanding of whether or not Sony's strategy is continuing to work, which I assume it will. I mean, let's just be honest. Even at my channel, we focus mostly on the bigger games. We'll talk about other games like, you know, Project Triangle Strategy and stuff like that. But for the most part, you know, we do talk about some of the bigger games because that does hold people's interest. So Sony has a right to only care about that. But how they're treating some of their internal studios. And we already know, like they basically shut down Japan's studio. I mean, it's not shut down. It's restructuring by losing all of its big employees. Let's just get into this article. And I'm showing it to you because for most of you guys, this might appear behind a paywall. I'm not signed in right now. I do have a temporary, every now and then articles like this come up. I'll up my subscription with Bloomberg because they do a good work over there. And obviously we cover things like Switch Pro reports that are also behind these paywalls. So it says Sony's obsession with Blackbusters is stirring unrest within PlayStation Empire. A small team had big ambitions for a last of us remake. But Sony handed the work to Star Studio Naughty Dog. Sony Corp. Visual Arts Service Group, say that 10 times fast, has been the unsung hero of many hit PlayStation video games. The San Diego based operation helps finished off games designed at other Sony studios with animation, art or other content and development. But about three years ago, a handful of influential figures with individual arts service group decided they wanted to have more creative control and lead game direction rather than being supporting actors on popular titles such as Spider-Man and Uncharted. Michael Mumbauer, who took over direction of the Visual Arts Studio Group in 2007, recruited a group of about 30 developers internally and from neighboring game studios to form a new development unit within Sony. The idea was to expand upon some of the company's most successful franchises, and the team began working on a remake of the 2013 hit, the last of us for PlayStation 5, right? Like, I know that seems, you know, kind of sudden in the last of us, by the way, starting on PlayStation 4, but well, that's neither here nor there. But Sony never fully acknowledged the team's existence or actually PlayStation 3. Anyways, they wanted to they wanted to make a remake for PlayStation 5. I know the game's not even 10 years old. Some people might be like, why do we need a remake of that? They did up Resident for PlayStation 4. What's the big deal? Anyways, well, that's a whole different conversation. But that's what the studio wanted to do. They wanted to remake the game, you know, for PlayStation 5. But Sony never fully acknowledged the team's existence or gave them the funding and support needed to succeed in the highly competitive video game market. According to the people involved, the studio never even got its own name. Instead, Sony moved ownership of the last of us, remake to its original creator, Naughty Dog, a Sony owned studio behind many of the company's best selling games and an HBO television series and development. So the remake is probably still happening, folks. It's just being made by Naughty Dog, which might please fans. They are the company that made the games originally. But still, it's kind of like, hey, this started as an ambitious project by a studio trying to take the bull by the horns. Now, at this point, I'm not really too mad at Sony about this because, hey, this studio didn't really get Sony's permission to exist. So they're kind of just trying to be rogues here. And Sony's like, we don't appreciate your rogue work. But it gets a little worse than that. Deflated, the small groups leadership has largely disbanded. According to interviews with eight people familiar with the operation. Many, including Mumbower, have left the company entirely. Mumbower declined to comment and others asked not to be named discussing private information. A representative for Sony declined to comment or provide interviews. So Sony just doesn't want their name attached at all. The team's failure highlights the complex hierarchy of video game development. And in particular, Sony's conservative approach to making games for the PlayStation 5. The Japanese conglomerate owns about a dozen studios across the world as part of its PlayStation Studios label. But in recent years, it has prioritized games made by its most successful developers. Studios such as Santa Monica, California-based Naughty Dog and Amsterdam-based Gorilla Games spend tens of millions of dollars to make games with the expectation that the investment will pay off exponentially. And they usually do. Hits, including 2018's God of War, 2020's The Last of Us Part Two are exclusive to PlayStation consoles, helping Sony sell 114 million PlayStation 4s. Rival Microsoft Corporation has taken the opposite approach, relying on a wide array of studios to feed its Netflix-like subscription service, Xbox Game Pass, which allows users to pay a monthly fee for a limited access to a variety of games. I also think it's a little bit disingenuous after Microsoft just spent 7.5 billion dollars to really beef up the Game Pass offering that's going to be different than other systems. But I mean, that's just I'm just saying there might be a little bit of disingenuous there with what Microsoft's current strategy is because they're clearly working on a bunch of exclusive games now, at least for the Game Pass servers. All right. Anyways, moving on, Sony focuses on exclusive blockbusters has come at the expense of niche teams and studios within the PlayStation organization, leading to high turnover and less choice