According to Kotaku, Sony is in the process of closing up first party studio Zipper Interactive, the guys responsible for the SOCOM series, MAG and Vita title unit 13, which I personally really liked.
The studio has been going since 1996, but was bought by Sony ten years later and was hugely important during the PS2 years with their brand of tactical third person shooter.
The series quietened down a little this gen, and the latest SOCOM suffered by coming out around the time of the big PSN hack.
Sony closed fellow developers Bigbig just before their final game – Little Deviants – was released on Vita. The company hasn’t commented on Kotaku’s rumours, citing their usual policy.
Our thoughts go out to anyone affected.
Death_In_Flamez
This will be huge news if true. Such a shame :/
hol
As a fan of MAG, if this is true then it’s sad news. Zipper are one dev that really seemed to care about thier community & I, for one, was hoping for another MAG game :(
Nocure-fd
Agreed, MAG is an awesome game. Sank well over 200 hours into it. I was kinda looking forward to a sequel as well.
jikomanzoku
Same on all counts, damned shame and it would have been great to see where they could have gone with the MAG tech. In my opinion, if anyone should have been put in charge of a new Battlefront game it was Zipper.
damoxuk
The problem is Zipper’s games just never sold well enough or for that matter never attained anything other than above avergae scores.
Is a shame as Unit 13 is brill.
tonycawley
Not true. Socom’s really big across the pond.
Taylor Made
I hope its a rumour otherwise Sony will be losing out on a big company.
I liked Socom 4 US Navy the only Socom game I ever played & Unit 13 is epic
teflon
What?! Nooooooooo! :-\
Erroneus
I’m sure many of the talented guys from Zipper, will continue on in other Sony 1st party studios if this turns out to be true. Sucker Punch is also in Washington where Zipper is, so maybe it’s just some optimizing, which actually could turn out for the better.
gideon1451
Didn’t Zipper make Crimson Skies, way back in the day?
nofi
Yep.
Jag
I hope Sony keep a lot of the guys if that is true.
I know the latest SOCOM was a disappointment but MAG was brill and Unit 13 was great for a launch title too.
It was such a shame about BigBig too they had great ideas too. Pursuit Force was a blast and I thought they did an excellent job with Arctic Edge.
I suppose Evolution and Sucker Punch better be careful as they could be next… :S
Jag
Ok it must be too early for my brain as I used ‘too’ like three times in the space of one sentence!
aerobes
Real surprise. Will support for MAG end?
JoshHood
There hasn’t been support for the game since the end of ’10.
aerobes
Ah. That’s that then! I haven’t played it for a long long time.
jikomanzoku
There’s no support as such but when I last checked (around xmas?) the servers were still up, though I assume that’ll change soon with this news :(