Factor 5 Goes Ker-plop

Kotaku Writes:
Earlier we posted rumors that Factor 5 laid off half its staff. Now comes word the whole studio just closed. I guess everyone's answer to the economy is just to give up.

This one still gets the rumor tag because there's no name on the source. But says IGN's Matt Casamassina over on their boards (subscription required):

(Casamassina) [I w]as hoping the rumors weren't true. Contacted Julian over at F5 to shed some light, but he didn't get back to me. Got an e-mail from an inside source tonight:

"Hi Matt,

How have you been? Haven't seen you guys since E3. I hope that you're doing well!

[Redacted] wanted me to contact you with some late breaking news. We just learned from inside sources that developer Factor 5 has officially closed their doors as of today. That's some pretty big news considering that those guys have been around for quite a while. It's definitely a real shame! I hope that this information is helpful to you. Take care, and please say hi to Bozon for me."

And another one bites the dust. Since everyone's strategy is to fire their way back to full health, may I make a simple request? Please adjust the fiscal quarters ahead by one month. Like daylight savings time for Wall Street or something. That way, 500,000 people won't be getting fired right before Christmas, they can get pink slipped in January and not have their holidays ruined. At least give us that.

[TheColbertinator]

I thought Sony owned Factor 5.Thats a shame.Even though I hated Lair,I enjoyed Rogue Squadron on the Gamecube

[Grassroots]

Nope, they just published their last game.

[ChickeyCantor]

Seriously, openzone?
Explain yourself Steven.

[TheColbertinator]

I love the Open Zone.Its the circus of n4g and I always pull up a chair and enjoy the show

:)

[ChickeyCantor]

But i hate clowns =(

I guess you are right.
Thank n4g, for this circus is free!

[tomfoolery]

The 360 is "THE" choice this gen,and the Wii Wii 2nd.

PS3 is a complete waste of space this gen.
Good luck next gen Sony,
that is if your share holders don't pull the plug on your stupid
Gaystation franchise.

[ChickeyCantor]

"and the Wii Wii 2nd"
Interesting, you said Wii twice.
O i get it, gosh your joke is brilliant.
I take you went to harvard, or oxford?!

[GiantEnemyLobster]

First Free Radical with Haze, now Factor 5 with Lair. Jeez PS3, quit killing all the good developers!

[Grassroots]

This is not a good week, look Haze and Lair were weak yes. I was still looking forward for them to make future titles that can redeem themselves. I was hoping for that Kid Icarus for sure, man. It's interesting how game sales are at the highest point ever even in the recession, and this is sadly happening.

[ChampIDC]

FYI, Haze was Free Radical.

But on topic, it's a shame to see them falling apart. I really liked some of their older games, like the Rogue Squadron series and Super Turrican.

[Bnet343]

Lair + Haze really phucked up. I'm not surprised to see these two companies go down. Haze should of been multiplatform like it was going to be. I mean seriously Xbox 360 has the shooter crowd why would you ignore that? They would of faired better. Oh well.

[Grassroots]

I know HAZE is FRD, I was just relating the two since it happened within days of each other.

[TOO PAWNED]

I just wonder why didnt Sony try to acquire them? I bet they could have done it for "small" amount of money. Same with Free Radical. Really bizzare. I guess publisher, due to global economic crysis are scared to invest atm.

[Elven6]

Considering the layoffs at Sony that would have been unthinkable, not only to the bean counters but imagine how the 10k+ who are being layed of in the coming weeks would feel if they get laid off and wake up next morning with their RSS readers front headline saying "Sony Acquires Studio X in million dollar deal".

[cherrypie]

With White Knight Chronicles getting a horrible 29/40 from Famitsu -- the lowest JRPG rating of the Generation(!) -- lets hope White Knight Chronicles's failure doesnt collapse Factor 5 too.

[DeforMAKulizer]

Ummm... White Knight is Level 5 not Factor 5... You got mixed up...

[pixelsword]

...posting the same rumors about Free Radical, which Free Radical refuted.

Kinda makes me think Factor 5 is not closing, considering the source of this low-quality blog pretending to be a website.

Going to kotaku for facts is like going to George Bush for wisdom

...meh, but you never know.

But kotaku still stinks.

[gaffyh]

What the hell type of title is this??? Are Kotaku a professional gaming news website?

[PS360PCROCKS]

They made Lair right? If so, no wonder they closed, that was a TERRIBLE game. I tried the demo, it was so boring, bland and retarded I couldn't stand it. But I feel bad for these guys, that's truly terrible.

[Daver]

Lair was an awesome game

[ChickeyCantor]

Do not judge a Dev by one game.
That's just lame.
They have made better games than Lair.

(also there was no need to bring that up, you know you opened the "flaming" gate)

OT:
It kinda feels weird, to know that these studio's close.
I was really looking forwards to their next games ... =/...
This sucks.

[Dark General]

Wait, wait, wait. There was a demo of Lair? Why was i not privy to this information?