for players. Last week, Sony reorganized a developed office in Japan, we're talking about Sony Japan, resulting in mass departures of people who worked on less well known but acclaimed games such as Gravity Rush and Everybody's Golf. The company has informed developers that it no longer wants to produce smaller games that are only successful in Japan. Isn't that sad? Isn't that kind of sad, like a sad state of affairs? And this doesn't even come from Jason Schreiber. This is just from another Bloomberg report. But isn't it sad that like Sony doesn't care to support a wider variety of games that might only appeal to a certain region? And in this case, Japan, where Sony was founded. Man, that's like it's not good. I'm sorry, like I, Nintendo, you know, and Microsoft, they all make the choices they make to make the most of a lot of money, but they also sometimes make choices that aren't necessarily driven by profit like golf story. Nintendo funded that game. It wasn't driven by Nintendo thinking they were going to make hand over fist money, money, money, money, money. It was driven by a studio needing some help. And Nintendo stepping up and deciding, hey, this is kind of a cool concept. We think, well, at least make our investment back. So why not just, you know, give that studio a shot? Sony isn't really like that. In fact, they're not helping their own internal studios with games that probably at least broke even, I would assume. So the fixation on teams that turn out hits is creating unrest across Sony's portfolio of game studios. Oregon based Sony Ben, known for the 2019 open world action game days gone, which was an all right game, tried unsuccessfully to pitch a sequel that year, according to people familiar with the proposal. Although the first game had been profitable. So they factually made Sony money. Right, regardless of critical acclaim is sold enough copies to be profitable. Its development had been lengthy and critical reception was mixed. So days gone to wasn't seen as a viable option. So basically Sony said, hey, look, yeah, you made us some money. But, you know, your game isn't critically acclaimed. So fuck you, I don't like that kind of attitude. That's that's kind of a dick move to a company that factually made you profits, but whatever. Instead, one team at the studio was assigned to help Naughty Dog with a multiplayer game while a second group was assigned to work on a new uncharted game with supervision from Naughty Dog. Some staff, including top leads, were unhappy with this arrangement and left. Ben's developers feared they might be absorbed in the Naughty Dog, which certainly seems that's what Sony was trying to do. And the studio's leadership asked to be taken off the uncharted project. Thank God they got their wish last month and are now working on a new game. So they so they avoided a crisis there. Sony definitely was leaning towards absorbing them in the Naughty Dog. And they're like, no, we don't want to do this. So they finally reneged and are letting them make their own game. So we'll see what happens there. Hopefully it turns out for them. Obviously, days gone didn't go like they hoped, even though it was profitable. So we'll see. Emphasizing big hits can also be a counterproductive because sometimes games can start small and turn into massive successes. In 2020, Sony didn't put much marketing behind the quirky video game creation system Dreams by the PlayStation owned media molecule in the UK. As a result, PlayStation may have missed out on its own version of Roblox, a similar video game tool parent company Roblox over in public this year and I'm now valued at $45 billion. That's also to say here, too, when you don't put a lot of support behind some of your more creative, ambitious things. Now, I'll be clear to the Dreams. Dreams had some advertising at some big events. But outside of those events, there wasn't a lot of commercials. There wasn't a lot of pushing of the game at retailers. Dreams is a really cool game. You can make other video games inside of Dreams. It had a Roblox like a Minecraft like capability to it. And it obviously isn't going to hit that level and hasn't hit that level because Sony didn't want to support it in that way. Now, obviously, Minecraft was more grassroots. Roblox was more advertisement based. But still, I mean, Dreams had the potential. It really did. I kind of feel bad for media molecule. Not so much that they didn't get their game out there, but they were never really given Sony's full backing in the way. I mean, look at how they advertise the last of this part, too. And I understand like major IP versus not. But I mean, at some point you got to, you know, Nintendo. I mean, other companies like this, too, they'll push their bigger games. It just it feels like Sony doesn't necessarily give when they do have a smaller game like this, give them really a fair shot in the marketplace. I'm just being completely honest because investing in some of these smaller games can pay off massively. So it is what it is. For the first solo project, Mumbauer and his crew wanted to pitch something that would be well received by their bosses at Sony. Recognizing the risk and the expense involved with developing a new game from scratch, they decided to focus on remaking older games for the new PlayStation 5. So they wanted to do something that that Sony would actually approve of. Remakes are considered a safe bet since it's cheaper to update and polish an old game than it is to start from scratch. And they can be sold both to nostalgic old fans and curious new ones. The team originally planned on a remake of the first Uncharted game, released by Naughty Dog in 2007. And I think that would have made a bit more sense. That