SCE Studio Liverpool

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SCE Studio Liverpool is a video game development house for the various Sony PlayStation platforms, headquartered at Wavertree Technology Park, in Liverpool, England. The company was founded as Psygnosis in 1986, was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in 1993, and the Psygnosis branding was dropped in 1999 in favour of the Studio Liverpool moniker. The internal development studio is best known for its Wipeout games for PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. Studio Liverpool currently has over 100 employees.

In 2001, Studio Liverpool released its first PlayStation 2 title, Formula One 2001, which signaled the Studio's takeover of the F1 series from Studio 33, who had developed the few previous PSone F1 titles. Since then, the Formula One series has been a yearly fixture on the Studio’s release schedule.

Studio Liverpool’s other foray into PlayStation 2 was Wipeout Fusion, which marked the first and only appearance of the series on the format. Plans for a new Wipeout game started taking shape in late 2003, when word first reached the Studio that the latest addition to the PlayStation family would be a handheld device. The PSP installment entitled Wipeout Pure was hailed as “the PSP’s first killer-app” by Yahoo Games.[1] Wipeout Pure also offers players the unique option to download new content such as racetracks, crafts, front-end skins, and music.

There is a planned release of the latest Formula One title for PlayStation 3, and also a rumored Wipeout title planned for the new platform.