Why were there Psygnosis games (like Wipeout) on Saturn and N64?

[Oscarzx n]

Something that I have never been able to understand is why some titles from Psygnosis like Wipeout or Destruction Derby had entries on Saturn and N64. I thought that maybe they were not owned by Sony yet, but it seems they were bought by them in 1993 or 1994. Is it known why they could release those titles and why they became true PS exclusive only since the PS2 era?

 

[DeoGame]

Contractual obligations like we're seeing with MS and Bethesda maybe?

 

[julia crawford]

ah, destruction derby

great games

 

[DiipuSurotu]

The PlayStation was released in 1995, maybe Psygnosis signed the contract for the Saturn ports before that date or something

 

[Th0rnhead]

Y'know, this is something that I've wondered about the couple of times I went down a WipEout/Psygnosis Wikipedia wormhole. I'm super curious too

It probably is something boring like contracts though

 

[DeoGame]

Wikipedia says this:

Despite being owned by Sony, Psygnosis retained a degree of independence from its parent company during this period and continued to develop and publish titles for other platforms, including the Sega Saturnand the Nintendo 64. This caused friction between Psygnosis and Sony, and in 1996 Sony engaged SBC Warburg's services in finding a buyer for Psygnosis. However, though bids reportedly went as high as $300 million (more than ten times what Sony paid for the company just three years before), after six months Sony rescinded its decision to sell Psygnosis. Relations between the two companies had improved during this time, and Sony became reconciled to Psygnosis releasing games for competing platforms. Shortly after, Psygnosis took over distribution of its own titles, a task that Sony had been handling following the buyout

 

[A Black Falcon]

Sony owned Psygnosis, but until ~1999 did not require them to only develop for Sony platforms. As the Wikipedia article says there was some conflict between Sony and Psygnosis over this, but Psygnosis was allowed to be multi-platform until '99. At that point Sony started the process of getting rid of the Psygnosis name and replacing it with a fully internal team, SCE Liverpool. At that point in '99-'00 other format games were banned.

As a result of that, any N64 games they had in development were cancelled. One thing Wikipedia doesn't point out is that Psygnosis's last two PC games were affected by this as well -- Death Track Racing (aka Rollcage Stage II) and Lemmings Revolution were released in 2000, but by a third party (Take Two), not Psygnosis itself, because of Sony saying they weren't allowed to develop for non-Sony platforms anymore. And after that there were no more PC games from Psygnosis. Sad stuff, that's probably what killed the Lemmings franchise really.

 

[ciddative]

I remember a DF Retroepisode mentioning this when they covered wipeout on PS1 and Saturn

 

[Th0rnhead]

Wikipedia says this:

Despite being owned by Sony, Psygnosis retained a degree of independence from its parent company during this period and continued to develop and publish titles for other platforms, including the Sega Saturnand the Nintendo 64. This caused friction between Psygnosis and Sony, and in 1996 Sony engaged SBC Warburg's services in finding a buyer for Psygnosis. However, though bids reportedly went as high as $300 million (more than ten times what Sony paid for the company just three years before), after six months Sony rescinded its decision to sell Psygnosis. Relations between the two companies had improved during this time, and Sony became reconciled to Psygnosis releasing games for competing platforms. Shortly after, Psygnosis took over distribution of its own titles, a task that Sony had been handling following the buyout

Click to shrink...

Maybe I read this and totally forgot 😅
Unless it's new.
I've definitely read Psygnosis' Wikipedia page a couple of times

 

[kurt]

Wipeout 64

 

[TheChrisGlass]

Sony is a weirdly complicated company. Certain departments that even made Playstation games were often treated as a 3rd party dev, until some realignment some years ago.

 

[Iron Eddie]

Wikipedia says this:

Despite being owned by Sony, Psygnosis retained a degree of independence from its parent company during this period and continued to develop and publish titles for other platforms, including the Sega Saturnand the Nintendo 64. This caused friction between Psygnosis and Sony, and in 1996 Sony engaged SBC Warburg's services in finding a buyer for Psygnosis. However, though bids reportedly went as high as $300 million (more than ten times what Sony paid for the company just three years before), after six months Sony rescinded its decision to sell Psygnosis. Relations between the two companies had improved during this time, and Sony became reconciled to Psygnosis releasing games for competing platforms. Shortly after, Psygnosis took over distribution of its own titles, a task that Sony had been handling following the buyout

Click to shrink...

Sony owned Psygnosis, but until ~1999 did not require them to only develop for Sony platforms. As the Wikipedia article says there was some conflict between Sony and Psygnosis over this, but Psygnosis was allowed to be multi-platform until '99. At that point Sony started the process of getting rid of the Psygnosis name and replacing it with a fully internal team, SCE Liverpool. At that point in '99-'00 other format games were banned.

As a result of that, any N64 games they had in development were cancelled. One thing Wikipedia doesn't point out is that Psygnosis's last two PC games were affected by this as well -- Death Track Racing (aka Rollcage Stage II) and Lemmings Revolution were released in 2000, but by a third party (Take Two), not Psygnosis itself, because of Sony saying they weren't allowed to develop for non-Sony platforms anymore. And after that there were no more PC games from Psygnosis. Sad stuff, that's probably what killed the Lemmings franchise really.

Click to shrink...

I'm pretty sure we saw new strategies/direction taking place within Sony as well and as time went on Sony prioritized the exclusive model.