Sony pulls the plug on Team Bondi
- Thread starter ZiFF
- Start date
Intriguing. I thought they (SCEW) had already spent $40 million on Team Bondi.
Edit :
Also checking the Team Bondi website, they've changed their message from "Creating 3 PS3 exclusive titles" to "Creating next-gen titles". Wonder what that's all about? Did Sony not like what they were seeing? Or did R* offer a buyout?
Edit :
Also checking the Team Bondi website, they've changed their message from "Creating 3 PS3 exclusive titles" to "Creating next-gen titles". Wonder what that's all about? Did Sony not like what they were seeing? Or did R* offer a buyout?
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scooby_dooby
Legend
Well this is good news for 360 buyers, LA Noire certainly looked pretty impressive.
We have yet to see anything from LA Noire...
After two to three years of development.. see you in 2010.
scooby_dooby
Legend
Wasn't it a part of the E3 demo reel? Maybe I'm thinking of a different game...
You guys really need to stop with teh damage control. It's pretty pathetic. Sony loses an exclusive developer and suddenly they can only produce vaporware, and do not provide any returns etc etc. Come on...
ManuVlad3.0
Regular
To be fair, we haven't seen much at all of this game. There's that old geezer pic, and a couple of others. I can't recall much else being shown. If you can find anything (nowt on IGN and Gamespot) then please link to it!
IGN's been updated with the rockstar move. They say R* won't confirm what platforms it is. I imagine PS3 with an XB360 port either at the same time or later when they've had time to develop it. The idea sounds good, a Jazzy detective game.
As for that teaser, not worth downloading at all. All it shows of the game is the logo and a top down slow-sweep through a city street in B&W. Nice enough, but for 2 seconds and the rest being logos, why bother?
Angelcurio
Regular
This was really unexpected specially after all the rumors about Sony spending a lot of cash into this project.
I don't think that's true, but what has been true in the past was McNamara's stubborness in not relenting on his "vision" (or tunnel vision) in order to make his game more playable (a free camera, map and HUD for the getaway, at least the sequel without McNamara's participation fixed the map, but still no on-screen map and still no HUD or free camera), nevertheless, the Getaway had a compelling story (thanks to McNamara), great atmosphere but ultimately flawed gameplay (also thanks to McNamara), the Getaway did sell quite a lot of copies with a ton of Sony marketing behind it. The lack in gameplay design is something that I do worry about, both for Team Bondi and for Sony's own Team Soho (those who remained behind after McNamara left).
My question is that given Sony has been quite supportive of their developers, and has even funded bad projects like Rise of Honor, and obviously they didn't shy away from dumping a ton of money into a mediocre game like the Getaway, so why did they decide not to publish LA Noire after funding it for so long?
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Sony never even officially announced the game themselves. Team Bondi came out and said they were working on something for Sony, but that was it. What probably happened here is that Sony signed them and agreed to fund a prototype, which thereafter would be reviewed before deciding to go ahead or not. It happens all the time. That's why Sony didn't announce it, and why Team Bondi probably shouldn't have mentioned who they were working with til they got past that milestone.
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Perhaps Sony doesn't want another old man as their unofficial mascot again
but seriously i'am looking forward to this game it better be on ps3.
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Quite possibly. For reference, here's what McNamara had to say in an interview in Feb '04 (3 years in the making!)
Seems an odd time to pull funding. Maybe the game is way behind schedule and Sony have given up on it? And R* have taken it up as they'll take it to a larger cross-platform market for greater returns?
Quite possibly. For reference, here's what McNamara had to say in an interview in Feb '04 (3 years in the making!)
Seems an odd time to pull funding. Maybe the game is way behind schedule and Sony have given up on it? And R* have taken it up as they'll take it to a larger cross-platform market for greater returns?
I wouldn't assume anything about how much Sony had invested in the project up until they had that review and decided not to go further. The budget may have been projected to be 30m or 40m, but I very much doubt that's how much the prototype Sony initially commissioned cost.
It's a new team, formed initially by a few members of Sony's London studio.
Quite possibly. For reference, here's what McNamara had to say in an interview in Feb '04 (3 years in the making!)
Seems an odd time to pull funding. Maybe the game is way behind schedule and Sony have given up on it? And R* have taken it up as they'll take it to a larger cross-platform market for greater returns?
It's strange for Sony to pull funding, they KNEW McNamara's penchant for "big budget cinematic games" and expensive mo-capping techniques, as well as his stubborn refusal to make Getaway more playable simply by adding a map and HUD, heck, they stuck with McNamara for FOUR YEARS on the Getaway, they knew what they were getting into, a game that is guaranteed to have a big budget and long development time regardless of whether the gameplay would be good or not, or even be commercially successful, why would they pull out now? Why wouldn't they see it through?
I can understand if it's EA or some other publisher, but this is SCEWW, they bought Guerilla, they're sticking with the Getaway series for a third game, they stuck with Sony Bend until finally a decent Syphon Filter is made, Keiichiro Toyama is making a next-gen Siren game.
