Sony Zipper Studio is dead

[Sexy_Raine]

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/122/1221535p1.html?RSSwhen2012-03-30_153500&RSSid=1221535

Today, SCEA confirms Zipper is no more. The creator of SOCOM and MAG had suffered this due poor sales. I hope the staff are able to find a new studio to work for.

That's what Sony gets for trying to cater to the shitty modern North American audience, I hope that teaches them a lesson. Sony needs more games that stay aawy from mainstream style because they aren't going to beat Activision and EA at their own game. I hope Last of Us is a step in the right direction.

[AC9breaker]

No thats what Zipper gets for making shitty games. North American audience is one of the biggest and most influential markets on the market right now.

Sony though is pretty diverse in its portfolio and has more then just one studio making games geared toward different demographics.

[Kent]

I don't think I've met anyone that has actually played any of their games. Oh well.

It sucks that they lost their jobs (that's never fun), but hopefully, they'll find greener pastures than working for Sony.

[Rubius-sama]

That sucks. I remember spending 15 hours a day playing the original Socom. I was really addicted. As for MAG, never played it but I will say one thing - FPS doesn't belong on the PS3. If you go that route, expect poor sales. Playstations have been known as RPG machines, mainly, and FPS is the last thing that crowd will play. It's a no-brainer, really, but I guess they really didn't have the choice of releasing it on Xbox or PC since they were a Sony studio.

[Sexy_Raine]

That sucks. I remember spending 15 hours a day playing the original Socom. I was really addicted. As for MAG, never played it but I will say one thing - FPS doesn't belong on the PS3. If you go that route, expect poor sales. Playstations have been known as RPG machines, mainly, and FPS is the last thing that crowd will play. It's a no-brainer, really, but I guess they really didn't have the choice of releasing it on Xbox or PC since they were a Sony studio.

FPSs are fine as long as they don't cater to the multiplayer deathmatch fanboys and trying to be too realistic *coughwarshootclonecough*. Resistance 3 got blown out of the water last year because of Sony's BS. There's nothing wrong with 3rd parties bringing FPS to ps3, ioshock Infinite will be awesome.

Sadly Sony's first party studios haven't made a RPG in a long time. The most original game they have, The Last Guardian had suffered so many delays already. Who knows if its still coming.

I'm getting tired of Sony's BS. For this year's E3 conference, if mostly realistic deathmatch bullshit gets shown, then i'll probably get Wii-U instead for next-gen consoles. Be more original, copying is not cool!

[Keilyn]

Realistic shooters? You mean all the counterstrike people going console right?

The major shooters that first existed were anything but "Realistic." Check out the original Doom, along with Quake and Unreal Tournament.

You speak mostly of second generation shooters that started at the end of the 90s and entered an Era of WW-2 Simulation Gaming, specially with Call of Duty....

[Retehi]

What is MAG? The game that tried to be the next big thing since Haze? Oh the sorrow.

[joefro]

I've never played any of Zipper's SOCOM games, (though I did play SOCOM: Confrontation by Slant Six Games--which made me vow to never play another one of their games again *cough*RE:ORC*cough*) and MAG was about as generic as a shooter can get (aside from the 256 players or whatever.) I did, however, play Unit 13, and it is an enjoyable game, though I am comparing it to Uncharted: Golden Abyss. I'm basically saying that it didn't have any competition in the shooter market on Vita launch. Still, it's always sad to see a studio close, if only for the people who lost their jobs.

[Akaimizu]

I played more Zipper Interactive gaming before they were bought by Sony. I was a big fan of action arcade tank gaming and they (outside of Atari) were the ones to deliver. I played Recoil and loved it. Alas, I was less interested in games like SOCOM, even though I did give it a go on a PSP version. However, it really paled in comparison to the gameplay and features (not graphics related) of my favorites like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter.

It's kind of like Killzone. Sony's big attempt to try to get in the FPS market dominated by PCs and Xbox, but a game series that really you never have to even bother with unless you basically are in the camp for never owning a Microsoft system or a good PC. It's not bad, but pales in comparison to what the competition has on other machines. Very much like Conduit did for Nintendo systems. It gave Wii something exclusive, but isn't that great unless you only own the Wii.