I’m big fan of Japanese games, Sony used to do more Japanese first party games but this gen they almost exclusively switch to western first party.
This is why for my taste 3rd party delivering on more of the games I enjoy more than Sony and Microsoft.
True, but those days are done.
They tried with Last Guardian, Gravity Rush and many more and it just continued to be a money pit. They are not bad games by any means, but this is still a business. I can't even say that is east or west thing, its not like making a western game under Sony is a 100% sure fire way to continue to make games with them, we've seen many teams close down in the west, we've seen many western IP not get sequels.
I think the success of titles like Persona, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and many more is what led Sony to just shift directions and focus on successful titles and teams
Put it like this, your taste for 3rd party games from the east is why Sony doesn't do those first party titles in Japan anymore to the same degree. ie you are buying a Playstation regardless to play some of those IP, thus they have little reason to dedicate studios to make the genre when they are getting majority sales in that area anyway.
So titles like God Of War, Horizon, The Last Of Us, Spiderman, Ghost Of Tsushima (solid evidence mind you that Sony seems to have nothing against Japan itself) If Ghost Of Tsushima was created by Japan Studio instead of Sucker Punch, they'd 100% keep them around.
Until their Japan teams make some 20 million type hit, it will always been a bit of house of cards there until they can create some massive hit. Its why Astro Boy is even getting sequels and they are hiring more for that team.
They sold units, they got support.
To even get it to be like the old days, Sony would likely need to buy Square to solidify themselves or something in that JRPG spot (or Sega, but more so Square)
but I digress lol (we funa talk about JRPGS for life lol)