[jmiol-on-psn]

PS360WiiRocks were did you get the Lair demo from? i never play the demo....

[r2kcipher]

you can grab it off the hong kong ps store. the demo came out right before the control patch.

[PS360PCROCKS]

I'm not judging Factor 5's talent by that game, merely stating that it was a terrible game and sold just as awful so doesn't really help their profit margin with a game that expensive that bombed so badly. Also, yeah I got it off the PS store, hong kong

[outlawlife]

looking at their back catalog of games it is really surprising they came this far

they don't seem to have ever developed anything really special

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

http://www.metacritic.com/g...

That was one of the best games on the Gamecube.

Did you even LOOK at their back catalog?

[Cheeseknight28]

They made all 4 Star Wars flight simulator games on the N64/GCN, which were all were amazing games.

Like LeonSKennedy4Life said, did you even look at what they did?

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

I got 11 disagrees for that?

Why?

Yeah...and thanks for backing that up. That series was incredible!

[outlawlife]

actually i did look at their back catalog and i saw they developed those game, but unfortunately gamecube sales don't save a company today

those games aren't even in the top 10 best selling for gamecube which means that probably barely sold a million...if that

the game business is tough and you gotta make hits to succeed, making a hit 7 years ago on a rather unsuccessful console by comparison doesn't do much for today

people on here don't realize that developers can't pull money from thin air, it has to come from somewhere

they made a game like lair which turned out to be not so special and it is hard to pull in investors when you can't show success within the last 5 years

i'm by no means saying they aren't talented people but the fact is they just weren't competing, many other studios will meet the same fate and you probably won't see anything about them on n4g because they won't be able to get 1 game out

by industry standards these guys had a good run for being an independent house

disagree if you wish but that is reality

[Voiceofreason]

Another company taken out by high development cost and low sales of PS3 games..

[divideby0]

If you read anything besides video gamming sites, you may comprehend that we are in bad economic times...dugh

[mcm]

?What?
You're kidding right? Next you will tell us that it is the PS3 fault that gas prices were high and it is the reason why the American dollar is **it. Just admit that there are too many developers out there and now when development costs rise the bad are weeded out. Just because they made a good game in the past doesn't mean much. Pac Man was a excellent game in it's time, but you don't see Namco fans using that as an excuse for failures like Death by Degrees and Breakdown. No they failed and went on to create more AAA titles like Tekken 5 and Soul Calibur 4 as well as a couple of puzzle games and RPGs.

Factor 5 tanked because they couldn't keep up plain and simple. They chose to develop games for the PS3 knowing that there was real competition. I wouldn't want my games competing for sales against MGS,GT Prologue and other AAA titles. They should had followed Nintendo's game plan and went on a smaller budget this gen. They could even have made exclusive PSN games and reaped the benefits of small developing cost and reaching a larger audience, but no they wanted to play with the big fish.
The smaller companies will die away and less risk will be taken when developing games. This is a good thing because how many people have bought a crappy game in the past? With high developing cost these crappy games will decrease because developers won't take that risk.

Those developers with true talent will continue to make great games and expand the market, which is the way it should be.

[dcbronco]

Companies that thought they were being smart and supported the PS3 exclusively early are going under. Companies like Square were smart enough to see the pitfalls and go multi-platform to keep from taking the type of financial hit that killed Factor 5 and Free Radical. Those two companies aren't the first and won't be the last to be killed off by PS3 exclusivity. PS3 fanboys should do less posting against the 360 and buy more games. And some Blu-ray too. No matter how they list them in the monthly totals, games given away with the console are not making money for anyone. And too often the sales numbers companies brag about include a lot of giveaways. Especially during the early days of the PS3.

[sak500]

Hahah look at them protecting their precious console. Voice is right, it was devs being fooled by sony into making a game exclusive for the Bluray player, the sales couldn't even cover the cost of the media it was printed on.

Sad but now they will think long and hard over which platform to support if they ever try to make games again.

We'll wait and see whether GG will survive once the KZ2 sales tank as well.

[psycho360]

@divideby0

"If you read anything besides video gamming sites, you may comprehend that we are in bad economic times...dugh "

Lair was released mid last year. The economic situation turned bad just few months back. You're logic is same as your name.

[twoface]

Is there 0 development cost on xbox360? Would it miraculously become a much better game and sell much better if it became multi-platform?
Finding all sorts of excuses to bash ps3 exclusivity is just plain pathetic

[Cenobia]

That's a really stupid argument. Are you saying it's the PS3's fault (or the consumers of the console) that people didn't buy FRs or Level 5's games? Did you ever think the games may have had poor sales because they weren't all that great?

I don't understand your arguments. Do you honestly think Haze and Lair would have sold well on the 360? That's like admitting 360 owners will buy anything. Are you all mindless consumer whores? I doubt it. If the game's bad you aren't going to buy it.

