Sony, MS, and Nintendo internal studios

[Acert93]

Like Nintendo and Sega, Sony has done some re-alignment and renaming of their internal studios in recent years. Most recently in 2005 I believe with SCE Worldwide Studios or something or the other. I was asked about all their studios and big games, so I took a stab at it--but I am certain I must have missed/screwed this up some.

So lets fix my list Any dev studios I missed and any major franchises from those studios (within ~ last 5 years):

SONY

Polyphony Digital
- Gran Tourisimo series
- Tourist Trophy

SCE Studios Santa Monica
- God of War

SCE
- ICO
- The Shadow of the Colossus

Zipper Interactive
- SOCOM series
- Mechwarrior 3
- Crimson Skies

Incognito Entertainment
- Warhawk
- Jet Moto (also 989)
- Twisted Metal series (also 989)

SCE Studio Liverpool / Psygnosis
- Wipeout series
- Formula One series
- Destruction Derby
- Colony Wars
- Lemmings (published)

989 Studios / Sony Interactive Studios America
- Everquest series
- NFL Gameday series
- MLB series
- NBA series
- NHL series
- NCAA Gamebreaker series
- NBA Final Four series

Guerrilla Games
- Killzone series
- Shellshock

SCE Europe (Team SOHO)
- Getaway series
- SingStar
- EyeToy

Naughty Dog
- Crash Bandicoot series
- Crash Team Racing
- Jax
- Jax and Daxter
- Jax X: Combat Racing
- Untitled Naughty Dog Project for PS3

Sony also owns a ton of IPs.

They seem to have quite a few titles where they supported a 3rd party and own the IP, like Rogue Galaxy.

And for fun:

- Lists of funded titles for the PS3. I can think of: Lair (Factor5), Motorstorm (Evolution Studios), Heavenly Sword (Ninja Theory). Others?

- List of "exclusives" from 3rd parties. MGS4 seems pretty exclusive, as well as the next Final Fantasy.


- Any other unique relationships (e.g. 2nd parties) or active franchises owned, but being actively developed by 3rd parties.

Edit: Decided to change the name to MS and Nintendo as well. Might as well have them all in 1 place :smile: I will try to correct this post once people point out all my errors!


MICROSOFT

Rare - 3 or 4 internal teams
- Perfect Dark
- Kameo
- Conkers
- Viva Pinata
- Killer Instinct
- Banjo

Bungie - Branching out to 2 teams
- Halo series
- Myth
- Marathon

Lionhead - 2 teams (?)
- Fable
- Black and White
- The Movies

Ensemble - 1 team I believe
- Age of Empires series
- Age of Mythology
- Halo Wars

FASA - 1 team I believe (what is their relation to Zipper?!)
- Mechwarrior
- Crimson Skies
- Shadowrun

Turn10 - 1 team
- Forza Motorsport series

ACES
- Flight Simulator series
- Combat Flight Simulator series

Wingnut Studios
- Nothing announced yet

Have fun correcting all my mistakes, as I am sure there are a lot. Too tired to do Nintendo, hopefully Teasy or someone will offer to add this

 

[assen]

Naughty Dog?

 

[Acert93]

Naughty Dog?

You are right sir, aquired in 2001.

 

[Farid]

Insomniac is not owned by SCEA. There's also SCEE Cambridge Studios, Naughty Dog and various studios now under the banner of Studio Japan. Also, Team Soho is now known as SCEE London Studios.

For Nintendo, we'd need someone who kept up with their recent (relatively speaking) change done in the name of their studios.

NCL has Nintendo EAD, the recently opened EAD Tokyo studio, Intelligent Systems, HAL Laboratory, 3 or 4 R&D studios (they're calld R&D, but they're actually game studio) all based in Japan and NST (worst of the bunch, if you ask me) and Retro Studios in the US.

There's also other studios which Nintendo doesn't own entirely, such as Brownie Brown and Game Freak...

 

[Wunderchu]

here're a couple MS studios that are based in Japan (Microsoft Game Studios Tokyo):

Team Tree
- Phantom Dust

Team Breakout
- Magatama



[source: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=124640&page=2 ]

 

[Acert93]

Insomniac is not owned by SCEA.

Correct. Pretty exclusive with Ratchet & Clank, Resistance, and Spyro although some recent Spyros ended up on the GCN. After checking into them they have a special honor: a bundle in Japan for Ratched & Clank, the first non-Japanese developer to get a bundle in Japan. Wiki notes they are pretty close with Naughty Dog.

There's also SCEE Cambridge Studios, Naughty Dog and various studios now under the banner of Studio Japan. Also, Team Soho is now known as SCEE London Studios.

So there is SCE Europe (SCEE), and there are a number of developers under that lable like Cambridge and London studios, right?

 

[Wunderchu]

here's a list of Sony's game studios (it may be slightly out of date / inaccurate, though):

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=82453

 

[Farid]

So there is SCE Europe (SCEE), and there are a number of developers under that lable like Cambridge and London studios, right?

Yes.
Well actually, now all the studios are under the direct command of SCEWWS (SCE World Wide Studios).

Also, Feel+ (developer of Lost Odyssey) is owned, or at least partially owned by MS, IIRC.

Wunderchu, I think that both Team Tree and Team Breakout were rolled into Feel+. Needs confirmation, though.

