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Sony Online Entertainment Expands Austin Operations
Game Developer Inks Deal for 37,492 SF at Prominent Pointe II
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By Brandon K. Skaggs
January 27, 2009
Sony Online Entertainment leased 37,492 square feet from Aspen Properties at Prominent Pointe II at 8310 N. Capital of Texas Highway in Austin.

The 105,000-square-foot, Class A office building was constructed in the Northwest Submarket last June. Sony's five-year deal stabilizes the building, bringing its occupancy up to 88 percent.

The game developer anticipates moving from its 24,000-square-foot space in Research Park Plaza IV at the end of the quarter.

Kevin Granger of Stream Realty represented the landlord, Aspen Properties. Jay Lamy and Chris Perry of Aquila Commercial represented the tenant. ENDQUOTE

The extra 13,492 square feet is for what? Bowing Alley?  Executive Dining?  Customer Lube Jobs?

Considering the upcoming sweeping layoffs Sony is planning, this "move" surprises me - a lot.

Perhaps the extra space is to accomodate Smedley's ego when they release The Agency? That and the extra hamsters he'll need to run the servers!

This doesn't surpirse me at all.  SOE always does the oposite of what people think they will do. 

Originally posted by Terranah

This doesn't surpirse me at all.  SOE always does the oposite of what people think they will do. 

Now isn't that the honest truth. 

It could be used for more PS3 type stuff, ring tones and the rest of the junk they do.

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Terranah

This doesn't surpirse me at all.  SOE always does the oposite of what people think they will do. 

 

Now isn't that the honest truth. 

 

It could be used for more PS3 type stuff, ring tones and the rest of the junk they do.

 I hope they put out a line of SOE Back Scratchers.

I would buy one but I wouldn't use it for my back.

SOE is one of the few shining stars in the Sony Divisions. They were brought in to teach the PS3 division how to become profitable. They are pushing the new F2P games (FreeRealms, The Agency and DC Universe) as one of the ways that they can get some money out of the PS3.

Originally posted by Superman0X

SOE is one of the few shining stars in the Sony Divisions. They were brought in to teach the PS3 division how to become profitable. They are pushing the new F2P games (FreeRealms, The Agency and DC Universe) as one of the ways that they can get some money out of the PS3.

I agree, SOE is a now a shining star of the Sony division. This is why they're making massive losses for the first time in years and have become a pariah of the gaming and console industry with the worst selling console on the market!

Gotta love that Smedley!

Originally posted by Superman0X

SOE is one of the few shining stars in the Sony Divisions. They were brought in to teach the PS3 division how to become profitable. They are pushing the new F2P games (FreeRealms, The Agency and DC Universe) as one of the ways that they can get some money out of the PS3.

  No, You have to be kidding - The only thing SOE can do is teach the PS3 division is how to be arrogant and ignorant in light of losing a monthly profit  of a quarter million dollars.

Originally posted by Agricola1

Originally posted by Superman0X

SOE is one of the few shining stars in the Sony Divisions. They were brought in to teach the PS3 division how to become profitable. They are pushing the new F2P games (FreeRealms, The Agency and DC Universe) as one of the ways that they can get some money out of the PS3.

 

I agree, SOE is a now a shining star of the Sony division. This is why they're making massive losses for the first time in years and have become a pariah of the gaming and console industry with the worst selling console on the market!

 

Gotta love that Smedley!

ONE MORE TIME FOR GOOD MEASURE!!!

Sony =/= SOE

Sony is cutting jobs from various divisions mainly high end electronics because nobody can afford them right now.

This does not mean SOE or even SCEA (which handles console games) are cutting jobs or even losing money. If you look at SONY losses you would notice that online games and the PS3 have very little to do with it.

The PS3 is actually selling well (and please don't compare it to the bloated Wii sales because that is the exception not the norm), and SOE is showing no signs of finacial troubles because they have the benefit of buying games off of troubled developers so they don't lose money do to the poor sales.

They stick a small team to keep the game running and take in the small profit that it offers. Contrary to popular belief you don't need a million subscribers to keep an MMO running, especially when someone else picked up the development costs.

