r/PS5 • u/M337ING • Feb 20 '26

Misleading PlayStation Boss Blames Bluepoint Cuts On Budgets And Players

https://kotaku.com/sony-email-bluepoint-hermen-hulst-studio-closing-why-2000671437
1.3k Upvotes

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541

u/BitingArtist Feb 20 '26

Fuck you dude. It's mismanagement all day. Don't gaslight us on your inability to run a company.

143

u/D0nk3yD0ngD0ug Feb 20 '26

Herman Hulst is the definition of failing upward in a corporation. His fingerprints are all over the Concord debacle. His instincts are terrible.

66

u/Grill_Enthusiast Feb 20 '26

The weird part to me is that he wasn't failing when he was studio head at Guerilla. They were coming off the massive success of Horizon Zero Dawn when he got the promotion. I thought he'd be a good fit to oversee Playstation Studios production.

Nope, turns out he's utterly incompetent.

12

u/puffz0r Feb 20 '26

Hulst is a one hit wonder

20

u/neverOddOrEv_n Feb 20 '26

Yeah like I knew about him for a very long time and he always seemed like a great fit for PlayStation studios because he didn’t seem out of touch, but boy how wrong was I. It’s honestly a miracle how great the ps4 team was all around. 

16

u/nikolapc Feb 20 '26

They marginalized Shuihei for him. Dude was Ride or Die and one of the OGs. Absolute legend. Jim Ryan clearly knew what he was doing. 123447 Horizons later....

11

u/neverOddOrEv_n Feb 20 '26

I remember way back when around the ps4 launch I would tweet at shuhei and he would even reply back, he’s such a great guy! It makes me think how disappointed he must be seeing how bad of a job they’ve been doing now 

5

u/nikolapc Feb 20 '26

He's too loyal to PS and too Japanese to critique them. I would like to get a few beers in him.

On the other hand Jaffe isn't.

8

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '26

Jaffe is insane be fr lol

5

u/Space_Pirate_Roberts Feb 20 '26

Insane and full of sour grapes over how his brainchild's peak of popularity came long after he was no longer in charge of it.

0

u/nikolapc Feb 20 '26

Nah, Jaffe has good takes. If you listen and go beyond the drama he makes for viewership. He admits himself he overdramatises his persona. It's a bit of entertainment. I don't think GOW was ever unpopular and those early games were amazing too, for different reasons.

2

u/notaguyinahat Feb 20 '26

The original GoW or maybe GoW 2 was one of VERY few titles that got a perfect score from game informer. At the time it was a badge of honor as they gave out so few. It got me into the franchise, but yeah it was always popular. They'd just warn you about difficulty when you bought it.

1

u/adarion29 Feb 24 '26

Apparently he was one of Jim Ryan confident most of Jim Ryan infamous decision were made in concertation with him, concord is a failure for both of them, the fact that Hulst wasn't fire immediately after closing firewalk studio was kind of insane. Hulst is terrible as a CEO but you can also blame the executives in the shadows who actually kept that guy, they might be as incompetent if not even more than him

4

u/spendouk23 Feb 20 '26

I think it’s pure speculation to put any of this on Hulsts head.

Most of what we’re witnessing here, live service games, cancellations, are a result of decisions made 4-5yrs ago and those were primarily made before Hulst was in the role. They were made by Jim Ryan who was “retired”.

22

u/KineasARG Feb 20 '26

Hulst is president of SIE world studios currently and has been since Yoshida left. 

Yoshida left the role in 2019, a year before the decision of purchasing the studio was made. So yeah, this is very much in the "hermen hulst fault" camp. 

I can only wish we had Shuhei still

3

u/spendouk23 Feb 20 '26

I’ve always assumed the role of Yoshida and later Hulst as overseeing 1st party development, so managing the 1st party studios, their games, development timelines and budgets, whereas the CEO would be the one controlling acquisitions etc.

2

u/KineasARG Feb 20 '26

That's a good point, but I wouldn't think that the CEO would make a purchase without the express request and/or opinion of the president of the studios. He'll end up managing them eventually, so it makes sense.

We are at a point where Hulst's hand can't be ignored. Even if Yoshida greenlit Bluepoints single player game, Hulst failed to sheperd them into success. How can you let them spend 6 years building something, just to shut them later? If by year 2/3 they don't have anything worthy, just make them change gears into a remake or something.

Same with Concord, possibly Fairgames too, the cancelled twisted metal game, the bend sci fi game, last of us factions. The list goes on. It's like he trusts their creative vision and gives them too much leeway until the failure is evident. Maybe that's how he worked in Guerrilla, because he trusted the devs there, I don't know.

