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[SHA]

Without gaas, mobile is the future, sony is repeating SEGAs mistake, doing their own thing without looking at what the others doing is huge mistake, if they can't afford gaas then the solution isn't new, it actually goes way back in early 2000 when MS approached Sony for merging the platform for online.

 

[Famipan]

Absolute insanity to close Japan Studio. If you are head over PlayStation, you have to understand WHAT is unique with it.
And... you have to play the games. If you haven't finished Bloodborne GOTY-edition, Team Ico-games etc. you probably have no feeling for what is good Japanese game design. PlayStation has to nurture its Japanese roots, because the company itself and creative new ideas for video games are still possibly to build by Japanese developers.

If you move ship to California and try to run it from there, it runs a big risk of becoming stale as Xbox, which we are now seeing.

Creative, unique stuff won't sell as much as the usual boring stuff people buy — but you have to understand that having a plethora of unique games draws attention and adds flavour and spice to your dish. Otherwise you are just a fast food chain.

• Make more indie-games style games which make use of the Dual Sense controller and which is first only available on PS5. (Think "Hohokum")
• Days Gone 2 & 3: John Garvin is probably still interested. Lots of possibility to add an online mode and make more money here.
• Bloodborne Remaster/Remake: Get on it!
• The Order 2: If possible, try and re-salvage the old team and build upon what they had cooking if alla data is saved.
• Team Ico games: Proper PS5 Remasters/Remakes of all 3 games could look amazing.
• Astrobot/Team Asobi games for non-VR: Make the team larger and have working on more simultaneous titles.
• AA-games: Try and make several Sony-exclusive metroidvanias. Ask team Moon (Ori-games). Make one cuter game (Team Asobi. Think "Yoku's Island Express" and Ori) and another darker Castlevania-style game (Blasphemous, Bloodborne, Castlevania: SotN) and a Metroid-style game.
• Casual/Wii Sports-style family/online games and racing games utilizing the Dual Sense's capabilities.

 

[Phase]

Without gaas, mobile is the future, sony is repeating SEGAs mistake, doing their own thing without looking at what the others doing is a huge mistake, if they can't afford gaas then the solution isn't new, it actually goes way back in early 2000 when MS approached Sony for merging the platform for online.

Man, Nintendo must be fucking up big then.

 

[mansoor1980]

i wanna know who closed evolution studios

 

[Famipan]

It's a shame we lost Shawn Layden. He seemed to be one who would greenlight Days Gone 2.

The developers have also commented on Sony's former head Shawn Layden's departure from the company. Jeff and John stated that the new leadership, formed after Shawn's departure, did not greenlight a sequel to Days Gone, which was in the plans. In Ross' words: "as soon as Shawn was gone, Days Gone was dead."
"It was very obvious that we shouldn’t be talking about Days Gone while we were working on the pitch and generating it. It was clear that it was a non-starter. And there was nothing in the pitch that made the local manager and his boss feel good about it. That's probably a failure of the creative group, but it was just an uphill battle the whole time."

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Sony closing and scaling back studios is simply because they found their Mario/Zelda/MK/Smash and Gears/Halo/Forza. And those games are GOW/GT/Spiderman/LOU/Horizon. Now it's time to cash in and milk them as long as possible.

Sony was a lot more creative in past gens because they shotgunned so many different games across different genres, many werent good and they spread themselves too thin. They had as many shooter franchises as MS, EA and Activision combined during the 360/PS3 gen.

They are consolidating to key hits and a USA/Euro focus because thats where the money is. And if thats where the sales are, the VPs wont be from Japan.

 

[RickMasters]

But Herman Hulst has always seemed so nice

Execs always “seem so nice”….. it’s a face they put on.

 

[A.Romero]

They'd be stupid if they didn't try to tap into that GAAS money.

We old school guys might not like it but the younger generations eat that shit up.

I wouldn't be concerned as they have enough studios to work on that and still make stuff with a more traditional approach.

