Support NeoGAF

[Mibu no ookami]

You let Sony mind their business and maybe you should mind yours. As a fan of video games, is this the direction you WANT Sony to take? I have no idea why you're so intent on playing devil's advocate here. We all know why they got shut down. They didn't generate the money that Sony wanted them to. Has that decision benefitted you as a Playstation gamer?

Has the decision benefited me? Who knows, probably. Maybe MediaMolecule would have been closed down instead or maybe the budget for Demon's Souls would have been smaller or maybe they couldn't have purchased Bluepoint and future collaborations would have been limited...

The question is do I agree with the decision, and the answer to that is yes. It's hard to justify keeping them open when your other studios are producing way more and the market for their games are international.

That isn't to say I agree with all decisions Sony makes or think all decisions are pro-consumer, but this isn't the bad decision people think it was.

 

[tommib]

"Taint it with failures"...

This apologistic justification of shutting down studio Japan by modern day Sony "fans" is becoming ridiculous. I mean, you're welcome to think what you want, but at this point the modern day Sony PS5 fan sounds more like a financial controller or accountant coming straight out of their economic department rather than an actual gamer.

There seems to be way more concern and focus thrown around their spreadsheets and YoY performance rather than the actual appreciation of the genuine creativity, quality and inventiveness of the output that stemmed from the Japanese outlet. If anything the reformed Sony is to blame for sidelining their endeavours and not displaying much confidence in them compared to their western titles.

Spot on. The new Sony fan - and there’s a few in here - is only concerned with sales, metacritic scores and AAA cinematic productions. They shitpost on anything that’s a deviation from the AAA template and doesn’t sell 300 million copies. It’s quite disgusting and undermines the history of PlayStation - and out of the box creativity.

The experimental and quirky games built Sony. It was the place for out of the radar titles that ended up being classic titles.

A dark part of me wishes that the new Sony fails with the current model. Maybe losing all those IPs from Activision will wake up the Sony that I love.

If I’m really honest to myself, the real creative title currently on PS5 is the Radiohead museum experience.

 

[Klosshufvud]

I don’t know how to tell you this but all games released until Ragnarok were games greenlighted by the previous ceo. In fact it’s the last game from the previous ceo.

We have yet to see anything released that was approved and greenlighted by the people in charge now. And COD…that deal started with the previous ceo as well lmao

Current or previous CEO, their management has been trash for some time. Jimbo and Hulst have done nothing to convince me them being any better. I thought Andrew House was mediocre aswell. Their Japanese big shots were the best, likes of Yoshida and Kaz Hirai.

Has the decision benefited me? Who knows, probably. Maybe MediaMolecule would have been closed down instead or maybe the budget for Demon's Souls would have been smaller or maybe they couldn't have purchased Bluepoint and future collaborations would have been limited...

The question is do I agree with the decision, and the answer to that is yes. It's hard to justify keeping them open when your other studios are producing way more and the market for their games are international.

That isn't to say I agree with all decisions Sony makes or think all decisions are pro-consumer, but this isn't the bad decision people think it was.

Yes, I am sure this multi-billion corporation that makes billion dollar profits yearly really depended on shutting down Japan Studios to make Dreams, a game you even admitted was a low budget endeavour. Because Playstation division isn't making more money than ever before and should logically be having greater game output than ever before.

Regardless their motivations, their decisions have made me turn to PC instead for my primary gaming needs.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I don’t know how to tell you this but all games released until Ragnarok were games greenlighted by the previous ceo. In fact it’s the last game from the previous ceo.

We have yet to see anything released that was approved and greenlighted by the people in charge now. And COD…that deal started with the previous ceo as well lmao

Jim Ryan has been CEO of SIE for 4 years. I'm not sure if he is responsible for green-lighting games. Herman Hulst has been the President of PlayStation Studios for closer to 3 years, so he largely wouldn't have been the one who greenlit these games either.

People have this love affair with Shawn Layden and Shuhei Yoshida but the reality is that these games are almost entirely on them

Now Jim Ryan and Herman Hulst are the ones who decided to pull the plug on Japan Studio, which basically is what happened when SCEE was put in charge of everything. Meanwhile, he brought back Firesprite, so you can tell he probably didn't agree with the liverpool studio being closed

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Current or previous CEO, their management has been trash for some time. Jimbo and Hulst have done nothing to convince me them being any better. I thought Andrew House was mediocre aswell. Their Japanese big shots were the best, likes of Yoshida and Kaz Hirai.


