sony-online 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]

Sony Online Entertainment, known primarily for its MMO game titles, could be in the middle of a huge restructuring. Kotaku is reporting via unnamed sources that the company has shut down three of its five development studios based in Seattle, Tuscon and Denver. In addition the rumors claims the company has also laid off significant numbers of team members at its two remaining studios, San Diego and Austin. Kotaku claims in its article that the layoffs total nearly a third of Sony Online's employees.

The Tuscon offices are the the home to the team behind the fantasy collectible online card game PoxNora while the Denver team worked on several other collectible online games. The shutdown of the Seattle offices, if true, is perhaps the most significant since it was the studio in charge of developing the long awaited super-spy themed MMO The Agency which was first announced nearly four years ago.

Big Download has emailed Sony Online's PR reps for comment.

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.

If you have bought DC Universe Online and like the recently launched super hero MMO you might want to check out this little tidbit. Publisher Sony Online has announced that beginning on February 8 both new and current players can switch over to a new three month online pricing plan for $29.99. That's a 25 percent savings over the normal price of $41.99 for the three month plan.

What's the catch? Players of the game can only sign on for the new pricing plan for a limited time. Players who bought the game will have to switch over to the discount three month plan before their included 30 day free subscription runs out or by March 1 (whichever comes first) or they will have to wait until their current pricing plan ends to get the $29.99 fee. The good news is that the rate will stay for as long as you subscribe to DC Universe Online.

DC Universe Online has been live for less than a month but as promised developer Sony Online is prepping for the super hero MMO's first major content. According to the Associated Press, players of the game will be able to check out a story line later this month that features Batman's feline foe/friend/lover Catwoman where she will be trying to rob some artifacts at the Gotham City Museam. Catwoman will also be added as a character to the game's arena style PvP.

The game will also add a new raid that centered around Batman's Batcave for higher level players and in a Valentine's Day event players will have to deal with the love goddess Aphrodite. In a related note today comic book stores get the first issue of the 26 issue bi-weekly mini-series DC Universe Online Legends. The first issue has also been released via DC Comic's downloadable service with a special cover which you can see after the jump:

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.

If you are familiar at all with super hero comic books of the last few decades, you know the name Marv Wolfman. He has written a ton of comic books, mostly at Marvel and DC Comics, and created or co-created a number of well known characters such as Marvel's vampire hunter Blade (the star of three feature films and a short lived TV series) and the DC Comics team The New Teen Titans (later adapted into a long running Cartoon Network animated series). His biggest achievement is perhaps DC Comics' Crisis on Infinite Earths 12 issue mini-series in 1985 that redefined the comic book publisher's entire line up of titles and still affects the DC Universe even today.

Along with Geoff Johns, Wolfman worked on the recently launched MMO DC Universe Online as a writer. He's also the co-writer of the upcoming bi-weekly series DC Universe Online Legends which is based on the MMO's version of the DC Universe. Big Download was able to ask Wolfman some questions about his work on the game and other topics.

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."