This is a brand page for the  THE LAST GUARDIAN trademark by Sony Computer Entertainment America 
ABANDONED - NO STATEMENT OF USE FILED.
 

It just looks like they forgot to renew it.

It just looks like they forgot to renew it.

wel'p, it was nice

that sucks.

Or you know, they are just renaming it. Please let that be the case.

People still believe in this game?

@Metal_Mills: It's also possible they can't renew it, trademarks are a bit tricky that that way - you have to actually use them to be able to maintain you claim on them. Since Sony doesn't yet know when the game will be out, I wouldn't be surprised if they can't keep sitting on the name forever. And yes, some other entity could theoretically grab it, but only to put out their own game, trying to extort Sony would probably just get their claim struck down in court.

I just died a little inside.

I was wondering what was going on, what a shame, it looked pretty good.

Hope this isn't too bad as I think it is. :(

Probably so people don't confuse The Last of Us with The Last Guardian, yep that must be it 'the game is comming... I know it is, what? ... I'm totally sure, shut up don't even ...'

@Jay_Ray said:

Or you know, they are just renaming it. Please let that be the case.

"The Last Guardian" is a pretty generic name.

Seems more likely they just forgot to renew because it was not on a "punch list" to be renewed because it was expected to be out SO LONG AGO. The incompetence is not some Sony office clerk not renewing it, the incompetence is all on Fumito Ueda. Most respected staff at Japanese developers at Ueda's level would have been quietly shifted to somewhere else (park at a desk) to be ignored, but Sony did what amounted to as-good-as firing his ass by designating his as freelance. My guess is Ueda is not even REALLY a freelancing on the project; his name is connected as a freelancer to save Sony's face, not Ueda's.

Does that mean the game will come out or Sony will grab the name again? Not really. I think Sony blew too much money to quit, but I doubt they won't to do much more then get it out the door. Yet, It still could be cancelled; but this is not an indication of it being cancelled...this is unconnected but just sad all the same.

This game never existed.

They're renaming it "Shadow of the Big Cat-Bird Colossus"

even Sony forgot this game existed

If they fail to make this game, then it will be the greatest game that never was. The world just wasn't good enough to have it. It had to stay in heaven.

That's a shame, it was the only console exclusive games I was looking forward to these last couple of years. Although there's a chance it will be like Ico and get pushed to next generation hardware.

I really hope I get to see this game. Ueda's previous games make me think that he has an innate grasp of the medium in an age where most productions still seem fumbly/janky/contrived.

@Metal_Mills: Sony has until January of 2013 to renew. When you file a trademark you have up to 3 years to use it and then it expires. So this all in all means nothing. Secondly US Copyright law is pretty tricky and you cannot just buy a trademark to sit on it.

Kotaku has a good article on it.

Meh, it's not like games that keep getting delayed for years are *ever good anyway.

*fine, "rarely" is a better word.

Meh, it's not like games that keep getting delayed for years are ever good anyway.

@Vegetable_Side_Dish said:

@zels said:

Meh, it's not like games that keep getting delayed for years are ever good anyway.

Yeh, Resident Evil 4 sure was a stinker.

Fixed it

lol false hope, this "game" if it ever comes out wont be good enough to stand up to expectations. Better of dead

@shway said:

lol false hope, this "game" if it ever comes out wont be good enough to stand up to expectations. Better of dead

Whoa. Those are harsh words! No need to kick the little guardian while it is down!

@Vegetable_Side_Dish said:

@zels said:

Meh, it's not like games that keep getting delayed for years are ever good anyway.

Yeh, Resident Evil 4 sure was a stinker.

Fixed it

uh oh. this game has gone through serious production hell lol

People thought this old tech demo was actually going to be a game one day?

@Vegetable_Side_Dish said:

@zels said:

@Vegetable_Side_Dish said:

@zels said:

Meh, it's not like games that keep getting delayed for years are ever good anyway.

Yeh, Resident Evil 4 sure was a stinker.

Fixed it

Much better. I mean, I could also have thrown out Team Fortress 2, Half Life 2, Metroid Prime, Mother 3, FF XII..

You might get some flak from that last one, though I admittedly did enjoy what I played of FFXII.

Was it going to be a huge release? I feel left out having no idea about what the hell it was. Sounds like a PS3 exclusive, though, so I doubt I would have been able to play it.

EDIT: Ah, yeah that game. Bummer.

It looks like Sony is trying to gradually lower everyone's expectations until, at long last, they casually mention that The Last Guardian has been cancelled, like it's no big deal.

@Vegetable_Side_Dish said:

@zels said:

@Vegetable_Side_Dish said:

@zels said:

Meh, it's not like games that keep getting delayed for years are ever good anyway.

Yeh, Resident Evil 4 sure was a stinker.

Fixed it

Much better. I mean, I could also have thrown out Team Fortress 2, Half Life 2, Metroid Prime, Mother 3, FF XII..

And the number of games that were delayed so greatly and did stink is a much longer list. You're listing expections, not the norm. Besides, all of those games except FF13 and Mother got completely scrapped and rebuilt from the ground-up, so they were essentially brand-new games.

Trademark professional here:

Sony may be giving it up, but most likely the issue is trademark procedure. You can only have an intent to use application open for three years (4 if you are a really good trademark lawyer), so when it becomes clear you cannot use within that window, usually the best option is to abandon and restart the process. This stuff happens all the time, but recently video gaming outlets have been following trademarks a lot closer so this gets reported.

The other explanation, although much less likely, is that a competitor with a superior right saw the application and informally opposed to Sony, and the two have reached an agreement. Perhaps Sony's abandonment was part of this type of agreement and the game will be renamed or rebranded. I would bet its the first, though.

The Kotaku article is basically correct, but the author misuses a lot of terms.

Man, remember that year? What was that, 2009? Agent and the Last Guardian.

For what it's worth, Shuhei Yoshida at Sony has made a statement that The Last Guardian is not cancelled. The game has, however, run into "technical issues" that he does not elaborate on. He only notes that they only cropped up after they had already begun discussing a potential launch window for the game, which was unfortunate timing. And whatever those issues were, they apparently required some heavy recoding.

Wonder if they are thinking of moving it to the next system. From the trailers I can imagine why there might be some technical restrictions on the current platfrom preventing it from becoming what was originally intented. But we will have to wait and see, and hope for the best I suppose.