Regarding Japan Studios I guess we should have had bought more Patapon copies if we wanted them to stay around.

 

[Katatonic]

These narratives are getting dumber by the year. The ones pushing it really think your intelligence is that low.

 

[Elios83]

Executives in charge of taking decisions for the studios are the culprits behind certain decisions!
The insider knowledge is on an other level here.

PS: Someone is crazy to get attention

 

[Doom_master1122]

Every year I yearn for a port or sequel to Tokyo Jungle. Hoping Sony would bring it back. Never realized Japan Studios closed. News to me!

Might need a moment to cry later.

 

[Masterri]

I wouldn't be surprised it this is true. He also greenlit every single project of his garbage franchise (Horizon). But a Wild Arms reboot? Heavens, no!
This biased moron should be on vacation even more. He's one of reasons PlayStation sucks so much these days.

B-B-But the sales! The revenue! The financial results!

Never heard of these games, where can I play them?
I'd much rather have a struggling company that makes great games (even AA ones) than a successful one that releases two interactive movies a year if we're lucky. And so should you.

 

[KWAB]

I wouldn't be surprised it this is true. He also greenlit every single project of his garbage franchise (Horizon). But a Wild Arms reboot? Heavens, no!
This biased moron should be on vacation even more. He's one of reasons PlayStation sucks so much these days.

Never heard of these games, where can I play them?
I'd much rather have a struggling company that makes great games (even AA ones) than a successful one that releases two interactive movies a year if we're lucky. And so should you.

Wild Arms? Are you fucking serious? Kaneko hasn't made a game in 15 years, then fucked off to make anime but Sony should have welcomed him back with open arms.

 

[diffusionx]

Sony closing and scaling back studios is simply because they found their Mario/Zelda/MK/Smash and Gears/Halo/Forza. And those games are GOW/GT/Spiderman/LOU/Horizon. Now it's time to cash in and milk them as long as possible.

Well, I hope not, because (A) Horizon ain't it, and (B) Microsoft's Gears/Halo/Forza crashed and burned pretty much immediately after they implemented it. They got rid of all these studios like Ensemble and Team ACES and now have to rely on third parties to do the work (AOE and MSFS). MS themselves have basically walked away from it and spent tens of billions of dollars to bring in fresh talent. They're still releasing those games but with the possible exception of Forza Horizon, they're not the centerpiece of MS efforts anymore.

Studios always need to invest in new things. Sony absolutely cannot afford to scale bacck studios and just focus on what is popular at the moment. If they are doing that, then my judgement of Hulst yesterday (that he's a total fucking disaster) is spot on.

 

[Muffdraul]

Execs always “seem so nice”….. it’s a face they put on.

Actually a lot of them can't help coming off as the arrogant pricks they are. But anyway I'm talking all the way back to 2003 when he was doing the first presentations on Killzone 1. Hulst was in the public eye long before he became a Sony exec.

 

[Masterri]

Wild Arms? Are you fucking serious? Kaneko hasn't made a game in 15 years, then fucked off to make anime but Sony should have welcomed him back with open arms.

Armed Fantasia: To the End of the Wilderness – TGS 2022 interview with Akifumi Kaneko

At Tokyo Game Show 2022, we got a chance to catch up with Armed Fantasia: To the End of the Wilderness lead game designer Akifumi Kaneko for a follow-up interview after the Wild Arms successor&#821…

www.gematsu.com

Kaneko: "Of course there are still very popular JRPGs like Persona 5, but with Persona 5that's the fifth installment. If it's a part of series that already has a first game, it's alright, but when it comes to making a new JRPG, Japanese publishers just won't take the risk. In my case, I went to Sony over and over again, but nothing came of it. It's not so much that JRPGs aren't popular, its that publishers won't let us make them."

