planetside posts

Sony Online got hit earlier this week with mass layoffs and the total shutdown of three of its five studios, along with the cancelation of The Agency. Prior to the layoffs Sony Online head man John Smedley had been stating that the upcoming revivial of the sci-fi FPS MMO Planetside would launch a beta at the end of the first quarter or the beginning of the second quarter.

The bad news? Smedley told fan site Planetside Universe that the launch of PlanetSide Next "will be out a little later in the year." The good news is that Smedley also said that more resources would be put into the game and "we are pulling out all the stops to make it great." There are also hints that more info on this move will be revealed sometime next week.

The rumors started flying late on Wednesday and today Sony Online has now confirmed via an email press statement that it is indeed shutting down three of its five internal game development studios and laying off 205 team members.

The move will close the Seattle, Tuscon and Denver studio, leaving only the San Diego and Austin Texas offices. The Seattle office has been developing the super-spy themed shooter The Agency for the past several years. The closure means that The Agency has now been cancelled as well. However the statement does add that the many online collectible card games that had been under development at the now shut down Tuscon and Denver offices will now be moved to Sony Online's San Diego headquarters. All other currently live MMO games from the publisher won't be affected.

The statement adds that this move was designed to "focus development resources on delivering two new MMOs based on its renowned PlanetSide and EverQuest properties." Sony Online's head man John Smedley has been hinting strongly about the PlanetSide revival plans for the past few months while the first glimpse of what was then called EverQuest Next was revealed last summer during Sony Online's annual Fan Faire event.

[Via email press release]

For a few weeks we have seen some of the updated vehicle renders for Planetside Next, the upcoming revamp of Sony Online's sci-fi first person shooter MMO. Now the fan side Planetside Universe has posted up the first character render from the game, showing off what one of the Terran Republic faction members looks like.

While it's just a render it's clear that the detail and polygon count has increased compared to the original game. Hopefully we will get the full 411 on the title soon along with news on when the game's beta test soon. It's possible that Sony Online is waiting for GDC 2011 for the full reveal.

We've been hearing about Planetside Next for some time but little concrete info about the sci-fi FPS MMO remake has actually been released. Rock Paper Shogun now claims to have a couple of nuggets of info from unnamed sources about the Sony Online published game.

One is that the new game will continue to support thousands of players at once just like the original. The other is that the game's revamped graphics are designed to be run even on six year old PC set ups (the original Planetside was released back in 2003). Planetside Next should go into beta next month with a full launch in March.

Sony Online's CEO John Smedley is at it again. A couple of days ago he "tweeted" a render of what we assume is a new tank that will be used in the still unannounced sci-fi first person shooter MMO revival Planetside Next. Earlier today he did it again, showing off an image of a air vehicle render with the worlds, "I love me some Galaxy!" That likely means the render is the new version of the Galaxy heavy troop transport.

We are just hoping that all of this Twitter activity is leading to something and that the official reveal of Planetside Next is coming in the not too distant future. In the meantime we will see if Sony Online will have anything to say on the record about the game.

See that render of a slightly futuristic tank in the image above this news post? That image is likely the first public art from PlanetSide Next, the still-not-officially-announced revamp of developer Sony Online's sci-fi shooter MMO. The image was posted up by John Smedley, Sony Online's CEO and so far the only person in the company who has even talked about the game.

Smedley said recently that we would be getting news about PlanetSide Next early in 2011 "followed by a beta." Hopefully this tank render is just a warm up to a flood of info about the game very soon.

[Via Rock Paper Shotgun]

Sony Online CEO John Smedley has a tendency to make statement that we are sure his PR people wish he had not said. The latest such statement comes from Eurogamer where Smedley gave a tentative release date for the still unofficially announced Planetside Next game.

Smedley stated, "... we haven't announced a release date for it but you can expect it... We're looking at late first-quarter, early second-quarter." Even with Smedley's statements, the details of the revival of the sci-fi FPS MMO have been kept under wraps. Smedley also repeated that the long-in-development super spy-themed action MMO The Agency is due out in the end of 2011 and there's that Everquest Next project that was first announced last summer. And that's not the end of it. Smedley states, "There are [unannounced projects]. Can't even disclose a number, but a lot."

More hints about the game currently known as Planetside Next have come forth via the personal blog site of Sony Online head man John Smedley. He's basically been the only one from the developer who has said anything in public about the upcoming (and still not officially announced) revamp of the company's sci-fi MMO shooter Planetside since word got out about the game about a year ago.

In Smedley's blog post he states, " ... early next year we will have announcements about Planetside Next followed by a beta. I can say this - it's coming along awesome" He also confirmed that the first beta testers for the game will come from current players of Planetside which seems the fair thing to do.

[Via Blue's News]

Over a year ago there were some hints that Sony Online might be attempting to do a reboot of its sci-fi first person shooter MMO Planetside. Now The Escapist has some quotes from Sony Online's head man John Smedley that on the surface seem to all but officially confirm such plans.

According to the article Smedley said the developer has a big game launch that will happen sometime in March, adding, "It's a big first person shooter franchise that we're really happy with." When asked if it was related to Planetside, Smedley stated, "Could be. We haven't technically announced it." He also admitted that he was perhaps speaking out of turn, saying that the company's "PR people are going to shoot me." The revival has been called Planetside Next in some reports but Smedley said that was just a working title. Whatever the title turns out to be Smedley seems to be excited about it, declaring it to be "the coolest god-damned game." Works for us.

Last fall hints started popping up on the internet that indicated Sony Online was planning to launch some kind of revival of their first person shooter MMO PlanetSide. Now the game's official web site has started a mysterious countdown that seems to be heading to some sort of announcement sometime in mid-May.

Fan site Planetside Universe claims according to their own unnamed sources that the countdown is supposed to be a teaser to something related to the upcoming seventh anniversary of the launch of PlanetSide. That could still mean that Sony Online is prepping us for some kind of sequel or reboot of the game. The fact that the countdown will conclude a few weeks before E3 would seem to indicate some kind of major announcement.

[Via Blue's News]