An MMO only costs as much to run as the amount of players they have, especially when you aren't releasing tons of content (which most of SOE games don't so you don't have to tie in those costs). So a game with 20,000 subscribers will cost less to maintain then a game with 2,000,000.

The reason games like Tabula Rasa are going under is because they are not making back the development costs fast enough and a company like SOE isn't picking it up. If Tabula Rasa continued to run they would probably break even, it might take 10 years but it would happen. NCSoft just didn't want the long term investmant so they cut their losses.

So what have we learned from this?

Just because a division of a company is cutting jobs doesn't mean the company as a whole is doing poorly.

SOE = SONY but SONY =/= SOE =/= SCEA

People don't buy high end electronics during reccessions.

If SONY for whatever reason closed a certain division of their company, this does not mean they are going out of business, and it does not mean you won't see growth in other areas.

They are a multi billion dollar company that has their hands in everything from music, to movies, to games and household electronics. They probably stuff you don't even know they owned. They are not going anywhere.

Originally posted by pb1285n

Originally posted by Agricola1

Originally posted by Superman0X

SOE is one of the few shining stars in the Sony Divisions. They were brought in to teach the PS3 division how to become profitable. They are pushing the new F2P games (FreeRealms, The Agency and DC Universe) as one of the ways that they can get some money out of the PS3.

 

I agree, SOE is a now a shining star of the Sony division. This is why they're making massive losses for the first time in years and have become a pariah of the gaming and console industry with the worst selling console on the market!

 

Gotta love that Smedley!

 

ONE MORE TIME FOR GOOD MEASURE!!!

Sony =/= SOE

Sony is cutting jobs from various divisions mainly high end electronics because nobody can afford them right now.

This does not mean SOE or even SCEA (which handles console games) are cutting jobs or even losing money. If you look at SONY losses you would notice that online games and the PS3 have very little to do with it.

The PS3 is actually selling well (and please don't compare it to the bloated Wii sales because that is the exception not the norm), and SOE is showing no signs of finacial troubles because they have the benefit of buying games off of troubled developers so they don't lose money do to the poor sales.

They stick a small team to keep the game running and take in the small profit that it offers. Contrary to popular belief you don't need a million subscribers to keep an MMO running, especially when someone else picked up the development costs.

An MMO only costs as much to run as the amount of players they have, especially when you aren't releasing tons of content (which most of SOE games don't so you don't have to tie in those costs). So a game with 20,000 subscribers will cost less to maintain then a game with 2,000,000.

The reason games like Tabula Rasa are going under is because they are not making back the development costs fast enough and a company like SOE isn't picking it up. If Tabula Rasa continued to run they would probably break even, it might take 10 years but it would happen. NCSoft just didn't want the long term investmant so they cut their losses.

So what have we learned from this?

Just because a division of a company is cutting jobs doesn't mean the company as a whole is doing poorly.

SOE = SONY but SONY =/= SOE =/= SCEA

People don't buy high end electronics during reccessions.

If SONY for whatever reason closed a certain division of their company, this does not mean they are going out of business, and it does not mean you won't see growth in other areas.

They are a multi billion dollar company that has their hands in everything from music, to movies, to games and household electronics. They probably stuff you don't even know they owned. They are not going anywhere.

QFTW,

However SOE is still a PSO company who is greedy and completely unfair to their player base. And they have lost hundreds of EQ and EQ2 players, and future players like myself as well.I also feel like a lot of the "Word of mouth" about their games is going down the drain. Most people will not recommend EQ or EQ2 like they once did after this CS move. 

 Most Players would agree that SOE should not have to take up more space on this planet , I reccommend a Moon based expansion.

Originally posted by pb1285n

Originally posted by Agricola1

Originally posted by Superman0X

SOE is one of the few shining stars in the Sony Divisions. They were brought in to teach the PS3 division how to become profitable. They are pushing the new F2P games (FreeRealms, The Agency and DC Universe) as one of the ways that they can get some money out of the PS3.

