Buzz PS3: What went wrong

By Robert Purchese Published 24 February, 2011

Relentless tells its side of the story.

For Relentless Software, the book has all but closed on Buzz! - a quiz series voiced by Jason Donovan and recognised by its bespoke four-button controllers. What Sony poured champagne over during the glory days of PS2 simply failed to bubble on PS3.

Relentless now pursues other avenues. "The old business," co-founder Andrew Eades told Eurogamer, "we've pretty much closed that off now - the chapter has ended."

But why? What happened? Buzz! and SingStar were supposed to prove that Sony and PS3 could entice an audience Microsoft and Xbox 360 could not.

"I don't think anyone can be happy with [Buzz! PS3] compared to PS2," shrugged Eades. "We [Relentless] weren't enthralled by it's performance and we felt that the market got a bit too much Buzz! too soon on PS3.

"If you don't have 100 million consoles [as PS2 did when Buzz! first arrived], you don't have a broad-enough demographic to want our kind of game. Of course the idea was to bring the broad games straight to PlayStation 3 in the launch window, to try and attract that demographic.

"But to be honest, £425 for a console is not going to give you a big audience. And we struggled with price for a long time."

"My point is," he added - "and I'm not asking people, I'm not sad that people won't do it" - "when we brought out Buzz on PS2 there was a PS2 Buzz bundle, like you get a Gran Turismo bundle. You could buy the console branded Buzz!. And we're never going to get that with PS3 for a number of years because it's just not appealing at that price."

So was the demise of Buzz! Sony's fault?

"I'm not going to say that," laughed Eades. "I'm not going to accuse Sony of anything. Things we wanted to happen didn't happen, and that's not Sony's fault, that's not Relentless' fault. A lot of it is down to market conditions.

"The market changed. We haven't changed; we've always made the kind of games that we're going to continue making - that's for sure. The people we make games for don't own PS3s that much.

"A PlayStation 3 game is an expensive thing to make," he went on, "and I don't think it makes much sense to spend that much money to make a game for such a small demographic. That's not Sony's fault, not our fault - that's the way the market is."

It's Buzz! on PS3.

Nevertheless, Relentless Software broke ground with Buzz! on PS3, claiming "a number of firsts". "It's extraordinary what we did," boasted Eades. "We had the first playable user-generated content before LittleBigPlanet; we had the first Trophies ever on a PlayStation game; and we also had the first Facebook connect in a PlayStation game - on any console in fact.

"We did a number of projects on Buzz, some of which are still to see the light of day. We were very proud of what we did there."

Relentless released 12 presumably Sony-commissioned Buzz! games for PS3 - including the Junior titles. That's hardly destitution. "We did well on PS2," admitted Eades. "We also did well on PS3, frankly."

But 2010, Eades told us, "was tougher than we thought it was going to be" - a sentiment personified by a shock of redundancies at the studio recently. Those, incidentally, were unrelated to Buzz! projects.

But what of Buzz! - is it really dead?

"Sony own Buzz," Eades dodged, "so it's up to them whether they do it or don't do it."

Could Sony make a Buzz! game without Relentless?

"Well they could," mused Eades, "but I challenge anyone to be better than us at a quiz game and certainly a Buzz! game. A fresh pair of eyes might help in some respects, but when you've done Buzz! for five years it's in your bones."

As to whether Sony and Relentless will work together again - either making Buzz! on PS3 or PSP or even Next Generation Portable game - were all questions Eades wouldn't confirm or deny. He was reluctant to even say whether Relentless had toyed around with NGP.

The future for Relentless Software currently lies on iPhone with Quiz Climber, although Eades openly declared his love for Kinect to Eurogamer recently. He believes PS3 and Xbox 360 core audiences are at "saturation point", but feels Kinect can expand numbers (like Buzz! did) beyond that.

Relentless also made family-friendly murder mystery Blue Toad Murder Files - now available on PC as well as on PS3.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (32) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • LetsGo #1 1 year ago

    Wow... they really want to get into bed with MS don't they?

  • JoeGBallad #2 1 year ago

    Loved buzz on ps2. It gave us some great Christmas holidays. Haven't played the ps3 one but always wanted to. Was it that bad?

  • Luckyjim #3 1 year ago

    Didn't realise it failed to find a PS3 audience. Shame because it was good fun.

  • Dolly #4 1 year ago

    I think they released too many Buzz games on a regular basis ala Guitar Hero. I bought Quiz TV and whilst loving it, felt no incentive to purchase its follow-ups. I feel that they should have used the TV concept to release better DLC for the first game for a few more years, rather than new releases with minimal new features. It's a shame, as the in-laws bought me the new Music Buzz for xmas and the use of the PSeye etc were great additions.
    Edited by Dolly at 24/02/11 @ 18:38

  • woodnotes #5 1 year ago

    The PS3 Buzz games are fine, but IMO they concentrated on user generated content and pointless Facebook integration instead of refreshing the actual gameplay.