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Armed Fantasia: To the End of the Wilderness – TGS 2022 interview with Akifumi Kaneko

At Tokyo Game Show 2022, we got a chance to catch up with Armed Fantasia: To the End of the Wilderness lead game designer Akifumi Kaneko for a follow-up interview after the Wild Arms successor&#821…

www.gematsu.com

How well do we expect Armed Fantasia to sell? The Wild Arms games were selling less and less as the franchise continued.

Herman recognized that Japan Studio was struggling for over a decade despite trying to right the ship. They did everything they could and nothing worked.

That being said he has highlighted relationships with Japanese studios like From and Kojima Productions.

Some of you just don't have the business mind for all this and at the end of the day, it's a business.

 

[MoreJRPG]

The love affair with Japan Studio has always been funny to me. What did they release in the last decade that made any impact? Gravity Rush games nobody bought? Knack 2 that sold less than 3000 copies at retail on launch in Japan? A VR game on a system Sony doesn’t even bother to support?

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

The love affair with Japan Studio has always been funny to me. What did they release in the last decade that made any impact? Gravity Rush games nobody bought? Knack 2 that sold less than 3000 copies at retail on launch in Japan? A VR game on a system Sony doesn’t even bother to support?

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

People like the idea of them even though they never bought their games.

 

[KWAB]

The love affair with Japan Studio has always been funny to me. What did they release in the last decade that made any impact? Gravity Rush games nobody bought? Knack 2 that sold less than 3000 copies at retail on launch in Japan? A VR game on a system Sony doesn’t even bother to support?

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

Yeah but you see they are japanese and that mean they deserve endless chances. If their games flopped is probably because the baka gaijins didn't promote them properly.

 

[SHA]

Every year I yearn for a port or sequel to Tokyo Jungle. Hoping Sony would bring it back. Never realized Japan Studios closed. News to me!

Might need a moment to cry later.

Phil is working on Japanese games, it might be their second chance for MS to green light their job to do stuff for Xbox and Windows and other platforms, I don't think Phil is killing talented studios purposely.

 

[Hudo]

Japan Studios was above and beyond Guerilla Games in every fucking way. To this day, Guerilla have yet to achieve even a fraction of what Japan Studios did.

Worst decision ever by Sony. Horizon and Killzone are the epitome of mid.

 

[ulantan]

Japan Studios was above and beyond Guerilla Games in every fucking way. To this day, Guerilla have yet to achieve even a fraction of what Japan Studios did.

Worst decision ever by Sony. Horizon and Killzone are the epitome of mid.

If only people supported thier games

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I can safely say that Helldivers 2 is going to be 10x bigger than both Knack games and both Gravity Rush games.

You have to follow the (right) trends.

 

[X-Wing]

Taking everything Jaffe says with a huge bag of salt. Also Japan studio has become Team Asobi now, so who cares?

 

[Hudo]

If only people supported thier games

I fucking did! Even imported Tokyo Jungle.

 

[ulantan]

I fucking did! Even imported Tokyo Jungle.

The problem is no one else did

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

People like the idea of them even though they never bought their games.

I've bough almost every Japan game and I'm not even mad about the closing. It was coming from miles away.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Why is there such a stigma around Sony (or any gaming company) earning money? Is that a bad thing somehow?

Where do you think the funding comes for games like Ghost of Tsushima, Returnal, God of War, Spider-Man? Of course, from the successful projects and the money consumers spend on PlayStation products.

It's a cycle, two-way lane. Gamers buy PlayStation products and spend money. In return, PlayStation ups their budget and makes even bigger games for their gamers.

It's a win-win for everyone, and there's nothing bad or shameful about it.

Some of these games cost more than $200 million. Look at other publishers and see how cheap their games often feel with cut corners everywhere, because there is no "Success begets success" cycle going on there. And then look at PlayStation Studios titles that are simply unmatched in their production values. There is a reason for that - money.

MS just spent 70 billion on Activision and neogaf is upset Sony won't be making a new Tokyo Jungle.

I actually want Sony to survive.

 

[graywolf323]

I fucking did! Even imported Tokyo Jungle.