What about Too Human? 10 years in the making and I'm pretty sure the devs found sales pretty disappointing. The sales weren't bad because it was exclusive, or on the 360. They were bad because the game was bad. You should buy it anyway though, so the developer doesn't go under... That's not how capitalism works.

[Sevir04]

and it's also fair to note that while Factor 5 created Lair and it tanked in teh US it still sold pretty well elsewhere with it's bulk of it's sales coming from EU/UK/PAL territories. Thirdly The IP was completely funded and owned By Sony Computer Entertainment, They poured in the cash to fund development and commissioned Factor 5 who has a reasonable track record to build the IP. So they didn't fail because the game Sony commissioned them to do Failed You fankids are hilarious.

It's a simple thing as Cash Flow and finance management. in these economic times of disaster failure to plan your finances and proper management of cash flow will result in deficits that are crippling to a company, No one knows the cut off point to make a profit on a High budget title and how many units it needs to sell, and for the looks of it for Sony. any game that sells over 500K has already made a profit which is why they get Golden awards from Sony them self. and lair Sold well over 500K , in fact They made enough for Sony to have commission the second game in the series, while they started other projects for Nintendo's Wii. which was reported a early january or feb this year.

The simple fact is every company is forced to cut back, lower forecast on earnings and layoffs due to the recession, we all work in a world where our jobs arent promised be be here for us if and when we wake up the next day. No one knows what the head honchos at the top of the buisness food chain is facing with there primary finances.

It's teh reason Sony the company, Not SCE but just Sony outside of the games division Layoff 8,000 workers, and lower fiscal year forcasts on earning, why MS closed out Ensemble studios, Why EA put black box to the chopping bloxs and re allocated them to another studio, and why they also laid off workers.

the recession is hitting every big company and small ones alike, if it's happening to the biggest publishing giant in the video game industry which is EA, what makes you think a small indie studios like Free rad and Factor 5 are immune because of one game tanking? please use your heads and get off the Sony bashing band wagon. this is a time of economic crisis the big guys and the little guy are affected.

[shysun]

So EA,Kanami and Activion lied about making more money off of PS3 that any other console?

[dantesparda]

Just look at the Sony Attack Force 360 fanboys attack away. Look at you scumbags loving it that companies are going under because dared not back/support your beloved master system, the 360. Cuz those two companies chose to make their games exclusive to the PS3 and thereby you people taking that as a insult, so therefore loving the fact this is happening to them. You people are both douchebags and pathetic!

And how come i dont hear the 360 fanboys complain about the companies that make exclusives games for the 360? How come they dont come on here and spew their sh!t and say, "but they could be making more money if they also released it on the PS3 and Wii?". I'll tell you why, its because they are fanboys, plain, pure and simple. And haters, and god forbid they do anything remotely seen as anti-MS

And how come i never hear anything by the media about how MS is down almost 50% from last year? Dont think so? just look at their stock price, it closed down at $19.12 on Friday and was $36.72 a year ago. How come we dont hear a peep about that from the media. Hmmmmmmm

[dcbronco]

First things first, Too Human was not in development for ten years. The concept was developed ten years ago. They didn't feel there was a system with the ability to do what they had in mind until this generation.

Now, do I believe the PS3 killed those studios. In a way yes. All of the people who like to blame everything on the economy are off. Some companies are suffering because of the economy, some are just bad companies. I read a post where compared Sony's and Microsoft's restating of their estimates in the same light last quarter. That's a joke. The 1% percent change for Microsoft was because of the economy, the 57% change for Sony was poor management.

When it comes to F5 and FR, while both companies made bad games, the added expense of being new developers on a new console was so high that they could not recover from it. When you have to spend 20-25 million for a PS3 game in the beginning of the PS3 cycle as opposed to 10-15 million for a 360 game, there's little room for error. With most game companies needing credit lines and VC to be able to make a game in the first place, you need to at least come close to breaking even. Lair sold 380,000 copies. It should have made over 15 million and at least come close to covering expenses. On the 360, that would have been the case. On the PS3, those same games cost 10 million more to make in the early days when there was so much still being learned on the new architecture. They are still higher on the PS3, but as programmers learn the system, they have come down. But the PS3 will always cost more to make games for it.

And that's why small companies should never have been making games solely for the PS3 and should never have used it as the lead platform.
Companies as big as EA seldom use the PS3 as lead. L5 and FR were fools for doing it. Ninja Theory learned that lesson the hard way too. They all bet that Sony's hype was real and that they would be one of the first at the table for the feast. Instead, they food never arrived and they starved.

@Sevir04

The economy is not to blame for everything. Microsoft closed Ensemble because they are taking a different approach to development. They are in the process of starting a new in-house studio now, check the ads on Gamasutra, Microsoft's hiring a lot of people. If L5 got all of their financing from Sony, they should have made a helluva profit for their effort. Somebody better check the excutive officer's bank accounts. There's some money missing. Sony usually never helps developers, they always felt their install base was all the incentive people needed to develop for a PS, things have changed. Unfortunately, L5 and FR found out too late.

