Sony working on a Smash Bros. style game

[Lastcallhall]

Becasue Sega forgot about it.

Zing!

(Yes, that's my only contribution to this thread.)

[kool kitty89]

And that knowledge is why I don't consider the Chief a Microsoft character.

Well, if just having ownership of the franchise doesn't make the character yours, Sony has next to none of their own either.

I just can't see it any other way, if Sony bought Mickey or Nintendo bought Sonic that wouldn't change who created the character and what company they've been associated with for decades. I think Sweet Tooth is the closest thing to uniquely Sony there is but he hardly has any star power.

But with that argument, you could also go further and say no company "has" or "owns" or "makes" their own characters at all . . . only the artists/designers/writers/programmers do. (ie it should thus be immaterial whether said person/people designed/created that character/franchise while working for said company or had it bought up later -or if a 3rd party commissioned the game in the first place -or merged with, etc, etc- . . . that's the nature of copyrights in the game world, the company almost always owns the rights, not the author/artist/etc -it's corporate entities like Sega that owns the rights to Sonic and Nintendo to Mario . . . not any members of Sonic Team or Shigeru Miyamoto)

So any actual franchises/IPs that Sony owns (via 1st/2nd parties -like Imagesoft and Psygnosis, or other franchises that were purchased from 3rd parties) could be freely used in such a game, but franchines that Sony only licensed for a time (to use as killer apps/exclusives, mascots, etc -like Tomb Raider, Crash, etc) would indeed need to have additional royalties paid for such crossover/spin-off games.

[NeoZeedeater]

Many of the best Sony-owned characters and background art are ones from Psygnosis Amiga games that they probably won't include.

[jerry coeurl]

You shut your whore mouth.

I concur. Not only is PaRappa the very antithesis of lame, he's also the coolest character on that list by a mile!

[sheath]

@ koolkitty, breaking ownership down to the individual developer/designer would be relatively unprecedented in this industry, and running my argument to the absurd besides. We both know that IP created while under the employ of a corporation typically, if not always, becomes the property and creation of that corporation.

[j_factor]

@ koolkitty, breaking ownership down to the individual developer/designer would be relatively unprecedented in this industry, and running my argument to the absurd besides. We both know that IP created while under the employ of a corporation typically, if not always, becomes the property and creation of that corporation.

Right, so how are the main characters of, say, The Legend of Dragoon, not Sony first-party characters? Or the kid from Ico, or the guy from MediEvil?

[sheath]

Right, so how are the main characters of, say, The Legend of Dragoon, not Sony first-party characters? Or the kid from Ico, or the guy from MediEvil?

Is every character created by Sega in the 90s and early 2000s a CSK character?

[j_factor]

Is every character created by Sega in the 90s and early 2000s a CSK character?

Not sure what you're implying with this question. CSK is just a holdings company. Are you saying you'd agree that they're Sony Computer Entertainment first-party characters, but not Sony first-party characters?

[sheath]

I could be wrong, but I haven't heard of Sony ever creating a gaming studio. From what I have seen they have only absorbed gaming studios.

[j_factor]

I could be wrong, but I haven't heard of Sony ever creating a gaming studio. From what I have seen they have only absorbed gaming studios.

I'm not really sure what difference that makes. But yes, Sony has created a few gaming studios. SCE Studio Japan, SCE Studio London, and a couple others.

[sheath]

Well with a company like Sega, even under CSK, they created developers to make games that hopefully made money. Companies like Sony, Microsoft, EA and Activision acquire game developers to make even more money. It's all in the corporate "philosophy", though that is not the right word since it means "the love of wisdom".

Either way, if I create the next great food chain and McDonalds buys it from me my food chain does not become McDonalds. It is the same with IP, at least for anybody with any interest in correct facts and history.

As my food franchise would definitely be based on creating something unique for people to enjoy, I doubt McDonalds would ever be interested in it anyway.

[j_factor]

Either way, if I create the next great food chain and McDonalds buys it from me my food chain does not become McDonalds. It is the same with IP, at least for anybody with any interest in correct facts and history.

I can understand that for existing IP that Sony purchased. But if Sony bought a studio outright in 1997 or whatever and folded them into SCEI as a wholly-owned subsidiary, anything they create thereafter is as first-party as anything from a Sony-created studio. The history of the company shouldn't matter, only the history of the game/IP. After all, we all consider Kirby a Nintendo first-party character (who happens to be in all the Smash Bros. games), with no regard for the fact that Hal was once an independent company (before they created Kirby).

[kool kitty89]

@ koolkitty, breaking ownership down to the individual developer/designer would be relatively unprecedented in this industry, and running my argument to the absurd besides. We both know that IP created while under the employ of a corporation typically, if not always, becomes the property and creation of that corporation.

