Sony development studios to merge

[TomO]

The company's major development studios will form Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios.

Sony (http://www.pro-g.co.uk/news/nid/1465/) Computer Entertainment Inc. has announced that it has combined all of its games development studios worldwide to create one giant development company, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios (SCE WWS), effective September 1st 2005.

Full story (http://www.pro-g.co.uk/news/nid/1465/)

[TrackZero]

Uh.....yay or nay? Not sure how this really affects anything except their management structure.

[Grimgrock]

Good managers = happy employees = good software. With that in mind, I hope that any management changes that occur because of this are good ones.

[saran_js]

One word...Restructure.
Which means basically removing all the redundancy.

[MrMeatshake]

One word...Restructure.
Which means basically removing all the redundancy.

= sacking as many people as possible.

[Ludoc]

Does Sony actually develop any of it's own games? Will this affect anything that is coming out for the PS3 launch? Or are the games under the Station Pass the only ones Sony creates/maintains first party?

[Morratut]

Very catchy name also. :D

[Roc Ingersol]

Sony's Games unit has been taking a beating, financially speaking. They're just trying to keep their stock price up by maximizing games profit. Shareholders didn't dig on the FY2006 projections being slashed so deeply.

They're also still trying to find the last of those 20,000 jobs they promised to cut back in 03.

[normyk]

= sacking as many people as possible.
That's exactly how I read it. Probably not straight sackings since that is a pr issue but they will 'relocate' every job they can to someplace nobody will want to work.

[FunkyPoopMonkey]

Another piece of news that has no effect on gamers, whatsoever.

[TrackZero]

Another piece of news that has no effect on gamers, whatsoever.

Beyond all the talent that they'll lay off, yeah, no effect at all.....

[Grimgrock]

They're also still trying to find the last of those 20,000 jobs they promised to cut back in 03.

Well let's hope that this is a promise they don't intend to keep.

As far as relocations... would you rather not work at all? I'll take SmallTownUSA over no job every day of the week. As long as the salary is fair.

[FunkyPoopMonkey]

Beyond all the talent that they'll lay off, yeah, no effect at all.....
What talent? You mean the team that developed Legend of Dragoon, the worst RPG of all time? Yeah, I think I'll get by without them. :rolleyes:

[bapenguin]

Another piece of news that has no effect on gamers, whatsoever.

We have a lot of developers that visit our site. I believe this is pretty relevant news to them.

[Eran Hawke]

We hear a lot about how next gen games are going to be so time/manpower intensive to make games for. Is this any indication? Does it really take several 'this-gen' sized teams of people to make a single next-gen game?

[Roc Ingersol]

We hear a lot about how next gen games are going to be so time/manpower intensive to make games for. Is this any indication? Does it really take several 'this-gen' sized teams of people to make a single next-gen game?
No. But it can't hurt having all those art assets in one 'place', so they can be shuffled around projects more efficiently.

[Wraith]

New corporate motto? "Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios SCrEWWS the Competition." Or "...the Consumer."

[kokyunage]

We have a lot of developers that visit our site. I believe this is pretty relevant news to them.

I always wondered if developers actually sometimes realize they are working on crappy games. Like developers of Big Truckers 3 or whatnot. Are they doing it because it’s a paycheck, or because they company is saving up money to work on a worthwhile title, or what?

[Royal Fool]

Sort of like what EA have been doing by merging their various own studios into more central locations...

Not sure if the executives in the U.S. and Japan are happy with a European guy (Phil Harrison) taking the top seat. There's always been a bit of rivalry between all those SCE regional companies...

[danhoo]

I always wondered if developers actually sometimes realize they are working on crappy games. Like developers of Big Truckers 3 or whatnot. Are they doing it because it’s a paycheck, or because they company is saving up money to work on a worthwhile title

A little of both. Some devs specialize in making quick-and-easy titles based on movie or cartoon licenses for publishers like THQ, etc. Not much glory, but steady money. Some devs, particularly newer studios, need to work on titles they'd rather not because they need to prove to publishers that they can deliver before publishers give them more interesting stuff.

[A-Team]

I'm not sure if this is a correction or not, but as you stated in the original post... this was all effective as of September 1 and there really isn't any "merging" going on. The only thing that'll happen is some slight corporate restructuring, but SCEI will stay SCEI and SCE WWS is just a collective name for the European/North American/South Korean/Japanese development firms.

In other words, the companies have always been tied together through SCEI, but they've always been seen as independent development houses. By putting them all under one name and putting someone in charge of them all (which isn't really any different from Ken Kuratagi controlling them all), they *think* it'll help the firms collaborate on more projects and eventually lead up to more international releases.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

[KNOTE]

With the team sizes becoming what they are for Next-gen it is much more important to have strong management and efficiency. I see this as Sony being forward-thinking, but I have no inside information. Anyone down there want to comment?

[mister_slim]

Looks like they're just shaking up the chain of command a bit. Nintendo and MS did the same thing not that long ago. Sony does need to sort out their development a bit. Far too many of their games are underselling.

[FunkyPoopMonkey]

We have a lot of developers that visit our site. I believe this is pretty relevant news to them.
If they worked for Sony, they'd have already been informed, moron.

[buckfutter]

Well considering Sony's internal teams include Team ICO, Insomniac, Naughty Dog, and the guys who made God of War, I'd say hat is at least of interest.

Because if anyone so much as touches Fumito Ueda, I kill everyone.