Media Molecule Co-founder and Technical Director, Dave Smith, talks about their upcoming PS Vita game, Tearaway and about the studio's transition away from LittleBigPlanet.
Sammy: "Sony disastrously and disgracefully shuttered Texas-based fan favourite Bluepoint yesterday. The long-time PS Studios partner never got a chance to ship a game under its new parent company.
This news hit me particularly hard because I believe it reflects the erosion of once-great PlayStation management that I think we’ve all been feeling for quite some time."
How was this allowed to happen? A studio know for excellent remakes and remasters were put on a GOW live service game? Something nobody wanted? There are so many other, more interesting projects, for me they were the prime studio who should have remastered or remade Bloodborne, what an absolute waste, I'm really annoyed about this.
Hulst should have followed Jim Ryan out the door, especially after his failed concord brainchild, execs really do only fail upwards.
You say "no body wanted" but we don't actually know if the Devs were the ones to pitch it. For all we know
If that was the case you would have thought Sony would have told Bluepoint no & had them make the God Of War trilogy remake instead while having Santa Monica Studios concentrate on the next God Of War & what ever else they're working on. A Bloodborne remake/remaster would have definitely printed Sony millions. It seems the upper management doesn't care what the fans think including them making awful business decisions. To take Bluepoint under their wing for 5 years & dismantle them is crazy work, Sony should have auctioned Bluepoint off to to a company that could really use them.
If the really did pitch it then they would have wanted their own IP for being a brand new game, not using someone else’s IP when it’s not a remake this time.
I mean I guess, but doubt that a small team of 70 wanted to do a live service game, I don't buy it personally, but we'll never 100% know.
i think you are half right. sony became hyper-focused on live service games and given that, studios would then pitch live service games because those projects were the most likely to be greenlit by the higher ups. now, as for what the hell bluepoint was working on since their god of war game was cancelled is beyond me. it's just increasingly frustrating when sony just announced a god of remake which is still in its infancy when bluepoint could have been working on it for years and likely would have shipped it by now.
We had a god of war mp in the past and it didn’t do well back then with less competition so doubtful people wanted a live service game especially from devs that made some top tier remakes
Copium like this is the reason they're in this position. Sony could do no wrong and when something did go wrong, it's never the corporate suits at sony who are to blame.....its either: devs bad or ms/phil spencer bad while their own backyard is on fire. This is the result of not caring what your fav company does just because another company does (way) worse and automatically condoning everything. I hope they can turn it around without having to fuck over their customers more because especially some of the games on ps1 through ps3 were absolutely amazing.
Can't really say im surprised it's gotten to this point although I didn't expect them to close Bluepoint who has always delivered stellar work.
The devs didn’t pitch it. It’s already been discussed publicly. They had literally just started on a new undisclosed project they were still in the initial ideas phase when they were asked to stop and do GoW instead.
Love the downvotes considering it's since become public knowledge that yes bluepoint DID infact pitch the god of war game. They also eventually pitched a Bloodborne remake but from software torpedoed the project, sadly.
Everyone keeps asking for a Bloodborne remaster or remake — a game that genuinely deserves preservation and modernization. Instead, we got a remake of The Last of Us and then a remaster of The Last of Us Part II, both of which were already recent and widely available. That decision feels tone-deaf. It’s hard not to question priorities when so many legacy titles are untouched.
Bluepoint built its reputation on honoring PlayStation’s history. They were masters at remakes and remasters. There is an entire catalog — from PS1, PS2, and PS3 eras — that fans would celebrate. Yet instead of leveraging that strength, they were redirected toward live service ambitions. Six years later, there’s nothing to show, and now the studio is gone. That’s not just disappointing — it feels like wasted potential.
Sony Bend is another example. Days Gone 2 wasn’t greenlit, and the studio was reportedly shifted toward live service. Years later, that project was canceled, and they’re back at square one. That’s years of development time lost in a generation that already feels light on first-party output.
What’s even more concerning is the broader shift. PlayStation used to thrive on bold, risk-taking single-player projects and strong Japanese creative influence. Now the strategy appears more Western-focused and heavily driven by the live service model — where multiple failures are acceptable as long as one becomes a breakout success.
Competition used to push Sony to take creative risks. The PS3 vs. Xbox 360 era forced innovation. Today, Xbox has shifted direction, Nintendo operates independently in its own lane, and Sony doesn’t feel the same competitive pressure. Without that tension, the urgency to push boundaries seems diminished.
The frustration many fans feel isn’t just about one remake or one canceled project — it’s about a sense that PlayStation’s identity is drifting. And while loyalty is natural, defending every decision without criticism doesn’t help the platform grow.
It’s not anger because we hate PlayStation. It’s frustration because we care about what it used to represent
Jack tretton
Shawn laden
Andrew house
Kaz
Shu Yoshida
These people aren't walking through the doors anymore
It does concern me that they think closing amazing studios like Bluepoint and Japan Studios is smart.
I'm honestly surprised Media Molecule is still around. They put out what 1 game in the past 10+ years? I personally wasn't interested in Dreams, so they have been a wash for me since the PS3 era. Are they working on a new game? What are they doing?
I immediately recalled when they shut down Japan Studio. I don’t understand why any studio would agree to be acquired by Sony, EA, or Microsoft with their history of studio closures.
Because of money. Most game studios need financial backing in order to develop games.
Frustrating news, for sure. Hulst is on a major losing streak. Baffling decisions....
They could of let them do a Remakes of Sly, Jak and Daxter maybe the old Killzone games. Ported Demon Souls to other platforms. Steady revenue for growth becoming a 70 team to 100+ eventually.
Precisely! PlayStation have a rich back catalogue that is screaming out for a talented team like those at Bluepoint to work their magic upon.
