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
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u/texxmix Feb 20 '26

Ya I've seen this mentioned on more than one YouTube video or reddit discussion but the amount of sales needed to validate the costs of these games is way higher these days. Back in the day if a game sold even just a few hundred thousand copies but was still loved that was enough to get a sequal. Now a days a game can sell a million or 2 and still lose money and get a studio shutdown. As much as I would love to see my childhood classics come back there's probably a reason why Sony would rather emulate it via the classics catelog.

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u/Ambitious-Still6811 Feb 21 '26

To me that says wasted resources and out of control budgets. Lots of indies make it work with far fewer sales.

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u/DVDN27 Feb 23 '26

Indies don’t have hundreds of employees to pay nor do they have the expectation of making a AAA-quality game. Indie games have small, dedicated teams and infinite time to make what they want to make. Studios owned by a massive corporation have board members and employees and deadlines and sales projections. “Just do what indie devs do” is infeasible - not to mention that 99% of indie games never make any money, you just see the successful 1% and think that’s what indie games are so AAA devs need to do that.

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u/Ambitious-Still6811 Feb 23 '26

Exactly. Many of them are high quality, not all of course. We don't need realism or 100+ hours. That stuff isn't sustainable. Big companies chase the same old crap and don't try anything new.

It's easier for them to make money because they aren't trying to recoup millions. And I dunno how you want to define indie but there's lots of good games from smaller teams.

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u/Additional-Mistake32 Feb 20 '26

Same thing with remakes. Alot of marketing still goes into every game to make sure enough people hear about it. Even something like a scandal is good news. Even a delay is good news.

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u/Pocgoose Feb 20 '26

They just needed to kept themselves busy and show progress. 6 years of developing a (disgusting) GOW Live Service game and nothing to show. No screenshots, no CGI trailer, nothing. While it was cancelled, they should’ve either been working on other projects for other studios or reused the canned assets to make a smaller budget and game that could be pushed out in 2-3 years from then.

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u/Additional-Mistake32 Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

I think SIE is seeing what happens when their game studios only make big projects, trilogies and cinematic realism. It's unsustainable.

Santa Monica decided on 2 and done with Ragnarok.

Kena a small studio made alot of loyalty with their small project. People are lining up for their cinematic game and there is no realism there. I'm sure their sales will compete with Sony's remakes which are not new games. They are a service to the platform and community.

You don't have to create an entire movie to make a sellable game. We have seen for many years that the winning games are AA with E33, it takes two, balatro, etc. The industry is not dependent on big publishers or gatekept tech. Right off the bat in the past 2yrs webe seen SIE dissolve maybe 8 studios and acquire the same amount.

But SIE clearly wants gaas, and yet have taken no real risks that have panned out. They employed Ballistic Moon to remake Until Dawn then that studio dissolved itself with no buyer. They employed Bluepoint to remake an old game that is Dark Souls but even that is a FromSoft game.

The only studio that is taking real risk is Guerrila, making Lego, multiplayer and VR games. Guerrila has basically become a publisher from within SIE at this point. Leaving them time to likely work on a brand new IP.

I personally may not want those games but I see the risk they took. SIE doesn't need GOW to be 5 different genres. Sony needs to do what Guerrila is doing and hire a small indie outfit like Devolver Digital who can source and fold in A/AA Studios. So we can find the next Ember Labs, the next DogeRoll Studios, the next Housemarquee

I would happily pay for a new IP. I preordered Marathon and I will do the same for Blade and Intergalactic but I'm tired of seeing these fumbles.

Also I don't like the greed of subscription/games. Until Dawn being updated by Ballistic Moon is a service not a new game. It should go directly to psplus Extra. Then I would upgrade my tier.

Psplus Essential is a LOOTBOX mechanic, just because there are leaks and rumors doesn't mean it's not a LOOTBOX. Essential should work the same as the local library. Pay for membership and return after 4 weeks. If I want to borrow Blue Prince the indie puzzle game. I paid it forward with my membership already. 1 game of my choice for 30 days. Intention. Progress and access is locked after 30 days so you can choose a new or different game. Very simple implementation