In many cases, the difference is semantic . . . especially for IPs created AFTER the company was merged with or bought-out (which, in many respects, is no different from recruiting developers piecemeal style -and actually healthier/more efficient, if the new management continues to be supportive of those teams -if not more so than the previous company . . . ie not like what MS has been known to do, or Nintendo for that matter -like what happened to Rare under Nintendo's partnership, which, granted, wasn't as extreme as what happened to RARE under MS -but still worse than what some Sony partners/buy-outs dealt with, including Namco and Psygnosis)

I mean, really, if you buy up a company as a real investment (to build up your in-house resources), and are supportive as such (if not making things possible that never would have been prior to that -due to funding/etc), that's a very different case from buying out a firm just to own the existing IP and throwing out the rest. (or, for that matter, funding/supporting a company through partnership, with shared/owned IPs as part of the deal).

It's really not black and white at all, and even the likes of Microsoft have cases where they genuinely did bring in added resources for continued support/development as an investment, rather than to remove competition. (what Sony did -in almost every instance- was build-up its internal development resources, not try to kill off competition -by all accounts they were quite open and extremely attractive for 3rd party publishers to work with too, somewhat like Sega had been -and Nintendo obviously had not, not sure about NEC)

Not sure what you're implying with this question. CSK is just a holdings company. Are you saying you'd agree that they're Sony Computer Entertainment first-party characters, but not Sony first-party characters?

Even if you argue pre-existing IPs not being legitimate "first party" properties (which I contest), you at least have to include any properties developed AFTER said buy-outs (or during collaboration/commissioned development -ie for cases of partnerships/2nd party type relationships rather than formal mergers).

And on top of that, there's the issue of a publisher vs developer . . . sometimes a publisher will have in-house developers attached to it, other times not, and usually both (including some developers being 2nd party to a publisher for a time, but that changing later on). This was (and is) the case for Nintendo, Sega, NEC, Sony, and even Microsoft (and actually Atari Inc and Atari Corp in a few cases).
It's called outsourcing and collaboration, and pretty much all healthy big-name publishers do it. (some of Sega's best games were from 2nd parties or collaborative efforts)

Sony was doing that via Imagesoft even before they entered the console market. (including collaboration with in-house efforts on Sony's end . . . not to mention joint efforts including Sega as well)

Of course, you could also break down those creations based on those specific developers rather than the outstanding company that provided funding/etc (if not actual ownership), and you could even do that for wholely owned subsidiaries too (especially when retained as semi-autonomous divisions -which is certainly the case for many of Nintendo, Sony, and Sega's associates/partners/buy-outs over the years)

Same thing for other big conglomerates like EA, Time Warner Interactive, Activision, etc. (granted, all have changed significantly over the years, and some things for the worse . . . though there's many great things to come out of that nevertheless, and some companies that would have died out entirely otherwise -like Infocom with Activision; as much as you can argue that their creative freedom was limited in the post-merger environment at Activision in the mid/late 80s, there's still a lot of great stuff that came out of the Infocom division of Activision for years after that -and still more examples of continued use of IPs later on that may not have existed otherwise . . . what happened to Origin with EA was more unfortunate, though they did some of their best games in the EA years too -in the mid 90s- and it's only up to guessing where Origin would be today if they hadn't merged with EA -ie maybe they'd have died off even sooner with less to their name than we have today, or maybe they'd be better off, who knows? )


Or, beyond that, how about re-imagining (or drastically updating) and old IP after buying it (or not necessarily buying it specifically, but ending up with it as part of a merger made for other reasons). This can be done for the better or worse (or both, depending on ones perspective), but it's significant nevertheless.

I'm not really sure what difference that makes. But yes, Sony has created a few gaming studios. SCE Studio Japan, SCE Studio London, and a couple others.

Didn't they have in-house development staff and facilities with Imagesoft even prior to the Playstation? (I'm pretty sure it was more than just a publishers, though I know a ton of stuff was licensed, outsources, or collaborative work -though collaborative stuff implies in-house resources too)

[sheath]

I can understand that for existing IP that Sony purchased. But if Sony bought a studio outright in 1997 or whatever and folded them into SCEI as a wholly-owned subsidiary, anything they create thereafter is as first-party as anything from a Sony-created studio. The history of the company shouldn't matter, only the history of the game/IP. After all, we all consider Kirby a Nintendo first-party character (who happens to be in all the Smash Bros. games), with no regard for the fact that Hal was once an independent company (before they created Kirby).

Yeah that sounds fair to me as well. To be honest, I've seen Sony as more of a legitimate gaming company since the PS3 flopped (initially) and they started buying more exclusives.

[The Jackal]

Right, so how are the main characters of, say, The Legend of Dragoon, not Sony first-party characters? Or the kid from Ico, or the guy from MediEvil?

Dan from MediEvil and that chick from Primal would count as true Sony creations; SCE Cambridge did both games if memory serves me right.