Sony XDEV Europe has collaborated with independent teams like Quantic Dream and Housemarque for many years, but now its remit appears to span worldwide. The Liverpool-based studio responsible for releases like Returnal and Detroit: Become Human historically only interfaced with European teams, but an internal reshuffle appears to have put it in charge of PlayStation’s second-party operations worldwide.
While the team’s website remains unchanged – it doesn’t even mention more recent releases like Sackboy: A Big Adventure – alterations on PlayStation.com and career-focused social network LinkedIn appear to demonstrate the shift. Long-time employees now describe their roles as External Producers within the PlayStation Studios framework. Some even list their positions as Global External Producers, illustrating that this is now a worldwide operation.
On the platform holder’s official website, Sony XDEV – no longer named Sony XDEV Europe, we’d like to stress – is described as: “Collaborating with ambitious external studios across the globe.” Presumably that means it’ll be involved with upcoming projects from Jade Raymond’s team Haven and the ex-Destiny developers at Firewalk Studios.
Japan Studio, which shuttered recently, had its own XDEV outreach program which saw it collaborating with independent developers like FromSoftware on Bloodborne. However, at the time of the division’s disbandment, a spokesperson for the platform holder said that any external production roles would be “concentrated within the global functions of PlayStation Studios”. We suspect, then, that XDEV is also in charge of any collaborations with Japanese developers as well.
This does seem like a big change, and it’ll be interesting to see how its output evolves over the coming years. Sony XDEV Europe has always been a prolific part of PlayStation’s portfolio, but if its operations are now global does that mean it’ll be collaborating on more projects – or simply cherry-picking the very best teams from around the world? We’ll contact Sony to try and get an update on XDEV’s role moving forwards.
[source playstation.com, via linkedin.com, linkedin.com]
Comments 6
I like the great work XDEV does/coordinates, but I would love for these long-term partner studios to finally be brought into the first party portfolio and given access to more resources.
Maybe they're taking the law into their own hands to try and get us Bloodborne 2.
We'll have to see how this pans out. I'm worried that language and cultural barriers will keep the output mainly focused in Europe and North America. Collaboration leans a lot on personal connections.
Cool! I really enjoyed Detroit Become Human a lot.
Hopefully more great games are done to a high standard because of this restructure.
I know we often delve into acquisition speculation in recent times but when you look at who Sony actually buy they tend to chose studios that they had a previous working relationship with. Shawn Layden said after buying Insomniac that they look at the culture of certain studios too, to see if they would fit into the Playstation Studios framework. Maybe Sony XDev might play a vital part in that where they work closely with a second party team on a game but give feedback to Sony on how a particular studio performs with various challenges.
Hopefully they can build some bridges with the ex-Japan Studio teams before they all bog off to a different platform...
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