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[Banjo64]

First party games != first party dev.
Is MicroSoft Flight Sim a first party game? Yes.
Is the studio behind it a first party dev? No.
It depends on the game in question.

At a push you could probably persuade me that it could come down to IP ownership as I wouldn’t argue that people viewed stuff like Donkey Kong Country and 64 as Nintendo games even at the time.

But that doesn’t cover for the stuff like Death Stranding being spouted.

 

[nial]

I’m not trying at all. I’m literally only replying to you because you called me out by name.

Co-production typically does not work at a level where 2 companies are equally responsible for creative control. That’s why when you a co-produced piece of media it usually comes down to one company funding another. A developer like From Software does not need narrative or gameplay advice from Sony and simply would not allow Sony to have full access to assist technically as Sony are their competition.

So apart from case by case examples where the help has gone further (e.g with smaller studios like Larian who are new to the platform and may have welcomed Sony’s technical help) - the common sense stance is that Sony are merely offering financial assistance with these projects.

I think I can just quote this again and be done with it.

No one has mentioned creative control (creative input IS a thing, btw), there's far more layers between creative control and just money in the act of producing. Management of the project and ensuring quality across the board is literally Sony's responsibility; it's not just XDEV producers giving From Software a certain amount of money and that's it.

 

[Mr Moose]

At a push you could probably persuade me that it could come down to IP ownership as I wouldn’t argue that people viewed stuff like Donkey Kong Country and 64 as Nintendo games even at the time.

But that doesn’t cover for the stuff like Death Stranding being spouted.

Death Stranding is no longer a first party game, ownership of IP changed hands (and 505 publishes everything except PS release). It's still a bit of a weird one, was funded by Sony and uses a Sony engine.

 

[yurinka]

I think they did a great job it titles like Bloodborne, Demon's Souls, Death Stranding or Stellar Blade.

So it's the new Japan Studio

Team Asobi is that it was the internal development part of Japan Studio.
XDEV Japan is what it was the second party publishing/support part (XDEV) of Japan Studio.

Both continue working in the same Sony HQ building and doing the same than before, but now as separate entities.

Death Stranding is no longer a first party game, ownership of IP changed hands (and 505 publishes everything except PS release). It's still a bit of a weird one, was funded by Sony and uses a Sony engine.

Death Stranding and DS2 continue and will continue being PS first party games because continue being published on PS by its platform holder. The IP ownership isn't related to being 1st party or not, first party means that the publisher is the platform holder and 3rd party means that the publisher isn't the platform holder.

Having a partner to port it somewhere doesn't make it 3rd party on PS. It's 3rd party on PC because it isn't published there by the PC/Steam platform holder, same as the other Sony games released on PC.

What does XDEV actually do? I honestly don't think anyone here has any clue. Money? Game design tips? Tech optimization over completely different proprietary 3rd party engines? That last one seems especially unlikely.

XDEV = eXternal DEVelopment

They basically manage external development in multiple areas. Basically, they are the Sony team in charge of managing and overviewing the internal and external support teams that the first (which include second) party games use.

This means that for an internally developed game as could be Ghost of Tsushima, they manage different internal support teams like PlayStation Studios Creative Arts (which include people like PS Studios Visual Arts, but also for coders, audio, etc) or external teams (many external outsourcing companies who game specific job for hire for many companies).

And for second party games (2nd party means a game published by Sony whose lead gamedev studio isn't owned by Sony), XDEV is the Sony team who is in charge of them: funding, publishing, providing them any internal or external support they may need, QA, localization, marketing etc.

XDEV is a global team has basically 3 branches/teams:

• The original one in Europe that was a spinoff team of SCEE Liverpool, where they started. They basically are in charge of the games developed in EU.
• The North American one, that was a spionff of Sony Santa Monica, where they started. They are in charge of the American games.
• The Asian one, that was a spinoff of Japan Studio, even if they started back in 1993 before Sony had any internal development team in Japan (had another name, later the internal development team was created, then they merged and then they changed their name a couple times until they separated again). They were in charge of the Japanese games, but now are in charge of games developed in the whole Asia.

 

[Mr Moose]

I think they did a great job it titles like Bloodborne, Demon's Souls, Death Stranding or Stellar Blade.


Team Asobi is that it was the internal development part of Japan Studio.
XDEV Japan is what it was the second party publishing/support part (XDEV) of Japan Studio.

Both continue working in the same Sony HQ building and doing the same than before, but now as separate entities.


Death Stranding and DS2 continue and will continue being PS first party games because continue being published on PS by its platform holder. The IP ownership isn't related to being 1st party or not, first party means that the publisher is the platform holder and 3rd party means that the publisher isn't the platform holder.

Having a partner to port it somewhere doesn't make it 3rd party on PS. It's 3rd party on PC because it isn't published there by the PC/Steam platform holder, same as the other Sony games released on PC.

Sony published Minecraft, that wasn't a first party game.

 

[nial]

Sony published Minecraft, that wasn't a first party game.

The old PlayStation ports, though. Death Stranding on PS4 (published by SIE) wasn't a port job, so yurinka is right on that.

 

[yurinka]

Sony published Minecraft, that wasn't a first party game.

True, because in this case they were that partner that helps them port a game somewhere (or publish/distribute it only in some specific region).

