Sony's Choice: EyePet beat out Eight Days

by Randy Nelson on Aug 28th 2008 2:30PM

It's harder to single out Nintendo for overlooking its "core audience" when you find out things like this. Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Shuhei Yoshida, Sony's head of worldwide studios, revealed that the company chose to fund development of a ~~desktop toy~~ virtual pet – EyePet – over a promising core audience action title, Eight Days.

When asked about the effect that canceling London Studio projects The Getaway 3 and Eight Days had on other titles, Yoshida responded, "There are so many things that we want to do, more than we can do with the resources. So when London Studio was looking at the early work on EyePet and the prototype of Eight Days, they knew they couldn't do all of them." So ... EyePet it was.

Granted, we don't know with any certainty that Eight Days was going to be any good, but an original action IP on a still very core audience console would seem like something worth investing more time in over a ... virtual pet.

Yohshida also said regarding the London Studio, "There are even more things they're working on at early concept stage." Tip for the staff there: If you don't want your big games canned, don't mention your "pet" projects to Shuhei the next time he pops in for a visit.

Source

Tags: eight-days, eyepet, london-studio, PS3, scee-london-studio, shuhei-yoshida

Reader Comments (87)

It's easy to single out Nintendo because they've made it their entire company philosophy to ignore the core, while with Sony it's just a handful of games.

It sucks though, because 8 Days was looking really impressive with what little I saw, but with all of the games coming out that seem similar it might have been better to do something that's not shooting&cars.

"It's easy to single out Nintendo because they've made it their entire company philosophy to ignore the core,"

Its just that no, they haven't. And i won't pull out all the proof i can, because fighting with ignorance is, in itself, a dumb idea, because its a fight you can't win

No, I own a Wii (all platforms) and I see what's coming out, and I watched E3. I'm sure Nintendo has some core titles in development, but they HAVE switched their focus. You'd have to be in denial to ignore that fact.

In certain respects, you're right. Mostly because you see everything casual get good advertising, while everything core-focused gets shit advertising

But from an actual development standpoint, its more of an expanded focus as opposed to a switched one

@ Mr Khan

The list of casual games extremely out-numbers your so called "core" games.

Stop being so naive.

How do people like you stay on gaming websites? You claim to love games, but you shoot down anything that isn't from Nintendo. Isn't there a StarBucks for you to go hang out?

Casual "IS" Nintendo's primary focus. You know it, you just are afraid to say it.

"The list of casual games extremely out-numbers your so called "core" games."

Actually Jack, it doesn't. The list of Nintendo-published/developed 'core' games nearly doubles the amount of casual games.

samfish is right. The proof is out there, but i've grown too tired of fighting about it to try and produce it

Ichi the One, have you seen the list of core games compared to "casual" games that nintendo (not 3rd parties) has put out for the wii? Seems to me it leans more towards "core" titles..

Jack of No Trades you have to be one of the simplest folk on this site.. it makes me smile, keep up the good work.

@ sam

Show me a list guys. Prove me wrong. I doubt you can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wii_games

Go to this site and count the core games.

And i don't "shoot down anything that's from Nintendo"

Sure i love Nintendo, but at the end of the day i'll play pretty much anything, and enjoy it if its good. There are few games or brands that i'm biased against, like Street Fighter, Tetris, or anything by Epic or Criterion

Halo? Enjoy it. Old Crash Bandicoot from its Sony-published heyday? Loved it. Rock Band (drums and singing, never could master the basic precepts of guitar) love it.

I only subscribe to the 1 console and handheld philosophy because of my limited playtime. That way i get to play everything worthwhile on the one console, and don't have to make hard decisions (usually, except this September when they're asking me to choose between Wario Land, Samba, and Force Unleashed). And since my friends generally subscribed to the opposition, i never really missed out

HARDCORE:
01) Battalion Wars 2
02) Captain Rainbow
03) Disaster: Day of Crisis
04) Donkey Kong Barrel Blast
05) Excite Truck
06) Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse
07) Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
08) Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
09) Mario Strikers: Charged
10) Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
11) Pokémon Battle Revolution
12) Super Mario Galaxy
13) Super Paper Mario
14) Super Smash Bros. Brawl
15) Wario Land

CASUAL:
01) Wii Fit
02) Wii Music
03) Wii Play
04) Wii Sports
05) Wii Sports Resort
06) Endless Ocean
07) Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree
08) Mario Party 8
09) Wii Chess

BRIDGE:
01) WarioWare: Smooth Moves
02) Mario Super Sluggers
03) Mario Kart Wii
04) Link's Crossbow Training
05) Animal Crossing: City Folk

Oh, look! Even if I throw you and bone and count 'Bridge' games as casual, there are STILL more hardcore Wii games, Jack!

