Sean Layden, Former President of Sony Worldwide Studios He expressed his disappointment Concrete Genie developer PixelOpus has closed. The first-party developer will be shutting down on June 2nd, 2023, to which Layden responded: “This is a deep cut. I love working with this team and watching it at the top level delivering genre-busting, reaping the concrete, all while maintaining a culture of support, inclusion, and challenge.”
Concrete Genie was released on PS4 shortly after Shawn Layden quit his PlayStation role, so the title has been in development for most of his tenure. He wished each PixelOpus employee well for the future since “a new adventure awaits him.”
Also responsible for the beautiful PS4 game Entwined, the San Mateo studio will permanently close its doors at the beginning of June. As for the reason for closing PixelOpus, Sony said: PlayStation Studios regularly evaluates its portfolio and the status of studio projects to ensure they meet the organization’s short- and long-term strategic goals. As part of the recent review process, it was decided that PixelOpus would close on June 2nd. “
The team had a PS5 game in development, with job listings pointing to a title produced in Unreal Engine 5 in collaboration with Sony Pictures Animation. Many PlayStation fans have been longing for a game Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse An accidental experiment, but even if that’s what the studio was going for, it looks like it won’t see the light of day anymore.
In a September 2021 interview, Sean Layden explained that he left his position at PlayStation because he had become burnt out in the industry. After helping bring PS4 exclusives to market like Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War, he felt it was “a good time to rise to the top and let another generation bring the PlayStation 5 to market”. Shaun Layden now works for Tencent as a strategic consultant.
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