Columbus Nova, a private investment firm based in New York, has reportedly purchased Sony Online Entertainment, of Everquest fame, renaming the developer Daybreak Game Studio. SOE was recently most well known for H1Z1 as well as PlanetSide 2 and were also developing a sequel in their EverQuest franchise.
SOE President John Smedley will remain on board as president of Daybreak. Given some of Smedley’s tweets, it seems Daybreak may also end up developing games for Xbox One now. Previously SOE’s game development was restricted by Sony to Playstation and PC.
The developer has met with some controversy as of late and has struggled to develop consistent hits as their bread and butter, the MMO genre, gave way to free-to-play business models. Sony likely sold the studio in an attempt to unload unprofitable (or less profitable assets) as they prepare to report another quarter of losses in their upcoming financial report. The full report has been delayed due to the hack Sony suffered, allegedly at the hands of the North Korean government.
Thanks: Forbes
Spencer joined us in early 2015, previously a console centric gamer he switched to PC a few years ago. He later helped push for an increase in Japanese content on PC with the #SEGAPCPorts campaign. Previously he ran a SEGA fansite as well as co-hosted a gaming podcast. He thinks Duke Nukem 3D is the best FPS of all time, his text message alert on his phone is literally Duke Nukem saying “Let God sort ’em out.”
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Perhaps that’s why H1Z1 went Early Access?
SoE was always focused on PC gaming. And sony does not have the money people think they do.
Not to mention Publishers/Developers are not willing to pay Sony Royalties to put their games on Blue Ray for PC not even SoE was willing to even if they were owned by Sony which is pretty funny that they would of had to have funds come out of a dev’s paycheck to pay to have a game be on blue ray…. Hence why we have 4/6 disk games aka 50/60gig steam downloads.
But all that matter’s to me is they stay on Focus with PC gaming and they can do console business on the side.
Landmark is also in Early Access and SOE have said EverQuest Next could go the same route.
Sold to Kim Jong-un
sony is dying. Cant wait until the playstation divison is also sold out and we get all ps exculives on pc!
lol you guys are blind there have been reports that sony will go bankrupt in 2 years google it.they lose $60 on every ps4 sold no matter how many sold.they lost millions.and now sony sole soe.if those arnt signs of a failing company i dont know what is.every thing i said is on google.just look it up.