@shysun

I don't know about lied. But there is some fuzzy math going on. Or it could be as simple as development cost. Since most of the games are developed on the 360, all of that expense is charged to the 360. The PS3 only gets charged with the porting expense. That's the only thing I can think of, because I can't think of one game that outsold the 360 version from any of those companies. Call of Duty sold a lot more on the 360. So did all of EAs titles. Accounting is one of the most dishonest businesses there are so you can't ever believe the numbers.

[Spike47]

they are taken out because of the bad economy kid, if they would've made games on par with gta4, uncharted, resistance, or mgs4 then maybe they would have survived.

dev companies have made total flops before but they don't close because the economy was good.

[Voiceofreason]

Why would I make an excuse for a company when it has no merit? Why does it matter that the economy is down? These companies are not relying on recently released game sales. Lair was last year. They would have been living off the money that they made off of those games sales. Same case with Haze. Yes right now things are going down hill. However not when those games were released. Instead of just making excuses because they made a Sony game you should really think about it a little more. Lots of these companies live off of their previous successes to pay for the next big project and put food on the table while they take a few years to program the games. The problem is that they invested too much money in their PS3 games and when those games sold poorly they never recouped their loses.

Yeah in the past developers could get away with bad games. That was of course before the HD era brought extremely high development cost. PS3 being the most expensive. If both of those companies had put their games on Wii this gen they could have had the same sales and maybe made their money back. They would at least still be in business.

[ChickeyCantor]

VoC,
Good post, have a bubble.

[LONEWOLF231]

Ohh well moving on, both HAZE and Lair were under mediocre games, Will that company really be missed?? I think not.

[gaminoz]

Ummm I'll miss Timesplitters 4. Both these companies have made great games, they have just struggled this gen. I still think they could have made something special.

[LONEWOLF231]

WOW we have an internet tough guy(LeonSKennedy4Life)ladies and gentlemen......awesome job on making yourself look like an idiot bud.
Keep up with the insults i dont really care cause instead of making me look bad you are only hurting yourself.

[jack who]

1st HAZE (Free Radical)
now Factor 5 (Lair)

hmmm anyone see something?

[TheColbertinator]

I agree.Factor 5 should have stayed with Nintendo or LucasArts

http://cube.ign.com/article...

Free Radical should have just continued with Timesplitters 4

[ChickeyCantor]

I laughed, people disagreed with you.
People must be in denial xD

[gaminoz]

This is definitely a worrying trend. I would prefer to see these companies picked up by big powers like EA, Ubisoft, and Activision to stay alive, but they are probably counting the numbers too...

Look at the end of Need For Speed: EA canned it (probably because there are too many street-racers around these days and they kept making one every year).

[mcm]

You are joking right?

You would rather for them to be picked up by a bigger development company so they can continue to make mediocre games that no one is intrested in?
The real problem is there are too many IPs on the market as is. Everyone wants to be a game developer these days and the majority of the games are utter crap. How does that help anything. How many FPS shooters does one console need to have? It reminds be of the the days when ever company had to make a Pacman spin off or a Galaxian/Galaga spin off instead of creating something original.

Those companys tanked because they sucked. They once had the mojo, but not anymore.

[baum]

After Too Flop being the biggest flop in gaming history, Silicon Knights should be disolved. 10 years down the drain... I seriously hope there is no "Too Human 2".

Edit:

@Foxslave:

A Too Human sequel affects me because I also own a 360 and I rather have developers make games to series that are good. Funny you say "stop trolling" when this concerns mostly PS3 and Wii fans, as Factor 5 hasn't even supported a Microsoft console. What are you even doing here?

@Clinteastwood:

"10 years development...really? So what you are telling me is that they were actively working on Too Human for 10 years straight...day in and day out. Just because they originally created the concept 10 years ago and couldn't do it on the PS2 doesn't mean it has been in development that entire time. "

I said 10 years development? Learn to read, I said "10 years down the drain". It doesn't matter how they were spent, we don't really know if they were active or not and even if they werent, we've known about this game since 10 years ago. So yeah, 10 years of concent bullsh1t and development to the drain.

GiantEnemyCrab:

"THEY SCORED BETTER THAN LAIR AND HAZE LOL"

Wow, so basically "yours flopped harder than mine" is an argument now? WOW. All sold like crap. All I'm saying is, Silicon Knights shouldn't be bailed out as they probably will be by Microsoft.

"Well said Crab.

People disgust me with their cheerleading and slamming. "

Who's slamming? Who's cheerleading? People disgust me with their false claims. All I'm saying is that if nobody is bailing out Free Radical and Factor 5, both very talented especially the former, then Silicon Knights shouldn't be bailed either. Especially after Dyack couldn't shut his big overhyping mouth.

