After breaking away from Sony, Sony Online Entertainment transformed into Daybreak Games.
One of the highlights from John Smedley's (former head of SOE, current head of Daybreak) thoughts on the separation from Sony was that they could now embrace the "multi-platform world in which we all live."
Getting into the multi-platform world has been slightly more difficult for Daybreak than it would have been for SOE. "Not having the Sony name makes it a little harder," Smedley admitted in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz. "But in a way it also makes us a little more self-reliant because we have to rely 100 percent on our games. The name 'Daybreak' isn't going to be the thing that opens the door. Sony has relationships we don't, therefore we have to do more of it on our own, which is way more gratifying."
Developing Planetside 2 has cost "nearly $30 million to make," said Smedly – that price has Daybreak "Putting our money where our mouth is," in terms of console development.
Daybreak believes in what they are creating, when it comes to their free-to-play game Planetside 2, but others might hesitant:
"I think people are a little reluctant to change the business model. The platform holders aren't; it's the developers. They're nervous about spending $20 million on a free-to-play game. And they should be. That's a dicey economic proposition. It's like making a movie and no movie like it has ever been seen before because you don't have any history to go off of. It's a new frontier for them and they both seem to be embracing it."
Planetside 2 went into beta on the PS4 in February, since then we haven't heard much in terms of a release date, but with that much money in the game… it has to be coming. After it releases we might even see it come to the Xbox One one day too.