  • Widge #6 1 year ago

    Also for 1 - 2 players, lots of the rounds were pointless and the online was threadbare at best, all hinging on a final round of "who gets it wrong first". None of that ever got fixed and not having a quality product was what stopped the game selling.

  • stevetuck #7 1 year ago

    I done know if it was the same with everyone but the 'randomness' of the bomb round always seemed to favour 1 player... pissed me and my house mates off fair bit :)

  • CaptainKid #8 1 year ago

    Not enough options to make your own quiz.
    You can't even chose what sections you want in with custom questions.

    A typical fast made game to cash in quickly.

  • kentmonkey #9 1 year ago

    The music quiz on the PS3, which was the last one released, was dire. Very very poor. Broken online (your opponent could put on loud music while wearing headphones, so you had their music coming through your speakers and couldn't hear the music of the game, with no option (at the time, don't know if it was patched out) to prevent voice comms.

    Also the music was shit. Really shit. Some of the tracks were fine but others sounded bugger all like the track they were supposed to be.

    Like others have said, while I take his original points on board and accept them as factors, their product was far from good enough in the end. It hadn't evolved on from the PS2, and in many ways I thought it had got worse (at the core gameplay experience).

  • Acrid #10 1 year ago

    Buzz PS3 just felt dull and uninspired.
    I'll take a new Blue Toad game though please, and make it snappy!

  • Tyranix #11 1 year ago

    Nooooo! There was nothing wrong with Buzz! on PS3 (apart from Music Quiz which was awful), excellent game and I got my entire family into it (all of whom never play games) over Christmas >.<

  • flaming.carrot #12 1 year ago

    PS3 Buzz was good fun with a group of friends, and I still play it from time to time, but it always felt slightly underdeveloped. They could have been so much more creative with the different rounds and online stuff.

  • FladgeMangle #13 1 year ago

    I may have remembered this wrong, I wasn't paying much attention at the time. However, as I recall...

    It took them too long to release wireless Buzz! controllers. For a long time you were getting exactly the same experience as the PS2 version, as in a mass of tangled wires and a post-game hangover of tidying up the spaghettified mess.

    By the time the PS3 suitable hardware was up a and running the backlog of titles was already off-putting. Put me off anyway.

    Oh, that 2008 law suit probably didn't help matters either...

  • mr2ange #14 1 year ago

    It was too early, with ps2 they released buzz with upwards of 100 million consoles installed already.

    With ps3 they released at the time where i would guess 80-90% of the audience were the hardcore gamers.

    Not that hardcore gamers don't enjoy buzz, but its hardly the type of game that 18-26 year olds are desperate to buy.

    They should have released it now, or better still 2-3 years from now.

  • deez #15 1 year ago

    Too many nights in the quadrant...

  • RobotRocker #16 1 year ago

    PS2 had a lot of kids and families near the end which made a market for Buzz. And as a trivia game, it was more "School table quiz" than anything with the questions. Not that its a bad idea, but I never really liked it and I love me some trivia because the presentation seemed somewhat bland and it relied more on regurgitating up things than thinking. You need something somewhat more clever and sophisticated to get an older audience like You Don't Know Jack, which interestingly enough, just had a relaunch for the PS3, 360 and Wii in the US to rave reviews and big interest from the hardcore crowd (Launching at $30 even with MvC3 and Bulletstorm on the horizon was a great move as well)

    Giant Bomb has a great quick look at it here

    Also THQ I will stop posting bad things about Homefront if you bring over YDKJ here. Seriously.

  • thesonglessbird #17 1 year ago

    My sister bought Buzz for the PS3 over Christmas and I thought it was decent. 4 of us playing as a team against 4 others, multiplayer was nice. Some of the user generated quizzes were amazing too!

  • jag10 #18 1 year ago

    they done well enough to release multiple versions. Or was it just sonys funding they were using?

  • GamesConnoisseur #19 1 year ago

    Where WERE the PS2 Buzz Crowd?

    Arent they perhaps now the Wii Crowd?

    Isnt the demographic of Buzz then was people wanting a casual quick fun, with family having a blast over xmas holiday or occasional family gatherings and forgotten all about for most of the time? Thats most of the Wii audience to the Tee.

    Sony upgraded their console from the mass market must have to the hardcore gamer and multi media theatre and in the process left behind the casual crowd for the Wii to hoover up.

    Now Sony making their move back with the Move and MS too.

  • el_pollo_diablo #20 1 year ago

    Sorry Relentless but actually the PS3 Buzz games lacked variety between rounds. Which was your fault.