As an example, when Destiny 1 and 2 were Activision games, Sony published them on PS only for Japan. There are other cases where it's the opposite: a Japanese game that has an original publisher for Japan, and then they sign a deal with Sony where Sony will publish/distribute it in the west.

These are different cases of when Sony is the original publisher of the game. And then in some case may ask for help to some partner to bring it somewhere.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

I don’t need to argue with you.

I don’t care if it’s Sony or Nintendo doing this: games developed by third party studios are not first party developed games.

It’s ok that people disagree with you

In the interest of peace and love on New Years Eve, I would like to offer an olive branch to you by framing some of my previous ‘godtendo’ comments. The context being that we have a lot of well meaning but ardent fans on this forum (@Ass of Can Whooping James Sawyer Ford @adamsapple) etc. and a lot of us have engaged in a lot of back and forth over the years and I simply find it funny to juxtapose their love of beefy home consoles and mature games with my (moderate and reasoned) love of Nintendo and their baby games in the interest of balance.

I’ve been framed as a fanboy of every corporation in my small handful of years here which is why I tend to disengage as soon as it happens again.

No worries, it's all fun and games. We all have our preferences. I don't miss out on great games regardless of who makes them. You and I are kind of inverted in that you love most of what nintendo currently offers, but not much of sony, and I am the opposite. Nintendo still drops some amazing games and I am day 1 on Switch 2, but I'm more of a fan of their ambitious titles rather than the smaller scale stuff they tend to release in most years.

Happy new years.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I’ve had this discussion a few times here now with nial and Mibu no ookami , and I agree with you but I have also come to agree and understand nial as well. Japan Studios involvement in Bloodborne gets undermined a lot, they played a massive role in the projects inception conceptually, and had those Japan Studio producers not conceived the idea and approached From Software, the game wouldn’t exist.

Having said that, Japan Studio functioned as an internal developer and an External Development Group which is pretty much what XDev is today with its own outreach program and allocated producers. Initiatives like Playstation CAMP are prime examples of this. Masaaki Yamagiwa was producer on Bloodborne, and probably was the one who conceived Bloodborne along with Teruyuki Toriyama, the former also produced the PS CAMP titles.

What nial is saying is just that, that Bloodborne is a product of Japan Studio’s External Development Group which is XDev as some of those staff got consolidated into that arm of the business when they got restructured. Either way, I miss Japan Studio.

I think people simply want to oversimplify something that isn't simple. Game development takes time and there are a lot of moving parts here. Could the closure of Japan Studio play a role? Sure, maybe, but I think that's super unlikely to be the primary reason.

It's possible that XDEV is stretch thin. Rise of the Ronin definitely took longer to make than originally anticipated. I don't think we know when Sony got involved but the game was in development since 2015 and released in 2024... Much of Japan Studio still exists across XDEV as you mentioned, in fact many of the key people.

I think you simply have a focus of FromSoftware to make their own titles, which is also why they bought back elden ring but didn't buy Dark Souls at the same time.

When it comes to developer publisher split, especially when Sony wasn't publishing PC games at the time, it would make sense that From games are far more profitable under Namco Bandai than they ever were under SIE. They bought back the rights, but Namco Bandai is still publishing the newest Elden Ring game. This is complexity. We don't know what the agreement was for them to sell the rights back, but clearly they're not out of the picture on the franchise.

The bigger question I have is why Demon's Souls hasn't hit PC now that Sony is releasing PC games, but I think the answer there is pretty clear. Even though I think there is a clear market for the game on PC, who is going to do the work? Bluepoint is already working on their next project. It would fall to Nixxes right? Well, the game is a bit too small a performer for Nixxes to prioritize. My guess is it'll slip in there somewhere when they have a lull in project work, but we can already see that they're doing Spider-Man 2, they're involved in TLOU2 (maybe they took over the work from Iron Galaxy) and they just put out a remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn with external devs.

After TLOUP2 comes out, I'd like to see Demon's Souls get the next nod. I imagine it's either that or Gran Turismo, but there is a window there before you'd expect them to start working on Ghost of Yotei and assuming Sony isn't working on the port of Death Stranding 2.

Why did Sackboy Adventure get a PC release before Demon's Souls? Well, it was handled by Sumo Digital and there was no real risk involved there with time/resources. If Sumo did a great job with the port, maybe you use them for future pc ports in the future.

I bring that up only to point out the complexity of balancing projects. None of this stuff happens overnight even when it's all internal, let alone when there are external elements involved.

I think as gamers we're too quick to say, hey this is obvious, do this and do it now and that's not even to suggest that gamers should shut up. I think that feedback is important to companies to have a sense of where some demand might be. It's been rumored now that Sony is looking to bring back classic IP and I don't think that happens without a lot of people online clamoring for it. The question again is which IP and by whom, and when...

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

It isn't. Almost 2021 + 4 and people still can't get the difference between paying for timed third-party exxclusives and directly funding, producing AND publishing the whole project.
Sony paid Square Enix to not release Rebirth on other platforms and that was it, while on the other hand, they had to actively manage the production of Rise of the Ronin and Srellar Blade.

Stellar blade was announced for Xbox long before Sony money hatted them.

 

[nial]

Stellar blade was announced for Xbox long before Sony money hatted them.

Publishers getting involved in development of already announced games is nothing new and shouldn't be discarded just because the publisher happened to be a platform holder.
If you think Sony literally just gave them money and that was it, you're far from reality.