@Jack of No Trades: Your claim is that Nintendo focuses on casual gamers. While they do market games like Wii Fit heavier than a game like Super Paper Mario, the games don't lie.

Casual: Wii Sports, Wii Play, Mario Part 8, WarioWare: Smooth Moves, Brain Training, Link's Crossbow Training, Wii Chess, Endless Ocean, Wii Music, Wii Fit (10)

Traditional: Excite Truck, Legend of Zelda, Super Paper Mario, Mario Strikers Charged, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Battalion Wars 2, Fire Emblem, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, WarioLand, Fatal Frame 4, Disaster: DOC, Animal Crossing (13)

A lot of people seem to forget that most of the mini game trash(I won't call them casual games because minigames do not equal casual) come from third party developers who want to copy Nintendo's success with the Wii(CAUSE MINIGAMES=MONEY IN TEH BANK AMIRITE???). So people tend to lump those shitty games with Nintendo and just saying, LOL NINTENDO IS ABANDONING CORE GAMERS, even though Nintendo has been spitting out games that people want when they buy a Nintendo console like fucking crazy. It's just that lazy third party developers are, once again, giving Nintendo a bad rep.

@Samfish

But..but. Those games are not like Halo and they're not of HD quality. How could they be considered hardcore?

Is Zelda hardcore because it is an old franchise, or perhaps because there is a lot of reading involved? Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge Zelda fan, but the Twilight Princess is so painfully easy that it really seems more like a casual game to me.

Mario strikers is hardcore samfish? Ok, yeah you're qualified to make a list like that hahaha.

Oh good, tmac is pretending his opinion on games he's never played is worth taking into consideration again!

way to make a needlessly long reply chain of a Nintendo argument in a post where Nintendo was only passingly mentioned. GG

I know tmacairjordan87.. No Vin Diesel in sight.. pfff... Do the dew, bra!

@ tmac

You try playing through the 1-player mode of Strikers through all the way to the end.

I couldn't. Hard as fuck. The CPU takes full advantage of all its inhuman capabilities, like perfectly measuring how a green shell is going to bounce off of a few barriers to nail your guys, or coordinating plays with units that are off-screen

Madness.

Oh look samfish is counting sports games (by definition more casual than not, unless you want to call madden and the millions of people like those fools on that espn reality show core gamers), and childish sports games that are designed for 10 and under no less, core games.

You shouldn't have to try that hard to find real games samfish.

@TWEE

Yo Brah. Let's go get some Game Fuel and play some of them haloz on my new HD screen bro. That's how hardcore we are.

Damn tmac, you h ave more sand in your vagina than usual today, don't you?
I'm not going to bother arguing with you, because all you do is change the criteria to fit your point. Nevermind the fact that companies like EA are 'dumbing down' their sports titles on the Wii so that these new 'casual' players can better enjoy them. Y'know...the kind of 'casual' players that this discussion OBVIOUSLY pertains to?

Going by your idiotic definition of casual, Halo, Zelda, GTA and MGS are all 'casual' games, too.

Any way, it doesn't matter. Fact is, you're commenting on games you've never played before, thus your opinion is invalid.

@Boffo

Zelda's always been a ridiculously easy series. With the exception of the water temple, I cruised through OOT at 10 years old. Not trying to brag, just saying it's a really easy series as a whole.

Your argument is a joke samfish. Does one need to play Wii Sports to know it's a casual game? No. You're being lazy today because your arguments are even more laughably bad than usual. Looks like you need to slurp more nintendo juice to beef up your arguments some.

The difference being, of course, that I actually HAVE an argument to make, whereas you simply are saying, "Mario Strikers is casual because *I* said so!"
Par for the course for you and your usual arrogance, though. I keep forgetting that you think your uninformed opinions are fact. I should know better by now!

Zelda hasn't always been easy. Perhaps it always was as long as you have been gaming, but LoZ and AoL on the NES were both pretty challenging. Even though you're right that the past few iterations have been pretty easy, that doesn't exactly argue against classifying Zelda as a casual game.