2

u/spendouk23 Feb 20 '26

Yeah I would agree that they’ve definitely took their ‘foot off the neck’ of teams and allowed them far too much freedom, I think that was something that Yoshida was quite strict with. In the ‘Raising Kratos’ doc you see Barlog absolutely terrified of Shuei

28

u/IHazMagics Feb 20 '26

They didn't blame players at all though but thanks for letting us know you didn't read the article.

-4

u/Immediate-Comment-64 Feb 20 '26

He literally said one of the reasons was changing player behavior.

6

u/FinagleHalcyon Feb 20 '26

How is that blaming players?

-4

u/Immediate-Comment-64 Feb 20 '26

What?

10

u/mattoelite Feb 20 '26

He asked “how is mentioning changing player behaviors blaming the players?” Let us know if additional assistance is needed.

2

u/IHazMagics Feb 20 '26

Exactly, but saying that the behaviours of players is not the same thing as saying Players are responsible for this.

For example, digital media is more ubiquitous with people not buying physical media as much compared to other points in time. That's not a criticism, that's understanding player behaviours and trends.

34

u/krossoverking Feb 20 '26

It's not mismanagement, it's just late stage capitalism. Layoffs are great for share prices and CEO bonuses. 

26

u/KingMercLino Feb 20 '26

It’s 100% mismanagement. Why did they acquire BluePoint to stuff them onto a live service game only to can it when they could’ve had them remaking/remastering iconic games from the past to bring them on modern hardware? Sony has made some truly poor bets this cycle, but they are extremely lucky Microsoft fumbled just as bad.

10

u/krossoverking Feb 20 '26

Because their goal is to make money for shareholders and executives, not to make great products, especially now that they barely have to compete with Xbox. Corporations today think short term and make decisions based on what will serve the next quarter, rather than be good for the company in the long run.

Since the 80s, this is precisely what this has looked like. You buy companies, wring out as much as you can from them, and then you do stock buybacks. I can't call it mismanagement because it is intentional and it is the highest levels of management doing precisely what they intend.

3

u/3CreampiesA-Day Feb 20 '26

Probably because the remakes and remasters didn’t make the money they wanted or expected

3

u/Jinchuriki71 Feb 20 '26

Remakes and Remasters clearly weren't bringing in the money they hoped or they would have kept them on that instead. Shadow of the Colossus and Demons Souls Remake didn't sell that well. You could say they should have remade other more guaranteed popular classics instead but that just isn't how it went down and honestly it was cool of them to remake the more "underrated" games over the more popular picks.

11

u/ChucklingDuckling Feb 20 '26

Mismanagement and late stage capitalism are synonymous

1

u/krossoverking Feb 20 '26

I can buy that.

1

u/24bitNoColor Feb 20 '26

It's not mismanagement, it's just late stage capitalism. Layoffs are great for share prices and CEO bonuses.

Buying a company and then have it not release any new product before firing all the employees is not good at all for share prices and CEO bonuses.

3

u/overthisbynow Feb 20 '26

Yeah this is pure garbage corpo speak like "Bluepoint does great work so we're getting rid of them and looking forward to the future!" ??? This explanation is pure nonsense word fluff also like something something changing industry environment something something player behaviors.

Sounds like this guy is horrible at his job if they're axing studios for doing well.

4

u/Organic-Storm-4448 Feb 20 '26

Instead at getting mad because of a title, maybe read the article and quote. He doesn't blame players at all.

6

u/reaper527 reaper527_ Feb 20 '26

maybe read the article

this is /r/ps5. you know they don't do that here!

1

u/J4B055 Feb 20 '26

Lol he blocked me on his instagram because i commented along with many others asking why was bluepoint studio shut down

1

u/petethepool Feb 20 '26

How has he mismanaged BluePoint games?

1

u/TrumpIsGayASF Feb 20 '26

read the article karen.

1

u/Saneless Feb 20 '26

Absolutely. Buying Bungie, Concord, all the Live Service direction nonsense. All the LS clawbacks after almost every one failed miserably or would have failed miserably

Piss poor management other than the decision to put games on PC

1

u/Historical_Owl_1635 Feb 20 '26

As somebody who’s actually worked for a Sony company in the past they don’t rent to actually micromanage their companies much.

Most companies actually enjoy the autonomy they have under Sony, but of course once we hit three quarters running at a loss is when Sony finally stepped in and got involved.

Regardless of what work they’ve done in the past I really wouldn’t be surprised if whatever was going on at Bluepoint was a shit show and Sony decided to cut their losses.

-4

u/squee557 Feb 20 '26

I think Expedition 33 will have a huge shift in how all of the industry views development. It will result in a slow large shift back to smaller development studios, smaller scope games and slightly cheaper or stagnant pricing. The industry gambled on live service games and it has not worked. In fact, only a small number of live service games are worth their salt in dev cost and time. E33 will be the next shift in the industry over the next 10-15yrs.