idea quickly fizzled because it would be expensive and require too much added design work. So basically a game that needed a remake would be too expensive to remake. So nope, can't do that. Instead, the team set it on a remake in Naughty Guns 2013. Melancholic Zombie hit The Last of Us, which would be a much easier to remake. I don't really think it needs that much work to look good today. At the time, Naughty Dog was in the thick of development on the sequel, The Last of Us Part 2, which would introduce higher fidelity graphics and new gameplay features. If Mumbauer's crew remade the first game to have a similar look and feel, the two could be packaged together for the PlayStation 5, which would be, I mean, that's an interesting concept. They kind of did that with Spider-Man, right? I mean, technically they boosted the visuals and gave you like a better version, quote unquote, better. They changed the whole look of Peter Parker. I thought that was weird, but I'm not going down that controversial road and why that decision was made, which let me see here. If Mumbauer's crew made the first game, it could have been packaged together. This would be less expensive proposition than remaking Uncharted. Since The Last of Us was more modern and wouldn't require too many gameplay overhauls, then once Mumbauer's group had established itself, it could go on to remake the first Uncharted game. So the goal was like, hey, look, let's establish ourselves in the Sony. Let's get a good reputation. Then let's be like, hey, we really want the funding to do Uncharted. Please help us. And they, you know, could potentially get that funding. See, some developers just want to remake old games. They don't always want to have like brand new massive projects. But pivoting from doing finished work for other games to making your own is difficult since original development teams are competing against hundreds of other teams from all over the world with varying levels of experience and successes. So Dave Lang, founder of Iron Galaxy Studios, which served as a support team in development studio. The people funding the work are often risk adverse. They have to pick between a team that's done it before and someone trying to do it on their own for the first time. I can see why some people pick the prior developer over the ladder. That's just what Sony did. Mumbauer's project codename T1X was approved on a probationary basis, but Sony kept the team's existence a secret. And refused to give them a budget to hire more people. Leading many to wonder if the company was really committed. So let me get this straight. So Sony basically said, look, we approve of you remaking the last of us. We approve of it. Probationary, like you need to you need to approve it to us. But we approve of you attempting to do this, but we're not going to give you the funding to actually do it. It's basically like it would be like me hiring Yulia to make YouTube videos for me, my fiance, me like, Yulia, for the next week, you're making YouTube videos for me on a probationary basis. If you do really, really well, I'll have you make videos, you know, part time for, you know, ad infinitum. But by the way, I'm not going to give you a camera. I'm not going to give you a microphone. I'm not going to give you the computers. I'm not going to give you any guides or any help or any guidance on any of this or any funding to get your own equipment. Just screw it. Make it on your own. Good luck. See how that's like setting someone up to fail, putting them on an established thing like Nintendo Prime and setting my fiance up to fail. That's kind of what's happening here. Sony's like, yeah, you could do this, but we're not really going to give you any help. So because we're not going to give you any help, you're not going to be able to do it. And we know it, but good luck. So anyways, the company was really committed to letting the team build a new studio. So the small team got working. And by the spring of 2019, they had completed a section of the game designed to showcase how the rest would look and feel. So they did complete a vertical slice. They took part of the game and they did complete it to at least something that they were satisfied with. At that time, Sony was going through a management shuffle and the new boss wasn't impressed. Herman Hulst, the former lead of Gorilla Games, was named head of Playstations Worldwide Studios in November of 2019. He thought the remake project was too expensive. A project, by the way, that Sony had not put any money into yet. According to people familiar with the matter and asked why the planned budget for T1X was so much higher than remakes Sony had made in the past. The reason was that this one was on a brand new graphical engine for the PlayStation 5. So they were really remaking this game. They were putting it on a new engine. Now they want to reuse the old engine and just update the assets. Right? They were actually rebuilding this game. Kudos to them. That's what a remake should be. A remake shouldn't just be the old game with a new catapult. That's a remaster. This was getting the true remake treatment. That's nice. Montbauer needed to hire more people to help rework the graphics on new technology, as well as redesign gameplay mechanics. Hulst wasn't convinced, the people said. Just when it hoped to enter production on the remake of The Last of Us, Montbauer's team got called in to help when another big game fell behind. The release of The Last of Us Part 2 had been pushed from 2020 from 2019 and Naughty Dog needed the Visual Arts Service Group to polish it off. Most of Montbauer's team, along with some of the 200 or so staff at the Visual Arts Service Group, were assigned to support Naughty