Such wasted potential. And a terrible thing to happen to those talented workers at Bluepoint.
Demon's Souls remake was the gateway to FromSoft games for me. I'd fully beaten Bloodborne, but had struggled to get into Dark Souls. Demon's Souls - as a launch title - showed me how these games are meant to be played.
As a PS Fan and someone that looks to new exsperiences not rehashing old ones I can feel for the devs but it does not move the needle as far as getting new video games.
TSA writes: "If there's one thing we know and love Media Molecule for, it's pushing creativity and experimentation within its game design."
It turns out that many moons ago, Microsoft once had its eye on the Sony published LittleBigPlanet series.
Project Spark idea was decent but they quickly gave up ..
LBP was wonderful
Microsoft in a nutshell. Always tried to poach Sony employees, games, 3rd party games and devices like the depth camera that was turned into Kinect but was running on PS2 before Xbox 360. Wouldn't be surprised they wanted LBP. Just like they worked behind the scenes pushing the MLB to bring Sony's baseball game to Xbox instead of making their own.
https://www.playstationlife...
They didn't spend years trying to develop their own baseball game. They wanted Sony's game.
They're scum.
Microsoft didn't force MLB on Xbox. MLB gave Sony 2 options either go multiplat or risk losing the license.
Totally ridiculous comment.
The only exclusivity Sony had was to their own creation of The Show. Microsoft could have paid the MLB for the license just like Sony did and made their own baseball game.
Microsoft instead, groomed MLB for years in trying to poach Sony's game and bring it to Xbox. They're worth 3 TRILLION dollars. You think that's not enough money to make their own baseball game? Don't be delusional.
Microsoft spun it like they always do and told the media that they had to trust Sony with their hardware. After they put Sony in that position of not having a choice. Either go multiplatform or stop making one of their successful games. That's a no win scenario.
And what did Microsoft do? They didn't try to sell the game to the Xbox community. They put it on game pass to hurt Sony. Pushing the idea of why buy games that are $70 when you can play them in their cheap service for $10. It was a dirty tactic.
You fell for the Kool aid drink Microsoft served you instead of spitting it out. Hope it tasted good because you were fooled by Phil and the gang.
Xbox executive Sara Bond has told Axios that Microsoft spent a number of years trying to get MLB The Show onto Xbox consoles. And when it finally succeeded in breaking off PlayStation’s long-held exclusivity, the company had to “trust” Sony with pre-release Xbox Series X/S consoles.
Bond revealed that MLB The Show “always came up” in conversations between Microsoft and the Major League Baseball organization. “We always said, ‘We love this game. It would be a huge opportunity to bring it to Xbox.'” she recalled. However, when Microsoft’s efforts materialized, it put the company in an awkward situation where it had to send in pre-release consoles to a rival company.
"Microsoft instead, groomed MLB for years in trying to poach Sony's game and bring it to Xbox."
Take a nap, conspiracies are rotting your brain.
Xbox executive Sara Bond has told Axios that Microsoft spent a number of years trying to get MLB The Show onto Xbox consoles. And when it finally succeeded in breaking off PlayStation’s long-held exclusivity, the company had to “trust” Sony with pre-release Xbox Series X/S consoles.
Lying to yourself is unbecoming.
Article link tells you all you need to know in Sarah Bond's own words.
They were too cheap/inept/lazy to develop their own mlb game, so they port begged for years and bribed the mlb to make the show multiplatform. Like i said many times, xbox brought nothing to the table their 24 years, ZERO.
At least you and others get it. Note drank the Kool aid and asked for seconds thinking it was refreshing.
Most don't even know how it all played out but it's there in black and white for all to see. Microsoft brought it up for years until the MLB forced Sony's hand. It was a win win for Microsoft. Kill one reason to buy a PlayStation or kill the game by dropping it in a cheap service to kill Sony's sales numbers on PlayStation.
"However, Healey said Media Molecule wouldn't have felt right doing that, adding it would have been "morally corrupt"."
Major kudos to Media Molecule for being an upright studio with principles.
They chose well, Sony gave them the backing to pursue their dreams with no restrictions even tho their games especially dreams have very niche appeal. Media molecule and Sony deserve respect for this in an age of risk averse publishing.
Great, more stories like this please. Show the last of the zombies holding the line what we've been saying for years: Microsoft is anti competition, anti industry and has no interest in making games at all.
But hey, at least there's an Xbox Games Showcase to look forward to, right?
Well considering SONY just killed the series, LBP would've been dead by now either way. Though MM probably wouldn't exist by now either, so I'm glad they stayed with SONY, hopefully they don't get shut down any time soon or ever honestly.
They shut down the servers, that's millions of user created levels gone. That and dead are pretty much the same, it's also been years since 3 and they cancelled HUB soooo.
They shutdown the servers because no one was playing, no one in the community cared about the user created levels so why keep them up? Wtf you guys would never succeed in running a business.
Yea dood no one was playing so they shut off the servers. Cause people with enough common sense can't just Google why they were actually shut of, right?
There is not doubt in my mind that this game will be great. MM has not let me down so far as far as new ways to play games.
I think they have a very good idea going here. What is more interactive then influencing a world that is being held in your own hands? This is the type of thinking developers should be doing when faced with using a system's functions instead of just shoving in he functionally to justify using it.That being said someone needs to make a whole new Okami game using the VITA's functions.I can see using the back screen to cause earthquakes beneath the enemy's feet or cause the land to shift around and of cause the front screen for using the brush strokes.
I need to buy this on top of my already large to buy list!
I'll buy any Media Molecule game because they created LBP, one of my favorite game series. I can't wait for LBP Karting, LBP2 cross-controller DLC and Tearaway!