Yes, I am sure this multi-billion corporation that makes billion dollar profits yearly really depended on shutting down Japan Studios to make Dreams, a game you even admitted was a low budget endeavour. Because Playstation division isn't making more money than ever before and should logically be having greater game output than ever before.

Regardless their motivations, their decisions have made me turn to PC instead for my primary gaming needs.

Microsoft is a trillion dollar company that just had massive layoffs...

That isn't how business works.

You have revisionist history my friend. People HATED Kaz Hirai for the lack of games and the high price of the PS3. Giant crabs and all.

Shuhei Yoshida is absolutely responsible for some of these games that you're not a fan of.

 

[diffusionx]

Dreams is sitting on an 89 on Metacritic with an 8.7 user score. It literally just came out at the beginning of the pandemic.

I would not be surprised since Sony has changed their tune on PC that Dreams will be ported to PC, where it will almost certainly be more popular. It's not something that you can just do overnight, especially if that wasn't the original plan.

The game won a ton of awards which actually matters in the industry, especially when it comes to culture and recruitment and again MediaMolecule doesn't cost you anything. A large studio in the middle of Tokyo who doesn't make games that sell at all... costs you a lot.

Tearaway unfolded another game that costs nothing had an 87 on metacritic.

Media Molecule has consistent quality. Their rolling average across 4 games that they primarily developed is an 90.5.

I like Tearaway but dude that game is ancient by now, and it didn’t sell well anyway. I dont see why you keep bringing up metacritic, who the hell cares. Dreams was released as a creation tool and nobody uses it lmao. It failed, and again, either Sony cares about holding devs accountable or they don’t, they did not treat MM and Japan Studio the same.

If Japan Studio’s games weren’t good enough or didn’t sell enough, they could have reformed or reorganized the studio, they didn’t need to shut it down, and as has been said a million times here, it helps to have a variety of games and studios as opposed to releasing grim third person action adventure games over and over. Ultimately diversification is important and Sony forgot that, now they are scrambling to catch up especially on live service shit.

 

[Klosshufvud]

Microsoft is a trillion dollar company that just had massive layoffs...

That isn't how business works.

You have revisionist history my friend. People HATED Kaz Hirai for the lack of games and the high price of the PS3. Giant crabs and all.

Shuhei Yoshida is absolutely responsible for some of these games that you're not a fan of.

What's this disingenous line of reasoning? Yes I get no CEO is ever all-beloved by the fans. But for my personal taste, what the overly Americanized Playstation is taking their studios is just wrong. Now there is nothing that excites me with Sony and hasn't for 5+ years now. I yearn for the PS3 days when there was variety of titles and Playstation wasn't this heavily monetized around every corner.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Media Molecule has like 40 people if that many and as far as I know both little big plant were huge hits for them. Dreams i have no idea but as little big planet before it it was a critical success and clearly sony has plans for them.

Sony Japan didn’t have hits for a decade neither commercially or critically if not more, it had quite a lot more people and plenty of those were senior producers and some industry veterans that were expensive to keep specially considering they weren’t releasing anything. Guess what studio was more expensive to keep?

Y’all keep talking about this studio as if you loved it but kept using Knack as a meme and Gravity Rush is never mentioned anywhere lmao.

The studio was basically functioning as a support studio and team asobi…which were kept. (The support studio is basically xdev in japan).

Hey Hey... Be careful with those words, more Respect to my Gravity Rush.

You forget that in this forum there is a Hardcore and number one fan of Gravity Rush... Me.

And Punished Miku is my friend!!

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

It's hilarious seeing all these Xbox fans coming into the thread and feigning faux outrage at Sony's dismantling of Japan Studio, despite a decade trying to fix them and a long string of poorly reviewed, poorly selling releases.

Like, how do meaningfully make a coherent argument against Sony's decision to shut the studio down and focus on 3rd party partnerships with Japanese devs (like Kojima Productions, FromSoftware etc that make 90+ MC games that sell internationally)?

Outside of Team ASOBI and Polyphony Digital, Japan Studio hasn't put out a decent game in decades.

Just because folks like to wax lyrical about the days of Ape Escape and their PS1-era JRPGs, doesn't somehow mean the Japan Studio of late was anything like the productive studio of those many decades ago.

I mean, I get it... a studio that made many of the most beloved games of your childhood was eventually shut down. It hurts. But it's far better than them being kept open, only to put out disaster after disaster, bastardizing both the name and acclaim that they once held....

Spoiler

*cough*.... Bioware... *cough*

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Issue is they kept studios that were performing worse for longer.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I like Tearaway but dude that game is ancient by now, and it didn’t sell well anyway. I dont see why you keep bringing up metacritic, who the hell cares. Dreams was released as a creation tool and nobody uses it lmao. It failed, and again, either Sony cares about holding devs accountable or they don’t, they did not treat MM and Japan Studio the same.

