Fumito Ueda’s Departure Confirmed
Following rumors that Ico and SOTC creator Fumito Ueda had left Sony to work on a contract basis until the end of The Last Guardian‘s development, Sony has now confirmed that the renowned developer has indeed left SCEJ.
In a statement to Gamasutra, Sony admitted Ueda was no longer an employee at the company, but said that he is “committed to completing” the project. The news comes after The Last Guardian producer Yoshifusa Hayama announced he would leave Sony for the social gaming developer Bossa Studios. It’s unknown why two key developers for the game are set to leave, but with The Last Guardian already years behind schedule, the departures certainly won’t help things.
Are you sad that one of the world’s best developers has left Sony? Let us know in the comments below.
13 Responses to “Fumito Ueda’s Departure Confirmed”
I should probably care about this more than i do.. have yet to see what the team could do on PS3 so i am not that sad about people leaving and this is a really bad sign for the Last Guardian
Wonder why tlg is taking forever to make prpgress. There seems tl be a conflict of interest between ueda and scej
Well, Sony lost another great staff, step your game up Kevin Butler!
Honestly he was great, as were many Japanese developers, but as is a common trend in gaming today Japan isn’t nearly as significant as it used to be. As great as TLG will be, it most likely won’t be as great as something Naughty Dog can make. ND is just an example, you can literally replace them with many Western developers.
this is my polite disagree with you. While Uncharted is good, it’s not a brand new experience as much as it is an improvement on an existing adventure genre. I can’t speak for TLG, but ICO and especially SOTC set standards on what a game should/could be. Uncharted is EPIC and grand and extremely cinematic, certainly standing out from what was already attempted in the genre before….
But Shadow was a game that played with your heart and mind.
Max Murray
Sorry they are both good but shallow Zelda clones.
Every game has been done before.
From the way things are going he will probably be under contract to Sony for the rest of his life
What I’m about to say is speculation, but based on the track record of current-gen consoles, including particularly the PS3 and XBox 360 and their action-heavy (FPS, sports, etc) focus, Sony probably wanted to “mainstream” The Last Guardian and it led to irreconcilable creative differences. Ueda’s games are in ways more akin to artistic expression than they are typical videogames, and as an artist/writer myself I can say that having your company ask you to dumb down your work to the lowest common denominator is intolerable, especially if your vision is as strong as Ueda’s seems to be.
For those who say western game design has surpassed Japan’s, I disagree. I know there are different tastes to consider, but by and large the Japanese market encourages and supports a much wider variety of genres than the West (Strategy, Schmups, Puzzlers, traditional JRPGs, and SRPGs to name a few); a Japanese developer at E3 in 2010 remarked “You Americans sure seem to enjoy war” in regard to the gross oversaturation of shooters at the show, something that has become an annual occurrence. Due to this and the fact that the Big 3′s stage presentations generally focus on their expected cash cows, everyone on the show floor is practically invisible, and many Japanese developers no longer bother attending E3. America has the market cornered on big-budget cutscenes and scripted eye candy (and trying to emulate that formula has RUINED some major Japanese franchises like the Final Fantasy series), but five-hour campaigns and tons of expensive DLC (including the idea of online passes) have also become part of the equation. When Western gamers inevitably tire of first and third-person shooters, sports, and zombie games being annually regurgitated, the pendulum will likely begin to swing back in the other direction; far too many business and marketing decisions are being made based upon short-term profitability right now as opposed to the health and variety of the hobby as a whole.
In short, let the artist do it his way, and let the hobby have the variety it once did for everyone’s sake.
well it wont get cancelled. sony dumped loads of money on gt5, took 5+ yrs. sony’s problem is they assume to much. cuz they was the shit in ps2 era they think devs will jump for sony. my point is he left sony for a reason not just for money. “there always another side to that coin.” <– de niro's voice from heat.
also am i upset..sure its never a comfortable atmosphere putting in ur 2 wks notice and seeing these people working hard on this game. but am i happy for him yea, hes writing a new chapter in his life.
hello …
wishing those who left the best in their career, hoping they were right from the beginning to do so. I want TLG to be great, with or without Mister Ueda & sure hope SONY doesn’t allow this game to be butchered.
cheers!
people lets keep in mind that no one knows why he is leaving.. it could be an infinite amount of reasons. personally i think he just wanted to leave. it isn’t uncommon for key members of game development companies to just up and leave without giving the general gaming community a reason why.
in the next couple of weeks maybe months you’ll know why he left exactly. theres always an inside mole lol!
“It’s unknown why two key developers for the game are set to leave.”
Because the game has been in development Hell for six years, and Sony wisely (but belatedly) decided something had to be done if they wanted the game to be released one day.
I don’t internet bully much but if you really believe that Sony got rid of one of its brightest mind on purpose then you truly are an idiot.