Sony Liverpool's Forum Participation

[KIGO1987]

I do believe that there will be another Wipeout title on the portable console. Just not in the near future Ace. Maybe in a few years time. Not anytime soon. I think the target here is on the home console [PS3], because there are more owners of the Playstation 3 console, than the combined ownership of all the PSP console that have been released.

But no new PSP title i suspect in this moment in time, not for a while.

[DawnFireDragoon]

in related news, what's going on studio liverpool?

if you're working on something brand new....or a new colony wars/rollcage, i get it, you can't talk about it.

but what about Wipeout HD, is that a 'finished project', more DLC? no more DLC? continued support via patches? or not?

Give us some kind of info/update guys? go on!

also, what about the PSN. Will we be seeing 2097 and 3 appear anytime soon....or anytime at all?

[infoxicated]

Read the news story on the homepage.

Studio Liverpool might well cease to exist tomorrow.

[blackwiggle]

Do you know when the SL people told about this Infoxicated?
Were they given much warning?

It seems extremely callous to do this just after Xmas.

It might explain why Paul Tweedle hasn't visited the forum since mid Oct last year,why would you bother if you new there was nothing else in the pipeline and hence you were soon to become redundant.

[Frances_Penfold]

Holy crap

I was hoping that SL was involved with some top-secret new franchises or technologies, like bringing 3D to the PSP2 or PS4.

[blackwiggle]

Well I see Colin Berry from SL is online now and probably reading this,so maybe he could shine some light on exactly what the likely outcome is for both the SL wipeout team,and wipeout as a whole.

[Frances_Penfold]

FWIW, there is some information (may or not be accurate!) at Neogaf, including a partial citation of an article in gamesindustry.biz

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=386088

[brainbeat]

This just sucks, i suppose its what happens when you sell your soul. they should just disband and reform psygonosis (but with slightly different spelling), damn shame, sony arent respected by me anymore.

[DawnFireDragoon]

Oh my god.

This is terrible news. Both in terms of the Wipeout series and the people who are sadly going to be made redundant.

i feel really bad for those guys.

I totally understand the lack of communication now and wish anyone affected by this all the best.

Could this be the end....

[blackwiggle]

Well Colin Berry has said he left SL before Xmas and has started another job,so I guess that's one we don't have to worry about,but then again he hadn't worked on wipeout since HD was released.

There's a post on that NeoGAF site #26 by gofreak [link in Frances Penfolds post above]about this whole affair that I though puts this whole thing in a logical perspective.

QUOTE :
When did this happen? And more importantly: why?

Geographic proximity and compentency overlap and the cost cutting that allows. Probably.

Originally Posted by I NEED SCISSORS:
Why are redundancies necessary? You would think that more people on board = better games, no?

From the sounds of it, they need more people on other projects elsewhere, but they don't want to hire more people. Liverpool had the most 'fat', so they want to move some of it to where it's needed. In doing so, that'll require some work at Liverpool to be stopped (since - again - they don't wanna hire new people. There's probably something of a hiring freeze at the moment). If there isn't a place for everyone on the teams whose projects are being stopped, then they're redundant unfortunately. Maybe some of them might get reassigned to other internal projects at Liverpool, but if there isn't a place for them there or at another studio after their projects have been halted, then...that's kind of the definition of redundancy

[AG-wolf]

as much as I dislike the PS3 and Sony in general during this current console generation, this is Pretty F*cking Weak news to hear... especially when Sony relied on SL as a flagship for their brand. It was unfortunate to begin with that Psygnosis wasn't able to hold up on their own back in the day, but relieving when Sony scooped them back up so they could still produce games...

I wouldn't worry -too- much... Wipeout can never go away.

Sega did some restructuring a couple years ago too... they re-absorbed Sonic Team into a bigger group of in-house developers, and put the rest of their Amusement Vision teams into a more consolidated facility to reduce costs (AM4 = Daytona USA; AM6/SmileBit = Sega Rally 2, Jet Set Radio, Panzer Dragoon; AM1/AM7 = Alex Kidd, Phantasy Star, Golden Axe; AM3/Hitmaker/AM5 = Sega Rally, Virtual On, Crazy Taxi, Initial D BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH I MISS WHEN SEGA WAS AWESOME)... anyway... We'll have to wait and see what comes of this. We all know Sony is hurting badly right now (lolololol *troll face* 360 = <3 ) but in all seriousness, it comes down to business... they need to do what they can to not completely destroy themselves, and if it means restructuring for financial sake, there's not much else they can do.

All I want is more Wipeout content within the next year and a half or so

[swift killer]

Put simply, Sony have no clue what they have just done.

[infoxicated]

Just to clarify - of the people from Studio Liverpool who have ever posted on this forum, none now remains an employee of Sony.

So that probably brings to an end the interaction we've enjoyed with the developers over the years.

[Lance]

What a shame the SL employees have to suffer for the top execs incompetence. Sony execs brought on the need for desperate measures; make no mistake, reducing your staff at the primary production level iS desperate, and tends to be the first and cruelest reponse of a management team who are themselves the ones who should be eliminated. "Restructuring" is just an evasive public relations department spinword for an attempt by the execs to avoid deserved blame. I lived through one of these "restructurings" in a company I worked for, and did not happen to lose my job. It was all smoke and mirrors followed by yet more failure followed by selling off a large percentage of the company's many stores. They lost an entire region of the country, about a third of their holdings.

[AG-wolf]

Jesus, so they just dumped everyone? lame. like... no amount of profanity and namecalling and rage can substitute complete and utter disappointment.

I hope most of the people who were let go can somehow band together and build a third-party company... maybe the rebirth of Psygnosis even?

[Hellfire_WZ]

Unbelievable to hear this has happened, especially considering the long history of the studio. All my best wishes go to those affected, it was brilliant to meet such a great bunch.

[ProblemSolver]

... maybe the rebirth of Psygnosis even?

Is that even possible?

[Cyberio]

Really a shame. I hope the franchise will be in other hands, considering that maybe could be change his style the franchise.

[eLhabib]

I'd love to see Psygnosis come back as an indy dev, but I think our chances are slim...

[Crob]

Just to clarify - of the people from Studio Liverpool who have ever posted on this forum, none now remains an employee of Sony.

This is very true (ignoring myself and Egg of course)