I still have my imported copy of Hakuna Matata

 

[Masterri]

How well do we expect Armed Fantasia to sell? The Wild Arms games were selling less and less as the franchise continued.

Herman recognized that Japan Studio was struggling for over a decade despite trying to right the ship. They did everything they could and nothing worked.

That being said he has highlighted relationships with Japanese studios like From and Kojima Productions.

Some of you just don't have the business mind for all this and at the end of the day, it's a business.

What nonsense.
They greenlit fucking Destruction AllStars and 12 GaaS games, most of which will assuredly flop, and it doesn't take a "business mind" to know this.
Japan Studio provided a much needed variety to the PlayStation lineup and their games were (mostly) good. That's all there is to it.
During the PS4 gen they released The Last Guardian, Gravity Rush 2 and Astrobot Rescue Mission, plus the all the Vita games, which is frankly a better output than any other Sony Studio. But for some reason people only talk about Knack.
And I know Asobi still exists (it's the only PS studio along with Sucker Punch I care about anymore), but it's clearly not enough.
But people here would rather have one AAAAAA game per generation filled with the latest tropes to attract casuals and normies because it MAKES MONEY.
Stop thinking as investors and start thinking as consumers, for Christ' sake.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

What nonsense.
They greenlit fucking Destruction AllStars and 12 GaaS games, most of which will assuredly flop, and it doesn't take a "business mind" to know this.
Japan Studio provided a much needed variety to the PlayStation lineup and their games were (mostly) good. That's all there is to it.
During the PS4 gen they released The Last Guardian, Gravity Rush 2 and Astrobot Rescue Mission, plus the all the Vita games, which is frankly a better output than any other Sony Studio. But for some reason people only talk about Knack.
And I know Asobi still exists (it's the only PS studio along with Sucker Punch I care about anymore), but it's clearly not enough.
But people here would rather have one AAAAAA game per generation filled with the latest tropes to attract casuals and normies because it MAKES MONEY.
Stop thinking as investors and start thinking as consumers, for Christ' sake.

TLDR: "Drive the bus off the cliff. Who cares about the future of PlayStation...we want Tokyo Jungle 2! If the company implodes as a result, not my problem...we'll have our quirky games no one buys for a few more years!"

 

[Clear]

Maybe you should've given Japan Studios better projects if Gravity Rush wasn't what you wished for, instead of these stupid stunts. Japanese games are bigger than ever, while GAAS is a dead end 95% of the time.

Studios are supposed to GENERATE project ideas, not be gifted them. If that's what you want you may as well outsource to teams who specialize in that sort of title. e.g. Bloober = Horror = SH2 Remake.

The fact is that most of Japan's studio rep rested on Ueda's team, and he's long since gone.

Gravity Rush wasn't a big seller, Puppeteer wasn't a big seller, and that's basically the last 10 years plus of major output if you exclude remasters and external co-productions like the FROM titles.

Astrobot was the only bright spot, and so Team Asobi got kept on.

 

[Physiognomonics]

i wanna know who closed evolution studios

Jim Ryan certainly did it when he was still head of Playstation Europe.

 

[Masterri]

TLDR: "Drive the bus off the cliff. Who cares about the future of PlayStation...we want Tokyo Jungle 2! If the company implodes as a result, not my problem...we'll have our quirky games no one buys for a few more years!

Except PlayStation's future is not at risk.
The could have kept Japan Studio and done all the other things they did.
Besides, soon after the closure, they bought Firesprite (a 200 people studio, close to what JS used to have). Who gives a shit about them? Who cares about Haven, Firewalk, the mobile studio?
They spent 1.2 billion to retain employees at Bungie. They have the fucking money.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Except PlayStation's future is not at risk.
The could have kept Japan Studio and done all the other things they did.
Besides, soon after the closure, they bought Firesprite (a 200 people studio, close to what JS used to have). Who gives a shit about them? Who cares about Haven, Firewalk, the mobile studio?
They spent 1.2 billion to retain employees at Bungie. They have the fucking money.