 

[Titanio]

here's a list of Sony's game studios (it may be slightly out of date / inaccurate, though):

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=82453

Copied for convenience:

Internal
Sony Studio Santa Monica (God of War)
Sony Studio Foster City (Rise to Honor)
SCEA Sports Studio - Solworks (NBA)
SCEA Sports Studio - Red Zone (NFL Gameday)
Incog (Twisted Metal, Warhawk)
Naughty Dog (Jak & Daxter)
Zipper Interactive (SOCOM)
Sony Bend (Syphon Filter)
Sony Studio Liverpool (Wipeout, F1)
Sony Studio Cambridge (Medievil, Primal)
Sony Studio London (includes Studio Soho and Camden) (EyeToy: Play, The Getaway, Dropship)
Guerrilla Games (Killzone)
Polyphony Digital (Gran Turismo)
Clap Hanz (Hot Shots Golf)
MuuMuu (Jumping Flash!)
Team Ico (SCEI - Studio 1) (Shadow of the Collossus, ICO)
Shift (SCEI - Studio 2) (XI Go)
Deep Space (SCEI - Studio 3) (Extermination)
Cattle Call (Arc the Lad)
Contrail (Legend of Legaia)
Zener Works (Okage: Shadow King)
Pixel Arts (Sky Gunner)

(I took out SOE..they're not really under the SCE banner)

There are apparently several other SCE teams that don't have specific names and aren't very visible - those that produced the likes of Siren, Ape Escape etc.

Partnerships
Level 5 (Dark Cloud, Rogue Galaxy)
Game Republic (Genji)
Gaia (Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner)
NanaOn-Sha (Mojib Ribbon, Parappa the Rapper)
Media Vision (Wild Arms)
Shade (Granstream Saga)
Alvion (Chain Dive)
Ninja Theory (Heavenly Sword)
Evolution Studios (WRC)
BigBig (Pursuit Force)
Black Company (Brave)
Magenta (Stuart Little)
Relentless (EyeToy: Groove)
Kuju (EyeToy: Play 3)
Frontier (Dog's Life)
Insomniac (Ratchet & Clank)
Sucker Punch (Sly Cooper)
Factor 5 (Lair)
Ready at Dawn (Daxter)
Idol Minds (My Street, Neopets)
Page 44 (Gretzky NHL)
Bottlerocket (Mark of Kri)
Media Molecule

(Hard to know the status of all of these..I took out Team Bondi and Harmonix - now MTV owned - anyway. Also added Media Molecule.)

For Nintendo, I'm not totally sure of the internal structure of NCL's teams. It seems like all their software development is now under EAD, which is made up of several teams now. But their annual report lists the following subsidiaries or affiliates:

Ape Inc. (Earthbound)
Warpstar Inc. (Kirby)
Nintendo Software Technology Corporation (Waverace: Blue Storm, 1080: Avalanche)
Retro Studios Inc. (Metroid Prime)
Brownie Brown Inc.
Game Freak (Pokemon)
Camelot Software (Mario Tennis, Mario Golf)
Genius Sonority
Intelligent Systems (Paper Mario)
HAL Laboratory (Super Smash Bros)

I'm not entirely sure of the precise relationship between Nintendo and these companies in each case..I don't know if in every case they are wholly owned or not, and I'm not sure how active some of them are any more.

 

[Legend]

Everquest is made by SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) which isn't actuall part of SCE. it is part of the Sony Movie group.

 

[LunchBox]

What's the name of the company that MS bought... the one that made that really addicting game "Lumines"?

 

[Titanio]

What's the name of the company that MS bought... the one that made that really addicting game "Lumines"?

Q Entertainment? They're independent, unless something happened very recently that I completely missed.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

- Lists of funded titles for the PS3. I can think of: Lair (Factor5), Motorstorm (Evolution Studios), Heavenly Sword (Ninja Theory). Others?

Are you just counting major titles? 'Coz there's 40 download titles being funded, with no info on who's creating them but we do know there was an open invite to developers to be involved.

 

[Blade]

Nintendo is getting confusing because they've been publishing a ton of 2nd-party games from mediocre/new developers. Outsourcing franchises.

It should be noted that they purchased N-Space. (Geist)

Other than that, I think this thread covers their 1st-party/2nd-party outfits.

 

[greg3d]

Just a minor note:

Myth is no longer owned by Bungie/MS

 

[greg3d]

Notable Nintendo 2nd/3rd Parties:

50% Pokemon Company (other 50% Creatures, Inc.)
~10% Bandai-Namco

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Lionhead is supposed to have another top secret project, called Dimitry, which is - according to Molyneux - a game about the player himself/herself. Probably still on R&D... though I've first heard about it several years ago, so it might have been canceled.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Lionhead is supposed to have another top secret project, called Dimitry, which is - according to Molyneux - a game about the player himself/herself. Probably still on R&D... though I've first heard about it several years ago, so it might have been canceled.

I read something about this not too long ago. I'm very vague. It may have been that they've taken technology from Dimitri and moved it to another project. Or a name change. Can't remember. Um, that doesn't help anything, does it?

Though on the topic of Dimitri, playing me...I cant think of a more boring experience!

 

[LunchBox]

Q Entertainment? They're independent, unless something happened very recently that I completely missed.

I think I read somewhere that they got bought out by MS...
Kind of hazy though coz I heard it quite a few months ago :/

Thanks for giving me the name of the company
I'll try to google it !

 

[Npl]

reading the list, I have to dig out Colony Wars again - nearly forgot about that gem. :smile:

besides, werent 989 Studios behind Syphon Filter too (atleast 1-3 )?