If you’ve enjoyed remakes published by PlayStation such as Shadow of the Colossus or Demon’s Souls, you’ll have Bluepoint Games to thank. Unfortunately, the Sony gaming arm is shuttering the much decorated studio. This will take effect sometime next month, with over 70 employees losing their jobs as a result.
This comes via Bloomberg, which cites a PlayStation spokesperson who says that the decision was made “following a recent business review”. The spokespeson adds that “Bluepoint games is an incredibly talented team and their technical expertise has delivered exceptional experiences for the PlayStation community”. The statement closes with “we thank them for their passion, creativity, and craftmanship”.
Separately though, Kotaku claims to have seen an internal PlayStation note to staff that provides a bit further explanation as to why the decision was made. The note was attributed to Herman Hulst, the current CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. Essentially, Hulst said that despite the successes within PlayStation Studios, “rising development costs, slowed industry growth, challenging player behaviour, and broader economic headwinds are making it harder to build games sustainably”.
Despite the acknowledgement of Bluepoint Games’ successes, its closing was seemingly a cost-cutting measure. A separate report by the outlet points out that since its acquisition, the studio has not shipped any new games. Instead of taking full advantage of its talents, PlayStation told the studio to work on a live-service spin-off of God of War. The project was canned early last year. Bloomberg’s Jason Schrier claims that the studio has been pitching ideas to PlayStation ever since, before getting canned.
(Source: Bloomberg, Jason Schrier / Bluesky, Kotaku [1], [2])