No one in charge of a massive publisher like PlayStation thinks like this. They would be escorted off the premises faster than Shawn Layden was.

 

[DForce]

Loved Japan studio, but it was hard to keep them around when their games weren't producing sales.

 

[Masterri]

No one in charge of a massive publisher like PlayStation thinks like this. They would be escorted off the premises faster than Shawn Layden was.

Clearly.
And that's precisely the problem.

 

[Hypereides]

What nonsense.
They greenlit fucking Destruction AllStars and 12 GaaS games, most of which will assuredly flop, and it doesn't take a "business mind" to know this.
Japan Studio provided a much needed variety to the PlayStation lineup and their games were (mostly) good. That's all there is to it.
During the PS4 gen they released The Last Guardian, Gravity Rush 2 and Astrobot Rescue Mission, plus the all the Vita games, which is frankly a better output than any other Sony Studio. But for some reason people only talk about Knack.
And I know Asobi still exists (it's the only PS studio along with Sucker Punch I care about anymore), but it's clearly not enough.
But people here would rather have one AAAAAA game per generation filled with the latest tropes to attract casuals and normies because it MAKES MONEY.
Stop thinking as investors and start thinking as consumers, for Christ' sake.

Its getting comical, ain't it? You almost got to speculate if some of these would-be fans here are actually just crazy complacent or plants installed to keep us, the unwashed masses, in check or something.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

What nonsense.
They greenlit fucking Destruction AllStars and 12 GaaS games, most of which will assuredly flop, and it doesn't take a "business mind" to know this.
Japan Studio provided a much needed variety to the PlayStation lineup and their games were (mostly) good. That's all there is to it.
During the PS4 gen they released The Last Guardian, Gravity Rush 2 and Astrobot Rescue Mission, plus the all the Vita games, which is frankly a better output than any other Sony Studio. But for some reason people only talk about Knack.
And I know Asobi still exists (it's the only PS studio along with Sucker Punch I care about anymore), but it's clearly not enough.
But people here would rather have one AAAAAA game per generation filled with the latest tropes to attract casuals and normies because it MAKES MONEY.
Stop thinking as investors and start thinking as consumers, for Christ' sake.

Destruction All Stars probably cost them next to nothing and allowed them to throw an extra game on the launch lineup.

GaaS is a direction they have no choice but to go in.

People serious money behind a JRPG is not analogous to putting nothing into DAS or GaaS, especially when they've done JRPGs for years with limited success. Their best selling RPGs were Legend of Dragoon which barely sold a million units and Arc the Lad 1 and 2, which again barely sold a million units.

The variety you speak of didn't sell. The Last Guardian was an expensive boon dongle of a project that largely failed. Astrobot still exists and the studio who made it still exists. Why because they aren't expensive. You even mention that you know they still exist.

Those games don't only attract casuals and this IS a business. Those of us that want TLOU3 don't get it if TLOU2 doesn't perform well enough. You're upset that you're not getting the games you want (or claim to want), but those very games didn't perform well enough, so had they, you'd still be getting them.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Except PlayStation's future is not at risk.
The could have kept Japan Studio and done all the other things they did.
Besides, soon after the closure, they bought Firesprite (a 200 people studio, close to what JS used to have). Who gives a shit about them? Who cares about Haven, Firewalk, the mobile studio?
They spent 1.2 billion to retain employees at Bungie. They have the fucking money.

You're not good at this, but you make outlandish claims.

They spent money retaining employees at Bungie, but guess why they did that? Because Bungie has a history of generating revenue, so they know that the money invested will pay dividends.

Japan Studio costs money for over a decade they never got returns on.

 

[ulantan]

Clearly.
And that's precisely the problem.

You have to make games people want to buy. You can't just sink money into projects that are incredibly expensive and take upwards of ten years some time to make knowing that it won't sell well the money they invested in those studios they plan on making back.

 

[Hypereides]

Destruction All Stars probably cost them next to nothing and allowed them to throw an extra game on the launch lineup.