Dog slowing down progress in the game. I mean, of course, that is what that studio had been doing. Then the roles got reversed. Sony sent word that after the completion of The Last of Us Part 2, some people from Naughty Dog would help out with T1X. Montbauer's team saw this as their short-lived autonomy being stripped. Dozens of Naughty Dog staff were joining the project, and some had actually worked on the original The Last of Us, giving them more weight in discussions in T1X's direction. Basically, they felt like, look, we just helped you massively finish off a project that you failed to complete on your own. That's the way Montbauer was viewing it. You failed to complete your own project. So come over and fuck with ours. That's some bullshit. I'm sorry. Montbauer finished off your fucking game, and then you're going to be like, hey, sorry, we're going to give Naughty Dog autonomy over a project that you were already successfully pulling off without their help. God, that has to suck. Imagine that your team is the reason a massive seller got finished. And then for your dedication and your hard work, we're stripping you of the very game that you were doing just fine without Naughty Dog. God, that has to suck. Man, I can't imagine how upset you would be. You bailed out of another studio, and then you get fucked. God, I want to quit, too, to be honest. The game was moved under Naughty Dog's budget, which Sony gave more leeway than the Visual Arts Service Group. Soon it was apparent that Naughty Dog was in charge and the Dynamics returned to what they had been for the last decade and a half. The Visual Arts Support Group, aiding another team of developers rather than leading. So they had their project stripped from them just because of reasons. They didn't want funding. So we'll fund Naughty Dog, but we won't fund you, even though you were doing a job that Naughty Dog couldn't do on its own. But hey, this is the world of video games, man. It gets so vicious out there. To Sony, the move made sense. Naughty Dog is one of the key studios. For Sony's ability to sell playstations. So, you know, basically being able to say, hey, this is a Naughty Dog made game. You could still have Naughty Dog in as part of the advertising because the game originated by the studio. I don't understand. Anyways, so Bloomberg intelligence analyst, Matthew Canterman, Sony's competitive advantage has always been exclusive content over Microsoft and more new games as well as remakes of classic titles from such story team can help sustain demand for PlayStation. So basically, by having Naughty Dog's team behind it, they think it'll sell more copies, which I think is under bullshit. It's an established IP. This is like saying Ocarina of Time 3D would have sold more copies if the original Zelda team made it versus Grezzo. No, it's sold a bunch of copies based on the popularity of the brand. I don't understand some of these decisions. But those who wanted independence were disappointed by the end of 2020. Most of the T1X team's top staff had left, including Mumbower and the games director David Hall. Today, the T1X project remains in development at Naughty Dog with assistance from Sony's visual arts support group. The future of the remainder of Mumbower's team, which has come to be jokingly referred to as Naughty Dog's south, remains unclear. So this is what we talk about. Sorry, again, crappy webcam. I know my main camera is... I got on the new set that you guys have seen in the last few videos. Don't worry, there's more videos coming from that set. I just had to sit at the computer here to read off this article. So that's why we're using the webcam. I got to say that I think it's kind of bullshit what Sony's doing. This article paints it a bit more negative than I think it is. I think this stuff is probably more common than we'd like to think. But I do think it just goes along with that narrative that a lot of people want Jim Ryan to get fired. Justly so or not, I don't know. But Jim Ryan's the person who runs Sony's Game Division. And I just think that Sony is in a spot where all they care about, all they care about are big AAA massive successes. And if a remake's going to happen, it needs to happen by the studio that made those games successful in the first place. And why? Because that studio's name brand is so large because Sony has allowed that studio's name brand to get so large that it itself will sell units. You hear, this game's made by Naughty Dog. Are you more likely or less likely to buy the game? Granted, I don't think a Last of Us remake, having Naughty Dog attached to it or not, would sell any different. I think The Last of Us is a big IP, a big brand on its own. That's like, again, I liken this to Nintendo that I cover more often. Nintendo has a Zelda team that makes nothing but Zelda games. But they don't make every Zelda game. Like, would Zelda games sell more if that Zelda team had a specific, this is the Naughty Dog of Nintendo? Would it sell more if Nintendo pushed that? Maybe. Maybe not. How about let the brand sell for itself? Let the game sell on its own merits. If The Last of Us remake is good and it's made by that other team, the game's still going to sell. I think it's just incredibly frustrating to see ambition. Basically, this is a sign of Sony dashing all ambitions at any studio they have that isn't one of their big AAA studios because their big AAA studios are all Sony caribou. That's really the narrative here. The narrative is, Sony doesn't give a shit about you unless you are a big AAA studio. Anyways, folks, you guys let me know what you think about this time in the comments below. I am Nathan Robledjens from Nintendo Prime, and I'll catch you in the next video.