Sony Buys Developers

In an effort to keep up with Microsoft's constant exercising of the purse-strings, Sony have reached out and grabbed Red Zone and Naughty Dog, the developers of the American football GameDay series and the creators of Crash Bandicoot respectively. It is not thought that Sony will retain exclusive rights to Crash though, as Konami, the game's publisher is already involved in a deal with Microsoft to release one title on the Xbox. Both companies will take their places in the Sony Computer Entertainment division and report directly to Shuhei Yoshida, vice president for product development. It should help give Sony some control over their own console sales by actually taking an active interest in the construction of software. Only three games actually created in-house by Sony were released last year, and many believe that only the badly-advertised Fantavision was worth its salt. Related Feature - PlayStation 2 UK Launch Coverage