GaaS is a direction they have no choice but to go in.

People serious money behind a JRPG is not analogous to putting nothing into DAS or GaaS, especially when they've done JRPGs for years with limited success. Their best selling RPGs were Legend of Dragoon which barely sold a million units and Arc the Lad 1 and 2, which again barely sold a million units.

The variety you speak of didn't sell. The Last Guardian was an expensive boon dongle of a project that largely failed. Astrobot still exists and the studio who made it still exists. Why because they aren't expensive. You even mention that you know they still exist.

Those games don't only attract casuals and this IS a business. Those of us that want TLOU3 don't get it if TLOU2 doesn't perform well enough. You're upset that you're not getting the games you want (or claim to want), but those very games didn't perform well enough, so had they, you'd still be getting them.

Really now?

https://archive.vn/tkC3M

Asked by Eurogamer if The Last Guardian was one of the most expensive games Sony has ever made, Shuhei replied:

No, no, not at all. The team is much smaller. Teams in Japan are much smaller in general than teams in the US and Europe… Horizon is a much bigger budget title than The Last Guardian! It’s not so small, it’s much bigger than Ico or Shadow of the Colossus, but it’s not a US or European-style budget.

Try again.

 

[Masterri]

I won't bother to quote each of you.
I'll just say this: Japan Studio wasn't expensive to mantain. Wages are much lower in Japan, and I can assure you that a studio like Firesprite, based in the UK, is much much more costly.
And what are the results? Fucking Horizon VR.

 

[SmokedMeat]

i wanna know who closed evolution studios

Consumers.

Hell, they even tried making a multiplatform comeback. And failed.

 

[Neofire]

Yeah he sounds like an idiot and has no idea what he's doing. Imagine closing a studio that was flopping for 10 years. They should be opened just because they are japanese for sure.
Where's Knack 3?

The studio flopped because you said so? And that studio has been around much longer than 10 years......

If that's the case they should have gotten rid of other devs that aren't selling 5 million plus on each title(and their are alot them under the Sony WW studios umbrella)

 

[midnightAI]

I won't bother to quote each of you.
I'll just say this: Japan Studio wasn't expensive to mantain. Wages are much lower in Japan, and I can assure you that a studio like Firesprite, based in the UK, is much much more costly.
And what are the results? Fucking Horizon VR.

Yes, that is the only game Firesprite will ever make, they only purchased them for that one game

(Still better output than Japan Studio towards the end considering how long it took to make it and I liked Japan Studios games especially Puppeteer and the Siren games)

As for Firesprite people wanted Psygnosis back well this is about as close as you'll get.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Really now?

https://archive.vn/tkC3M

Try again.

Where did I say it was more expensive than Horizon. I didn't say it cost 200 million dollars, but it certainly wasn't a cheap game. The teams was smaller, but they were still sizeable over a number of years for the game to not sell very well. In fact that team couldn't be managed and even when they finished the game they did so as contractors.

The game was initially a PS3 game before being pushed out to PS4.

Japan Studios was more of a production house than an in-house development studio. XDEV still works on this and Asobi still exists... They mainly let go of producers who worked on producing a lot of these games that again, weren't selling well.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I won't bother to quote each of you.
I'll just say this: Japan Studio wasn't expensive to mantain. Wages are much lower in Japan, and I can assure you that a studio like Firesprite, based in the UK, is much much more costly.
And what are the results? Fucking Horizon VR.

I love how you think you know more about the financials here than Sony.

Obviously, they closed the studio based on the financials, but you're convinced that the financials aren't what they were.

 

[Masterri]

I love how you think you know more about the financials here than Sony.

Obviously, they closed the studio based on the financials, but you're convinced that the financials aren't what they were.

I'm saying they could have kept Japan Studio irregardless of what their games sold or not, because it was a cheap, good studio and the PS5 is a resounding success. There was no need to cut out the fat.
Why is it so hard to understand?
Why do you only care about the sales?