
Andy Gavin recently spoke about the decision to sell Naughty Dog to Sony PlayStation, saying it was the right decision because at the time of the acquisition, game budgets were ballooning in a way he believed was out of control, and Naughty Dog would have found it difficult to develop the games it excelled at if it had continued as an independent studio.
The partnership between Sony and Naughty Dog meant that the studio had to remain under the umbrella of the leading console manufacturer, and become a first-party studio, i.e., acquired. Andy Gavin stated that the development budget for Crash Bandicoot was $10 million, but it increased to $15 million with the latest installment of Jak and Dexter, which made Andy and the studio leadership think that continuing in this direction would be difficult for them.