[Foxgod]

Since you are a ps3 fan, i really cant see how a too human sequel would affect you.

Stop trolling.

Besides, they are also developing the Eternal darkness sequel, and that one will own.
Also they released a lot more in ten years time then just Too human.
On top of that they have a project ongoing called:
Untitled Collaboration with SEGA (TBA 2009) (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
Could be Eternal Darkness for 360 and Ps3.

[GiantEnemyCrab]

Yet it still scored better than Haze and Lair.

Why are we celebrating any developers closing? These guys are the lifeblood of the hobby we love. Who knows Factor 5's next game could of been the one that changes the industry you never know. Hopefully these rumors are false.

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

I can't wait for an Eternal Darkness sequel!!!

Also, I want to play Sadness really bad.

Can you two just lay off the sauce for one second and appreciate gaming. It's like Jr. High on this forum. Grow up!

Haze - Bad
Lair - Bad
Too Human - Bad

THEY'RE ALL TERRIBLE! GET OVER IT!!!

GiantEnemyCrab - I can't believe I'm saying this, but here's a bubble...for being a real gamer.

[ArmrdChaos]

10 years development...really? So what you are telling me is that they were actively working on Too Human for 10 years straight...day in and day out. Just because they originally created the concept 10 years ago and couldn't do it on the PS2 doesn't mean it has been in development that entire time.

[DiabloRising]

Well said Crab.

People (not necessarily anyone in this thread) disgust me with their propensity for blind cheerleading and slamming games and devs for no legitimate reason, instead resorting to squabbling over their fanboy wars when more important things like the state of our very industry are on the line.

@Disagrees - So we SHOULD celebrate a dev closing? Yeah, N4G is full of fools. Real smart guys.

[gametheory]

"So we SHOULD celebrate a dev closing? Yeah, N4G is full of fools. Real smart guys. "

I don't see anyone celebrating. I disagreed with you because I don't see anyone slamming either. I think what "baum" means is that it would be very unfair for Silicon Knights to keep being bankrolled by any publisher if Free Radical and Factor 5 aren't. I hope that's what he is trying to say, maybe he should have said it with a different tone though.

[Foxgod]

What i am doing is here is following the game industry, as i like GAMES.
And whether a game is good or not is not up to you to decide, Too human was critically acclaimed, but still liked by many.

And since you twisted my nickname, il end this reply by calling you a prick.

[DiabloRising]

Theory, thank you for replying. I edited my comment to better reflect my thoughts, as I wrote it out quickly.

The game development industry is a far more complex and intricate system than many people realize, and thinking that one dev should go down, or one DID go down, due to a single game is a major oversimplification.

For instance, the foolish people who think that the 360 or PS3 will be the next Dreamcast, when Sega had YEARS of issues that lead to its downfall, not just ONE system. I almost guarantee that Lair or Haze were not the SOLE reason for either studios closure, nor should we wish for ANY studio to close, as we would only be depriving OURSELVES, the GAMERS.

[baum]

"What i am doing is here is following the game industry, as i like GAMES.
And whether a game is good or not is not up to you to decide, Too human was critically acclaimed, but still liked by many. "

You're a hypocrite. First you imply that people have no business talking about Silicon Knights when they are supposedly "PS3 fans" according to you, even though they're gamers just like everyone else here. People would simply like Silicon Knights to do something worthy of their efforts if they are even gonna keep being on payroll by Microsoft if not any other publisher. Then you have the Chutzpah to come to a thread about a developer that hasn't even made anything for 360 even when you're a self admitted 360 fan.

Keep the hypocrisy to yourself or go to the open zone if that's too hard. Silicon Knights is relevant because their last game was just as overhyped and flopped as hard as Lair, Haze, Vampire Rain, Two Worlds, Bulletwitch, infinite undiscovery, etcetera. The point is, these developers shouldn't be on payroll unless they actually have something worthy of their efforts, especially after Lair and Free Radical, some of the better independent developers, are shutting down.

You guys love to misunderstand everything and jump the gun too quickly.

[gaminoz]

PLEASE make Eternal Darkness 2! Or a modern remake of the original?

Just make it BEFORE experimenting again with Too Human Two....

[Foxgod]

i beg your pardon, i never said you have no business talking about it, i said i dont see how a sequel would affect you, dont like it, dont buy it, what you did was slamming, not stating an opinion.

And the open zone is more for you, with your comment about closing down studio's

And nobody here is jumping any gun, you are just talking yourself clean and twisting things around.

[xg-ei8ht]

tomfoolery

Step Closer.

I'll disolve you.

[franky]

oh sh1t a e-thug! clown

[360roxorz]

Hahahahahah this is soon to be for every other company that makes PS3 exclusives! Hahaha the only place to develop for is the 360 due to ease comfort and quality.... The PS3 is so badly designed that the only games that can be made on it are PS1 ports hahahah how sad that you people buy the PS3... if you fanboys hadnt of bought one Factor 5 would be making quality exclusives for the 360 and they would be doing very healthy business!!

