Naughty Dog

The short answer

Naughty Dog is an American game developer based in Santa Monica, California, and a first-party studio inside PlayStation Studios. It has been building games since 1984, which makes it one of the oldest continuously operating studios still shipping large-budget titles. Its catalogue runs from mascot platformers on the original PlayStation through to cinematic action adventures, and the games it releases today are treated by Sony as flagship exclusives for the current console generation.

What makes the studio worth reading about is not age alone. Naughty Dog has repeatedly rebuilt itself around a new genre and then stayed long enough to help define the standard for it: a colourful platformer, then a collectathon, then a story-driven action game, then a grim post-pandemic drama. Few studios survive that many transitions, and fewer still do it while carrying the expectations that arrive with a single platform owner.

A company that starts in 1984

The studio's own about page dates the company to 1984 and describes it as a flagship first-party studio within PlayStation Studios. The names most often attached to that founding are Andrew Gavin and Jason Rubin. Sony's announcement of the acquisition in January 2001 refers to both as founders and as co-presidents at the time of the sale, when the studio was still small enough that the release puts the whole team at thirty people.

Between 1984 and the turn of the century the studio released a run of games that few players remember now, and Sony's announcement frames the purchase mainly around one franchise: Crash Bandicoot. That detail is the honest shape of the story. The company Sony bought was not yet the studio known for cinematic drama. It was the team that had turned a bandicoot into a mascot and carried him across a console generation.

Life inside a platform holder

The acquisition closed in January 2001, and the press release describes the outcome plainly: the entire team became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment America and continued to operate under the Naughty Dog name. Management stayed in place, with Gavin and Rubin running day-to-day work. That arrangement, a named studio keeping its own identity inside a platform holder, is still the structure today, now under Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Ownership changes what a studio can attempt. The budget for a first-party game arrives with an expectation of technical showpiece status, and the trade-off is that the work appears mainly on one platform family. Naughty Dog's about page frames four decades around exactly that bargain: PlayStation-only releases, hundreds of industry awards, and a fan base measured in millions rather than a broad catalogue spread across every system on the market at once.

Uncharted and the change of register

The studio's modern reputation rests on Uncharted, an action-adventure series that traded cartoon mascots for a treasure hunter and a more cinematic presentation. The about page lists Uncharted 4: A Thief's End from 2016 as a winner of numerous Game of the Year awards, and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy from 2017 as a standalone entry. It also gives a franchise total: by December 2017, Uncharted games had sold more than 41.7 million copies worldwide.

That figure is a useful correction to the habit of treating Naughty Dog as a one-series studio. Uncharted was a commercial engine for a decade before The Last of Us existed, and it made the studio's move into a bleaker register affordable: the audience and the internal pipeline were already in place. The two franchises also share a craft, staging set pieces around dialogue and character, which is why the studio's output can feel continuous even when the subject matter changes completely.

The Last of Us and what the numbers actually say

The Last of Us Part II arrived on PlayStation 4 on 19 June 2020. On 26 June 2020, PlayStation's global marketing chief reported on the PlayStation Blog that the game had sold more than four million copies as of 21 June, calling it the fastest-selling first-party PS4 exclusive at the time. Almost two years later, a 9 June 2022 post on the same blog said the game had sold through more than 10 million copies globally as of that spring.

Those two official statements are the figures worth quoting. Other totals deserve caution, because publishers rarely keep issuing lifetime numbers once a game's marketing cycle ends, and unaudited tallies often blend shipped copies with copies sold through without saying which measure they mean. A remastered edition followed, and the studio's own news feed records that this remaster reached PC on 3 April 2025. No newer official sales total has appeared since.

Quick facts

Founded: 1984, per the studio's about page. Founders: Andrew Gavin and Jason Rubin, named as founders and co-presidents in Sony's January 2001 acquisition announcement. Headquarters: Santa Monica, California. Owner: a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment, operating as a first-party studio within PlayStation Studios.

Key games: Crash Bandicoot, the franchise Sony's 2001 release credits as the studio's major work of that era; Jak and Daxter; Uncharted; The Last of Us. Official numbers with dates: Uncharted franchise sales above 41.7 million copies as of December 2017; The Last of Us Part II above 4 million copies sold through by 21 June 2020, announced 26 June 2020; above 10 million copies globally as of spring 2022, announced 9 June 2022. The Last of Us Part II Remastered came to PC on 3 April 2025.

Why does Naughty Dog release so few games?

The studio's output is slow by industry standards, and the reason is structural rather than mysterious. A first-party showpiece takes years to build, and a team of a few hundred people working on one project cannot ship something else at the same time. When Naughty Dog moves on to a new game, the previous one tends to keep earning through remasters and ports instead of a steady stream of sequels.

The practical effect for a reader is that the studio's history reads as a small number of very large releases rather than a broad catalogue. It also means each announcement carries unusual weight, because there is rarely a second project in flight to absorb a delay. That is not a criticism so much as the trade a platform holder accepts when it wants one studio to set the technical ceiling for its hardware.

Games

• Crash Bandicoot
• Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
• Crash Bandicoot: Warped
• Crash Team Racing
• Dream Zone
• factions MP
• Jak 3
• Jak and Daxter Collection
• Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
• Jak II
• Jak X: Combat Racing
• Keef the Thief
• Math Jam
• Rings of Power
• Ski Crazed
• The Last of Us Part I (Digital Deluxe Edition)
• The Last of Us Part I (Firefly Edition)
• The Last of Us Part II (Collector's Edition)
• The Last of Us Part II (Digital Deluxe Edition)
• The Last of Us Part II (Ellie Edition)
• The Last of Us Part II (Special Edition)
• The Last of Us Part II Remastered
• The Last of Us: Left Behind - Remastered
• Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
• Uncharted 4: A Thief's End Remastered
• Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
• Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection
• Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
• Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Remastered
• Way of the Warrior

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