After reporting on the survival of Eight Days and The Getaway not long ago, we weren’t expecting to bring you news that both games had been suspended indefinitely, and perhaps even permanently. 

In April, British newspaper The Guardian was given a tour of SCE London Studio - the development team responsible for Singstar, Home and Eye Toy - where they spied Eight Days entering full production and The Getaway waiting in the wings.

Though Sony London’s innovative and family orientated projects have been met with huge success, it’s their technical ability that impresses hardcore gamers.  Their London tech demo promised so much for the teams’ graphical progress, even making it into Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo 5: Prologue.  We were hoping to see these projects in the near future, but SCEE has announced that production on both titles has ceased:

It has been agreed that production of both Eight Days and The Getaway will cease immediately due to the redistribution of resources and budget.

This decision was made following an internal review of all games and it was deemed that with the incredibly strong list of exclusive first party titles coming up both this year and in the near future, resource should be reallocated to enhance those projects closer to completion.

Worldwide Studios has a reputation for innovative and entertaining games, with titles such as LittleBigPlanet, SingStar,Buzz, EyeToy and Eye of Judgement, and will continue to push the boundaries on all PlayStation platforms.

It was unclear whether this meant the games were permanently canned, but Gamesindustry.biz reports that “it has now been confirmed that these projects have been shelved permanently, and work is not scheduled to restart at a later date.”

Could PS3 development difficulties be to blame?  Not necessarily on these particular projects, but on other PS3 titles. SCEE’s teams are so well versed in the language of the PS3 that they are often shipped off to aid other developers in getting the best out of the system.  To illustrate, Sony Cambridge helped out on Heavenly Sword, and Sony London are said to be working on Killzone 2.  SCEE’s comment that “resource should be reallocated to enhance those projects closer to completion” adds credence to this theory.  Whatever the reasons, we do hope the team gets to show their true muscle very soon.

We’ll keep you posted if the situation changes, and I personally believe these projects will be tackled sometime in the future.  What other projects SCEE has up their sleeve, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Tags: boundaries, buzz, demo, eyetoy, eye_of_judgement, eye_toy, getaway, guardian, orientated_projects, playstation_platforms, redistribution, reputation, waiting_in_the_wings

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