But once again Sony has to go and ruin everythign!

[NegativeCreep427]

"The PS3 is so badly designed that the only games that can be made on it are PS1 ports"

Oh Really?

Were any of these titles available on the PSone:

Metal Gear Solid 4 (Game of the F*cking Year, by the way)

LittleBigPlanet

Resistance 1 @ 2

Wipeout HD

Motorstorm 1 @ 2

Or any of the other superb multi-platform titles like COD4, Rainbow Six: Vegas 1 @ 2, Dead Space, or Assassin's Creed?

Hahaha, how sad (and how funny) are the f*cking delusions and sheer ignorance of the Xbot community, like this dipsh!t 360roxorz ^^^

[Sonyfanclubpresident]

the problem is Sony doesn't.
Now,
there's no reason to take your frustrations out on our N4G chums,
the 360 fans!
It's not their fault Sony has lost their mojo.

Point blank,
Sony crammed a bunch of sub par components (teh cell ring a bell)
and Blu Ray into our beloved PS3,in hopes of outdoing MSs 360.

Where they messed up is putting too much into the Blu Ray and not focusing on what the developers needed for the ease of developing GAMES.
In return, costs are sky rocketing,i.e. the dev time it takes to produce something decent on this piss poor PS3 architecture.

And worst of all on a console where it's consumers most likely won't purchase the software for in the first place.
This explains some of what happened to poor,poor Factor Five.
It sure did go Ker-Plop!

[NegativeCreep427]

Why don't you phantom xbot fa*gots crawl out of the shadows and tell me why you idiots disagree with my entirely-valid comment???

[snoopgg]

is Killzone 2. Suk it 360 bots, its not on your pathetic gaming system!!!! This game is gonna blow the doors off of anything on the 360 this year. First day buy for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Namikaze_Minato]

Ha, this is the Lair's Curse! Free Radical suffered the Haze's Curse, now... Factor 5 is falling apart too!!!! The end is coming, the next is EA (noooot!).

[Elven6]

Free Radical is still in the game, their still around, in administrative mode making it highly plausible for a comeback.

[DiabloRising]

Development time.
Staffing sizes.
Programmer knowledge.
Development kits and tools.
Middleware.
DEVELOPMENT TIME.

Many of these things are going to need to change and improve in the HD era. They are too bound by past console mentalities, and that is harming not only games in many, many cases, but it's harming the developers themselves.

[ArmrdChaos]

Unfortunately we are going to start seeing a lot more sequals or games that look a like due the re-using models, textures, and such. We are aleady seeing this with some of the licensed engines. A lot of studios don't have the resources to roll their own anymore. Tools are going to have to evolve just as fast as the hardware itself.

[DiabloRising]

A lot of this responsibility is going to be on the shoulders of the hardware developers to provide fast, easy, stable development environments to developers. I dont think it necessarily means we are going to go right to the point of reusing assets. (Funny, the game that reuses assets the most is the Castlevania series on the DS, not exactly an HD heavy title!)

[GlibGamer]

This serves them right for making Lair, then crapping on the customers again with that horrible analog control patch. ;)

I loved Rogue Squadron, so WTF were they doing these last few years?

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

The patch made flight controls easier.

You're dissing Factor 5 for listening to their customers? What is wrong with you?

[GlibGamer]

Made easier != made them usable.

I'm not going to bang my head against the wall just to play through a game with poor controls. As much as I desired to love the game, I cannot do it if the controls are crap. So while I'm appreciative of the "effort" they put forth making a patch giving us what we asked for, they could have made it worth using instead of half-assing the controls.

[candystop]

Still I remember when these guys jumped ship away from 360 saying it wasn't powerful enough, and went with PS3. I guess there regretting that move now because not only was it powerful enough, but it could of kept them afloat. These fanboy developers seem to be the ones heading into distinction, and should play smart if there's a next time.

[DiabloRising]

I have to ask you this...

If Lair was on the 360 and PS3, which financially makes sense... would that somehow make it a better game?

The flaw was in design itself, not simply the choice of console.

[cereal_killa]

"I guess there regretting that move now because not only was it powerful enough, but it could of kept them afloat."

Why because M$ never closes studios?

[candystop]

No it wouldn't have made the game better, but I do believe would have led to much better sales. Also I wouldn't blame the crisis were in solely on wall street because it stems back to banks and the whole freddie mac fannie mae fiasco.

Edit cereal: We are not talking about MS closing studios and as a matter a fact they could of kept them open unlike factor5.

[kewlkat007]

....

[baum]

Stupidest comment I have ever read. There are no "fanboy developers". If a developer believes a system is more powerful or more capable than other that makes them fanboys? Even if it wasn't true, developers are paid to act as PR for the exclusivity and/or for the exclusivity. You have to be delusional to think that they somehow did Haze for free just because they liked Sony.

