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SCE Studio Liverpool
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SCE Studio Liverpool is a video game development house head-quartered at Wavertree Technology Park in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1984 as Psygnosis, the company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment and currently employs roughly 100 individuals comprising two development teams. Mick Hocking currently oversees Studio Liverpool's operations as Group Studio Director, a position he also holds within two other SCE-owned developers, Evolution Studios and Bigbig Studios.
Studio Liverpool, which is the oldest and second largest development house within Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's stable of developers, is best known for the Wipeout series of futuristic racing games, with the first instalment released on the original PlayStation in 1995.
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Encyclopedia
SCE Studio Liverpool is a video game development house head-quartered at Wavertree Technology Park in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1984 as Psygnosis, the company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment and currently employs roughly 100 individuals comprising two development teams. Mick Hocking currently oversees Studio Liverpool's operations as Group Studio Director, a position he also holds within two other SCE-owned developers, Evolution Studios and Bigbig Studios.
Studio Liverpool, which is the oldest and second largest development house within Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's stable of developers, is best known for the Wipeout series of futuristic racing games, with the first instalment released on the original PlayStation in 1995. The studio is also known for the Formula One series of licensed racing games, and the Colony Wars series released on the original PlayStation.
History
Psygnosis
Founded by Ian Hetherington and Jonathan Ellis, the Liverpool-based Psygnosis was born from the ashes of the defunct 8-bit game company Imagine Software, where Hetherington was Financial Director. After the collapse of Imagine in 1984, the name and trademarks were bought by Ocean Software, while the rights of the software remained with original copyright owners. The fabled mega-games being created by the company, Bandersnatch (for the ZX Spectrum) and Psyclapse (for the Commodore 64), were fused into one to become Psygnosis' first release, called Brataccas. This game was originally created for the Sinclair QL, but was instead ported over to other Motorola 68000-based machines and released on the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, and Apple Mac in 1985.
Psygnosis produced only one title in 1986 called Deep Space, a complex, difficult space exploration game. The box artwork was very distinctive with a black background and fantasy artwork bordered in red. This style was maintained for the best part of ten years, with a Psygnosis game being easily identifiable on a shelf of miscellaneous games. For the next few years, Psygnosis' releases contained increasingly improved graphics, but were marred by similarly difficult gameplay and control methods.
Although Psygnosis primarily became a game publisher, some games were developed fully or partly in-house. During the early days, artists were employed full-time at the headquarters, offering third-party developers, who were often just single programmers, a very high-quality art resource. This had the result of allowing Psygnosis to maintain very high graphical standards across the board, something for which the company became most famous. The original artists were Garvan Corbett, Jeff Bramfitt, Colin Rushby and Jim Bowers, with Neil Thompson joining a little later.
Closely following in the path of 1987 hit Barbarian with what was becoming a trademark high-quality introduction, Obliterator, released in 1988, contained an opening animation by Jim Bowers (now a digital matte painter for the movie industry) with the main character looking directly into the "camera". His face is animated with bewilderment that turns into anger, at which point he drops his guns and shoots at the observer. This short scene would further pave the way for many increasingly sophisticated intro animations, starting with 2D hand drawn sequences, and then progressing into FMV and 3D rendered movies created with Sculpt 4D on the Amiga. Eventually, Psygnosis would buy many Silicon Graphics workstations for the sole purpose of creating these animations.
While most games companies of the mid-to-late 1980s (including Psygnosis) were releasing identical games on both the Amiga and Atari ST, Psygnosis started to use the full potential of the Amiga's more powerful hardware to produce technically stunning games. It was these technically superior titles that brought the company its early success, with the landmark title Shadow of the Beast bringing the company its greatest success so far in 1989. Its multi-layered parallax scrolling and stunning music were highly advanced for the time and as such led to the game being used as a showcase demonstration for the Amiga in many computer shops.
Later, Psygnosis consolidated its fame after publishing the DMA Design Lemmings game franchise: debuting in 1991 on the Amiga, Lemmings was soon to be ported to a plethora of different computer and video game platforms, generating many sequels and variations of its concept through the years. After that, Psygnosis put unparalleled effort in producing Microcosm, a game that debuted on Japanese system FM Towns and was to become technical showcase and flagship title for new Commodore CD32 and SMSG 3DO multimedia consoles: although gameplay was never considered on par with technical aspects, graphics, music by Rick Wakeman and long FMV introduction were among the finest in company history at the time.
However, Commodore financial troubles with subsequent bankruptcy, and the arrival of new relevant actors in video gaming scene, were among the causes of a major shifting in Psygnosis commercial strategy: in 1993 the company was sold to Sony and in 1995 it started producing games using new PlayStation console as primary reference hardware, later porting some of them to PC and to other platforms. Among most famous creations of this period, Wipeout series, Destruction Derby, G-Police, Colony Wars series. Psygnosis also programmed several of the in-show video games that were in Nick Arcade, a Nickelodeon game show from the early 90's that revolved around video games.
The original company headquarters were located at the Port of Liverpool Building at the Pier Head in Liverpool, but soon moved to Century Buildings in Brunswick Business Park (also in Liverpool), and later moved down the road 200 metres to South Harrington Building in South Harrington Dock. As the company expanded after the Sony buyout, another satellite office was opened in Century Building with later offices opening in Stroud, England, London, Chester, Paris, Germany, and Foster City in California (as the Customer Support & Marketing with software development done in San Francisco), now the home of Sony Computer Entertainment America. The company headquarters has resided at Wavertree Technology Park since 1995.
The Stroud office was opened in November 1993 in order to attract disgruntled MicroProse UK employees. The Wheelhouse—its publishing name—was later closed in 2000 as part of the Sony Computer Entertainment takeover of Psygnosis. Some members joined Bristol-based Rage Software, but faced a similar demise a number of years later.
In 1999 the publishing branch of the company was merged into Sony Computer Entertainment Europe as a whole, and the Psygnosis brand was dropped in favour of SCE Studio Liverpool, which marked the full integration of the studio within Sony Computer Entertainment.
Studio Liverpool
The newly named SCE Studio Liverpool released its first title, Formula One 2001, in 2001. The game was also the studio's first release on the PlayStation 2, and the first entry in the Formula One series after taking over from developer Studio 33. From 2001 to 2007, Studio Liverpool has since released 8 instalments in the series between the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3. However, Sony Computer Entertainment's exclusive license with the Formula One Group expired, without renewal, before the 2007 season, marking the end of any further Formula One series instalments from the developer.
Studio Liverpool's larger and normally more prominent development team, responsible for the Wipeout series, had a lower profile during first few years after the name change, contributing only two titles between 2001 to 2006. Wipeout Fusion, the first and only instalment of the series on the PlayStation 2, released in 2002, and Wipeout Pure for the PlayStation Portable, which launched alongside the handheld in 2005 to significant acclaim, with many media outlets heralding it a return to glory for the series, which had seen only one other instalment in the previous 7 years.
Due to the loss of the Formula One license, Studio Liverpool is thought to have an as-yet-unconfirmed PS3 Wipeout game in development, which will mark the first completely new instalment in the series in over six years. Recently they have developed two games in the series; Wipeout Pulse, a sequel to Wipeout Pure for the PSP, which was released in December 2007 and Wipeout HD, a downloadable title for the PlayStation 3's PlayStation Network service, consisting of various courses taken from both Wipeout Pure and Wipeout Pulse remade in high definition.
Games
See also
External links
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- - Unofficial site. Includes an overview of games produced by Psygnosis
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- profile at MobyGames
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