  • PixelPirate #21 1 year ago

    Well they could," mused Eades, "but I challenge anyone to be better than us at a quiz game and certainly a Buzz! game. A fresh pair of eyes might help in some respects, but when you've done Buzz! for five years it's in your bones.

    The last 2 buzz games on PS3, were shockingly bad. The animation was terrible, there were trophy glitches everywhere. And the games were all really variations of more of the same quiz types over and over, with only 8 chars to choose from. I really think this chap is pretty short sighted if he thinks no one can do better. The final one they did, didn't even change the trophies from the previous game, let alone add much from the previous title, it felt rushed and done on the cheap.

  • mossychops001 #22 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 11:49:27 04-05-2012

  • Mister-Wario #23 1 year ago

    "The people we make games for don't own PS3s that much".

    That's a pity, but unfortunately it's true. I always imagine the PS3 to strike a good balance in the games it had available: mature stuff like Resistance and God of War but also light-hearted stuff like Joe Danger and LittleBigPlanet. Perhaps if the game had relased later on it would have gotten a wider audience, but we DID have 12 PS2 titles so, whatever happens, we can say the games had a good run. I love them, myself.

  • sickpuppysoftware #24 1 year ago

    The main problem (I owned most of the PS2 Buzz games and the PS3 versions) was it just didn't evolve enough. Too much online frippery not enough new or interesting rounds.

    Also, as the versions came out, Buzz the game with buzzers actually made less and less use of the big red buzzer. It then became a game of "who can touch click the coloured buttons fastest. That put the casual players at a disadvantage even if they knew more.

    It had a good run but it is probably time to give it a rest. Now localise the new version of You Don't Know Jack, get Paul Kaye back on board and bring on the good times.

  • Sutorcen #25 1 year ago

    What went wrong? When you release the latest Buzz game without all the available costumes and without all the previously available quizzes, people will get it eventually that you are just ripping them off. If you released the ultimate Buzz and build on that instead of releasing 3 games a year, thing wouldn't go wrong. But I’m just a Buzz fun, what do I know?

  • FTM #26 1 year ago

    I am amazed nobody can come up with a decent quiz game yet, scene it is very average on the xbox, but the buzzers themselves are great, in these days of decent internet connections content could be kept relevant and up to date


    I miss the 1v100 from xbox live as well :(

  • Murton #27 1 year ago

    I thought Buzz was quite successful, not as successful as it was on PS2 but then the two aren't really comparable and to blame it on "market conditions" is disingenuous, there were very few quiz games of that calibre in the PS2 days, by the time Buzz PS3 came around there were a bazillion iterations of "Scene It?" and a shedload of licensed quiz games that could be played on any DVD player and Buzz on PS3 just didn't have the draw to reclaim it's old PS2 market.


    I got it not too long after release with the wireless controllers, I was a decent game but it I thought it was a bit shit if there were only two of you, pile all of your mates into the living room with a few beers and it's great fun, but with just two, it gets very boring very quickly.

  • Lee_Morris #28 1 year ago

    If you loved Buzz on PS2 but didn't pick it up on the PS3, if you have one, then your part of the problem. A great series and it's such a shame it has died.

    Jeez all we're going to get in the future is dudebro games that appeal to the lowest common denominator. Crying shame.

  • HornsDino #29 1 year ago

    @mossychops001: Buzz player? Don't make me laugh. It is a nice idea but the execution is APPALLING. It is a bare bones, no frills trojan horse DLC delivery mechanism, designed for nothing else other than to try to flog their quiz packs on the PSN. Presentation is pared down to the absolute minium, as if they couldn't bear to give the player a single iota more than was necessary.

    When I played it I was baffled that a company would release such a shoddy product - this interview sheds a little light on it though. A last chance to beat the dead horse!
    Edited by HornsDino at 25/02/11 @ 11:00

  • GeneStarwind #30 1 year ago

    For anyone who wanted to see the buzz games go from strength to strength check the PSP versions. The last couple were great but ofc were made by a different company nothing to do with relentless. I agree with the DLC stuff though the packs cost a bomb and dont add a massive amount of content or anything new just some more questions.

  • NorUraeus #31 1 year ago

    I never played Buzz on the PS2, but I did try the PS3 version and to me it felt very uninspired. They could have done a lot without to much effort to make the gameplay a lot more varied and challenging.

  • Yakkity #32 1 year ago

    Have to agree with most of the posts. Their biggest problem was that they got lazy and neglected to improve or even maintain the core Buzz experience from PS2 days. The lack of quiz customisation options, change in format and even no longer using the same quiz reader voice (the latest Buzz Music Quiz seems to have some 15 year old squeeky teenager reading the questions).

    I guess Buzz' demise was down to a combination of factors but Relentless are being unbelievably arrogant if they don't think they contributed to it themselves.