Microsoft didn't publish Bioshock and that certainly didn't stop 2K from making Bioshock timed exclusive. Does that make them or Ken Levine fanboys? They were PAID to say whatever they said before about the game or to make it exclusive/timed-exclusive. Same for all of Team Ninja's games... it's not simply that Itagaki simpatized with Microsoft, it was that Tecmo entered into contracts with Microsoft. Why else would Ninja Gaiden have come out to the original Xbox even when most of its fanbase wanted it on Gamecube first or at least PS2 according to Tecmo's website in 2001?

Microsoft's money evidently had something to do with that and the fact that since then Dead or Alive has been exclusive to Xbox. Same thing with a few franchises that are still exclusive to PS3, including MGS4 and Final Fantasy Versus, it's not just that Kojima and Nomura prefer the PS3, it's that they're paid for that; it just happens that as of late Microsoft has been able to outbid Sony and games are multiplatform now. Hell, games are so expensive that they didn't drop PS3 development anyway, they will now simply appear in every format. In fact, Haze was actually going to be timed exclusive on PS3 to give it something to compete with Halo 3 and then let Halo 3 hype cool off and come out on 360, but the publisher probably thought it would be a waste to develop a port that wouldn't sell on 360 after flopping so hard on PS3.

Candystop is open zone material, so I'm mostly replying to those that read and agree with him, not to him because I know my words are falling to deaf ears. Thank goodness he is out of bubbles now.

Oh, and Kewlkat, bets on hypothetical situations that can't happen are retarded. I would bet you that if a meteor fell on earth yesterday we would all be death. But again, what's the point of discussing what kind of bet you would make in a situation that never happened in the first place? Especially with a goal as arbitrary as "a million sales".

If Haze was ported to 360 for this holiday season it would have bombed against all the titles that came out for it and also because it was known as a bomb when it came out on PS3. Just like it happened with Alone in the Dark: Inferno. It flopped on 360, why wouldn't it flop on PS3? A few minor improvements? GTFOH. I just hope you were making fun of the fanboys that love to talk about sales figures.

On a side note, I find it funny how fanboys are ignoring Too Human and Silicon Knights.

[MajestieBeast]

nice 1 there cereal. M$ just closed one of the biggest names in the rts genre for there price cut. Its sad that FR had to close and now factor 5 if it continues who will be next mistwalker silicon or maybe some other developer. Well its a sad thing that its starting to hit the game industry i hope jaffe and his studio survives or does sony own em?

[DiabloRising]

In all fairness, 90% of the blame for the economic crisis is wall street and their BS, not the war (which I don't condone anyways).

[IQUITN4G]

I disagree with Rogue Squadron 2 being a very good game for gamecube but it's certainly one of my faves on this system

Factor 5 were an extremely talented company that pushed harder on a machine's capabilities more than any other dev, but they never produced a truly amazing game in the same way that say a company like Treasure has.If purely looking at Factor5's game design philosophy you can clearly see they are not masters here

Very sad though as i enjoy playing much of their technically brilliant games.As part of the industry i never thought we would see F5 in this situation quite honestly

[dkgshiz]

Either way oh well.

[kewlkat007]

Second, they took a RISK on thePS3 early in it's lifehood, knowing the learning curve was steep. They tried something different with LAIR(one of the first few games to use Sony's Gimmicky SIXAXIS, and tried to give the PS3 a new Shooter to add to it's library.

All I see is PS3 fanboys pissin on factor 5.

It is what it is. High Risk no reward for Factor 5. Maybe they will make better business decisions next time around seeing some PS3 fans can act...

Maybe they should join RARE and get the old team back together...

[kesvalk]

it's aways like this, you make a "hardcore" game for Harcore, mature gamers, but what they really want is just blood and porn...

[Hockey11]

Factor 5 didnt make Haze Free Radical did.

[snoop_dizzle]

I loved the Rogue Squadron series a lot, and I wanted a sequel. Oh well lol

[kesvalk]

isn't they the ones making White Knight Chronicles? what will happen to the game?

[lance]

its Level -5 different company

[DJ]

"Well if Haze and Lair were multiplatform or 360 exclusives, these studios wouldn't have tanked."

They seem to have magically forgotten the cardinal rule of gaming. Crappy games don't sell. A turd could be published on 12 different platforms, and will still sell bad.

Unless of course they're implying that 360 owners don't care about quality, which they obviously do.

[Hockey11]

Lair could have been a good game on the xbox 360 because then there would be no sixaxis controls. It would have been just like rouge squadron just with dragons.

[Firstkn1ghT]

You should know that it's easier and cheaper to develop for on the 360 so all the problems the ps3 version has most likely wouldn't be around for the 360 version.

[ThaGeNeCySt]

AW MAN

I was hoping a new rogue squadron would release for me to play :(

[Gr81]

F5 was a good company. This is scary though, and what this illustrates is the broken business model that HD development has adopted. Many smaller devs are one HD flop away from going belly up. Free radical also, another shame. Now I see why T2 was saying they "just can't ignore the Wii" all of a sudden.