While I do think it would have been awesome to cruise around in a different setting than the city grid in GTA, I'm still of the opinion that there was no way Eight Days could have been good. As much as we gamers love to villify publishers, they usually (emphasis on usually) don't cancel games just to cancel them. There had to be something not right about it.

Or, maybe I'm just dreaming that there's still some thought put into cancellation decisions...which is probably more accurate.

See, this is different from what's happening with Nintendo. Here it was the case of one studio being given a choice between a hardcore and casual title. In Nintendo's case, they keep those development teams separate

EAD Group 2 has done all the Wii _____ stuff except Wii Fit, and EAD Group 5 was made specifically to make Wii Fit

Really, the only game we know they canned for casual appeal purposes so far this generation was Nintendo Software Technology's Project HAMMER

Looking at the wikipedia article, I see at least one casual title in each development group. As long as the good games keep coming for all the systems, it really shouldn't bother anyone.

Cancelling a core game to focus on a family friendly game... thats so.... so..... Nintendo

Whoever said that Nintendo is leading the market to do as they do certainly has premonition skills

We knew it would happen. The buckets of money raining down upon Nintendo would break any publisher's "integrity."

It's just that there's a right way to go about expanding audiences, and a wrong way. One that requires careful management of development assets.

Which doesn't mean that 8 Days was bound to be a classic, though. Maybe it did suck, or they felt it was too derivative, or something

Cancelled... or just on hold?

Pretty much cancelled

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/16/lack-of-online-contributed-to-eight-days-cancellation/

Yeah, I hate it when developers choose new, innovative ideas over generic shooters.

Mass amounts of generic shooters is exactly what Sony needs. Lots and lots and lots of shooters. Driving around and shooting people can never be over done.

Just give him a break. I'm sure Randy was just attempting to even out the playing field between Sony and Nintendo...

...but he failed miserably and sounded like a fanboy while doing so, so on with the hatred!

i'm thinking it was more like one game wasn't far enough along, expensive, and didn't have any or enough multiplayer aspects and one was relatively easy, cheaper, and took avantage of the camera that shows off the one of the many types of games sony ha done in the past. but maybe thats just me

They made the right choice.

This is how it starts, Sony fanboys. Let me know how that crow tastes.

That's right, just vote me down. It's not as if anyone could argue the point.

No one could argue that you're acting like a moron either, hence all the voting down.

He doesn't have a valid point tmacairjordan87?

Crow? I don't see going full bore with the casual stuff like Nintendo, but if they did it would still be Nintendo's fault. It would actually be the realization of the doom that some of more hardcore here have been predicting for a while.

*don't see Sony

"It would actually be the realization of the doom that some of more hardcore here have been predicting for a while."

You know why I don't care if that happens, vid?
Because that sea change already happened once when the Playstation arrived on the scene...and yet, here we are, still enjoying video games, some 13 years later.
You'll either get used to the New Order or just learn to take what you can get when it comes around.

Nintendo fans are still using the ps1 and 2 as back up points for their arguments?

As I've said before, come back with that argument when any Nintendo system post SNES era has the amount of great games as the PS1 and specially PS2 did to go along with those casual games.

haha. What a pissy little bitch you are today.

I do hope all is well, though.

You're saying really retarded things today, even for a nintendo fanboy. I'm just bringing some kind of balance to your insanity.

That might be true is what you said had ANYTHING to do with my point.

Problem is that this:
"As I've said before, come back with that argument when any Nintendo system post SNES era has the amount of great games as the PS1 and specially PS2 did to go along with those casual games."

Has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. You're just coming back rambling on about how bad games on Nintendo consoles are. It's akin to me telling you I'm going to have for dinner and you start talking about breakfast.

You're referencing the time that gamers were pissed when the Playstation came out and made gaming somewhat popular. That someone dared to rise up against precious nintendo.

I'm saying, that time and this time are not comparable because the PS1 had a great library of actual games to appease those that were pissed off whereas the wii has a horrendous overall lineup that is appeasing no one except the traditional nintendo fanboys and people who don't play games.

So yes, it has a lot to do with what you said.

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Sony's Choice: EyePet beat out Eight Days

Reader Comments (87)

Posted: Aug 28th 2008 2:34PM (Unverified) said

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