Sony Interactive Entertainment has officially completed its acquisition of former Ubisoft and Electronic Arts project leader Jade Raymond's Haven Studios.
The deal was announced in March, just a year after the studio was founded, and put Haven under the wing of Playstation Studios (PSS) as its first Canadian-based developer.
Even before the deal, Raymond and his team were working on a PlayStation-dedicated IP as their first project. This paired with the studio's stable of established talent, which currently has 50 employees, up from 106 last October, likely made the decision to acquire Haven to expand PSS even further.
This deal helps Sony enter the Canadian game development scene and gives the company another major studio working on new games and innovations in cloud technology;
Raymond GamesIndustry.biz“We have already stated that we are building the studio in a cloud and that is our vision since we started during the pandemic. Initially we had a cloud team of about six people working on new ways of working. Now, we welcome 21 more engineers to focus on long-term cloud innovation because we truly believe it will change the rules of how games are made.” said.
When talking about the cloud, Raymond talks about how much data current games use and how development can continue to move forward using these innovative cloud-integrated technologies. This also includes how Haven's "studio in the cloud" mentality could help with his upcoming live service title.
Raymond continued to tell GamesIndustry.biz, “Our first episode of 'studio in the cloud' was really focused on startup and build tools and general things that would get people working from home really fast. Now we look at the next step: how do we innovate in terms of the live service and the specific modules the engine needs, and do it in a more scalable way that will allow us to actually have it faster? improved gaming and more productive people? That's the dream."
With this move, Sony is one step closer to its goal of expanding PlayStation games to different devices.
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