As part of the sweeping layoffs of 900 Sony Interactive Entertainment employees, Hermen Hulst, Head of PlayStation Studios, has confirmed that there have been some game cancellations.
With Hulst stating that they were “at a stage where we need to step back and look at what our business needs,” that led to them reevaluating all of the teams and projects in production.
“We looked at our studios and our portfolio,” he said, “evaluating projects in various stages of development, and have decided that some of those projects will not move forward.
“I want to be clear that the decision to stop work on these projects is not a reflection on the talent or passion of team members.
“Our philosophy has always been to allow creative experimentation. Sometimes, great ideas don’t become great games. Sometimes, a project is started with the best intentions before shifts within the market or industry result in a change of plan.”
So, what has been canned by Sony? London Studio, Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Firesprite and Guerrilla Games were all named studios, though layoffs could impact any studio.
It’s not clear how badly this will affect Sony’s planned lineup, but this generation has seen them stretching out development time further than ever before. Alongside that, their major acquisitions were intended to drive an expansion into delivering a quickfire string of live service games… but they’ve delayed half of these games, and some have already been cancelled.
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