 

I agree, SOE is a now a shining star of the Sony division. This is why they're making massive losses for the first time in years and have become a pariah of the gaming and console industry with the worst selling console on the market!

 

Gotta love that Smedley!

 

ONE MORE TIME FOR GOOD MEASURE!!!

Sony =/= SOE

Sony is cutting jobs from various divisions mainly high end electronics because nobody can afford them right now.

This does not mean SOE or even SCEA (which handles console games) are cutting jobs or even losing money. If you look at SONY losses you would notice that online games and the PS3 have very little to do with it.

SOE used to list the combined "customers" in their job postings for certain positions.  I recall seeing it twice, once was clearly stated as over 800k and another was higher and loosely referenced 1 million (if I recall right), but that was several years ago and SOE was in a much stronger position in the mmo market than it is now.

Do you think SOE still has anywhere near 800k subscribers?  SOE isn't showing signs of financial troubles form buying Vanguard.  They are simply losing market share at an alarming rate.  This is just a guess, but I suspect they are roughtly 1/3 the size they were a few years ago in terms of playerbase.  With the subscriber base of one decent sized mmo, but having to support 8 and another 3-4 in developement?  Think about it.

If the heads at Sony were to ask for the performace of SOE over the last few years what do you think it would look like?  Why do you think they are no longer in the movie division where the executives in charge have no roots in video games?

There is actually a likely reason for this that has nothing to do with The Agency or any of the other crap SOE is doing.

Office space prices in many markets have fallen by as much as 50%, and Texas may be one of those areas, so a lot of companies are moving once their leases are up to take advantage. Could be that it is cheaper to move into a bigger place at a lower cost than renew in a place where the landlord won't cut the rent at renewal time.

My company is doing the same thing.

And we all know how cheap Smed is, so a move is probably about the money and nothing else.

SoE is going to be the official online division of Sony games, therefore even if their MMORPG aren't doing so good, there are lots of new games coming out and many will enter production in the near future.

SoE moving from the Pictures division to the game division, possibly meant massive investment which they didn't have before.
SoE is moving away from its MMORPG core market to a more wider market, producing hybrids which can be played easily on console as well on PC.
Forget about the SoE we know from EQ, that one is dead.
 

my guess would be just an investment. They might want it to lease to other related industries. I know a lot of corporations do this.

For example, a construction contractor leases space in their building to drywall and cement subcontractors. Its win win, they get lease revenue plus related business oportunities.

Originally posted by Agricola1

Originally posted by Superman0X

SOE is one of the few shining stars in the Sony Divisions. They were brought in to teach the PS3 division how to become profitable. They are pushing the new F2P games (FreeRealms, The Agency and DC Universe) as one of the ways that they can get some money out of the PS3.

 

I agree, SOE is a now a shining star of the Sony division. This is why they're making massive losses for the first time in years and have become a pariah of the gaming and console industry with the worst selling console on the market!

 

Gotta love that Smedley!

I guess you dont actually read the data that is put out. SOE is a big moneymaker... they are being pulled in to counter the losses of the hardware divisions.

Sony is closing out whole groups, and dropping the products that they make, because they are not profitable... they are expanding SOE because it makes a disproportional amount of revenue compared to the cost. This is all available in the Sony Corp finances.... as they are public.

Originally posted by Daffid011

 If the heads at Sony were to ask for the performace of SOE over the last few years what do you think it would look like?  Why do you think they are no longer in the movie division where the executives in charge have no roots in video games?

 

SOE was moved out of the Movie Division, and move to the Games division to take the lead. If you check, you will see that this was a PROMOTION.

All those screaming SoE  is not making money are basing it purely on their hatred for SoE and have jack data to support themselves .

If a company expands during this time of economical troubles you can bet there is a  bunch of directors and accountants who sat down and decided they needed to do so.

How much money SoE makes is anyone's guess but blindly sitting in your small room on your pc and guessing is laughable.

Well SOE has enough cash to purchase other companies it seems.

www.edge-online.com/news/sony-online-founds-tucson-studio