[XDF]

I really think that the itunes model will replaced Physical copies sold in store by the time the new systems are out. I think with todays high cost development of HD games, if the Publisher and developers just cut out the middle man then they can sell less and make more to recoup their cost.
EA is already doing this by joining Steam. I don't like it because I like to have physical copies of my games but if it mean saving developers from going under I am all for it. As for gamestop, screw them as they been ripping gamers off for too long with their used games trade in values and then turn around and try to sell it at almost full price.

[TruthbeTold]

So much for the rumored Kid Icarus Wii...

Hopefully Nintendo scoops up the bulk of these guys and gives them jobs. They knew the GC hardware very well, so it stands to reason that they could push the Wii.

This is very sad. I hope it doesn't become a trend.

[InMyOpinion]

I wanted a next gen Turrican game!!!

[DARK WITNESS]

i suppose when you look at what is costs to make a game these days, the losses are a lot heavier if the game does not sell well.

hence the companies are in bigger trouble. i feel bad for anyone who as lost there job in these times.

as for free radical, i feel sorry for the indevidtuals but not the company. i am sorry, but when you go shooting your mouth of trying to compare you game to games like halo, you better have the kill punch for sure. they said a lot of things about the game trying to compare it to the competition for no reason.

and to be honest i am not sure that the game going multiplatform would have saved it. i have always liked my shooters on the 360 and i can say this, before the game went exclusive i had no interest in it. i had seen pictures and read about it and didn't think much of it, infact i don't remember anyone hyping it. Then it went exclusive to the ps3 and suddenly it was getting all this hype.

anyway, back on lair, well i guess there is not much to say, but i hope these guys all find jobs quick.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

Developing on the PS3 = Bankruptcy

[andron]

Hope no one else goes down.

[Statix]

This is sad news. Both Free Radical and Factor 5 deserved a shot at redemption.

[Lex Luthor]

I don't know why they decided to become ps3 exclusive. They should of made a new rouge squadron multiplatform, then they would be sorted.

Same with Free Radical, shouldn't of made haze ps3 exclusive, should of just made TS4 multiplatform instead.

[Jackthepwnsaur]

they didnt went PS3 exclusive. they just made a one game with them. TS4 was already planned to be multiplatform even before the release of Haze.

[Mitch_Cumstein]

Extremely weak install base, with frustrating, non versatile architecture makes the PS3 an extremely unattractive platform to develop for. Especially when you are talking about something exclusive. The architecture, alone, makes PS3 development an expensive, super risky venture. Then factor in the case of excellent games like LBP and Resistance 2 not selling well at all despite critical acclaim you got one big mess to deal with. Labeling the current situation of the PS3 a "mess" is being extremely nice.

Let's just say for all the tears that have been shed by many PS3 fanboys, more are on the way-MANY, MANY MORE. Cheers

[SprayandPreycom]

i just popped in my copy of rogue squadron two for game cube and blew up the death star ....
but then i looked at game it said lucas arts on it oh well either way i just blew up the death star...

[Jackthepwnsaur]

games are becoming Hollywood projects now these days. their products must sell at least 1-2 million copies, or they wont make profit out of these games. Dont believe me?:

GeOW approx approx. $10 million
Halo 3 approx $30 million
Killzone 2 approx. $ 40 million
MGS4 approx. $40-60 million
GTA IV approx. $100 million

Concerning games like Lair, it was made by a small dev team, so its obvious why they are hitting the gutter. Dev teams must change their standards in order to keep up with not only next gen game development, but also with the crippled economy. that's one of the reasons why games are becoming Multi-platform BTW.

Now in terms of these two companies (Factor 5 and Free Radical) who made 2 PS3 exclusives which not only sucked, but bombed in sales, its apparent that if these games did not SUCK, it would of sold at least a million copies each. the advertising for Haze was there, more so than MGS4. So note to Developers who are making PS3 exclusives, Dont make crappy PS3 games, people did not buy a PS3 to buy games that suck. People bought a PS3 for games with not only almost CGI quality graphics, but gameplay that works and that is fun, in other words, Top Tier Quality.

[dcbronco]

I'm sure Killzone cost far more than 40 million. That game has been in development since '05 trying to live up to that trailer. They have to be pushing 50-60 million by now.

[Firstkn1ghT]

Thanks a lot Sony. :(

What people don't realize is that it's a lot harder and more expensive to develop for on the ps3. Lair had a laughable amount of bugs and glitches and more than likely would not be the case if it was on the 360. Other franchises like GT, MGS4, or Killzone2 are getting a HUGE amount of manpower, development time, and $$$ and that is the only way to reach the "power" of the ps3. Smaller companies like Factor 5 just can't afford that. They made a decision to develop only for the ps3 and it was not a wise one.

[Hostile]

that's disappointing