If Japan Studio’s games weren’t good enough or didn’t sell enough, they could have reformed or reorganized the studio, they didn’t need to shut it down, and as has been said a million times here, it helps to have a variety of games and studios as opposed to releasing grim third person action adventure games over and over. Ultimately diversification is important and Sony forgot that, now they are scrambling to catch up especially on live service shit.

Sony cares, most publishers do as well.

Wait til Dreams releases on PC and we'll see if you're right. It was released at the wrong time and on the wrong console. Again, MM costs a fraction of what Japan Studios cost.

They were reformed. First you have to realize that Japan studio largely consisted of

XDEV
Ico Team
Team Gravity
Team Asobi

Ico Team left after the development hell of Last Guardian. Now GenDESGIN they haven't put out a game for 6 years nor have they shown what they are working on now.
Team Gravity was going to leave anyways

That leaves XDEV and Team Asobi, which still operate today.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Issue is they kept studios that were performing worse for longer.

For example?

Japan Studio was their longest running studio.

 

[KXVXII9X]

I'm sick and tired of the current leadership of Sony. Just the same recycled AAA heavy hitters repeated yearly since 2015. Bloodborne was the last time a "Sony" title truly amazed me, but that was From Software carrying the actual weight. I guess The Last Guardian was also a hugely refreshing experience. I just get sick to my stomach with Hermann Hulst shoving Alloy in everything and Jimbo Ryan chasing that AAA CoD gold even though Sony's legacy has never been that.

By shutting down Sony Japan Studios, the company is abandoning their founding principles of encouraging first-party innovation at the expense of immediate financial returns. This is literally how their first-parties have always operated. Only just recently are the non-10 million sellers deemed as flops. Before, they used to be considered much needed variety between the blockbusters like FF7 and MGS. The mentality in OP is exactly what's bringing Sony down. They're so shamelessly focused on immediate profits and quarterly reports. It spreads to every decision they make. Everything is hyper-monetized now. It's no wonder a significant portion of their hardcore userbase has fled to PC (source: Capcom execs). We see how well it turns out when a studio places all its bets on the same 3-4 AAA titles. It's almost hilarious seeing Jimbo Ryan shit bricks over losing CoD. As if they haven't purposely lead a strategy that has placed CoD and other AAA front and center at the expense of everything else. You reap what you sow.

This is exactly my experience. I was a die-hard PlayStation fan, but lately, I barely recognize them. I also opted to get a gaming laptop and have been really happy with my decision. I get to play both Microsoft and PlayStation titles with more freedom. The closing of Japan Studios and the sudden money hungry profit above all else mentality really turned me off. I loved PlayStation because they weren't afraid to take risks and supported more niche experiences along with their impressive blockbusters. I hope they at least keep the output of high-quality indies such as Stray, Kena, and Sifu.

 

[Hypereides]

It's hilarious seeing all these Xbox fans coming into the thread and feigning faux outrage at Sony's dismantling of Japan Studio, despite a decade trying to fix them and a long string of poorly reviewed, poorly selling releases.

Like, how do meaningfully make a coherent argument against Sony's decision to shut the studio down and focus on 3rd party partnerships with Japanese devs (like Kojima Productions, FromSoftware etc that make 90+ MC games that sell internationally)?

Outside of Team ASOBI and Polyphony Digital, Japan Studio hasn't put out a decent game in decades.

Just because folks like to wax lyrical about the days of Ape Escape and their PS1-era JRPGs, doesn't somehow mean the Japan Studio of late was anything like the productive studio of those many decades ago.

I mean, I get it... a studio that made many of the most beloved games of your childhood was eventually shut down. It hurts. But it's far better than them being kept open, only to put out disaster after disaster, bastardizing both the name and acclaim that they once held....

Spoiler

*cough*.... Bioware... *cough*

Yes, absolutely. All of us are just XBox fans. Studio Japan has done nothing of note in decades.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

For example?

Japan Studio was their longest running studio.

Ok.

Japan wasn't there least performing studio when they moved them off. Especially in terms of investment and roi.

They also kept Japan Studio over studios that had higher potential and the ability to reach further.

Sony mishandled the studio both ways. Really it should had been closed after The Last Guardians long delay cycle and string of mediocre releases didn't do anything or the studio. I'd argue before that.

 

[KXVXII9X]

It's hilarious seeing all these Xbox fans coming into the thread and feigning faux outrage at Sony's dismantling of Japan Studio, despite a decade trying to fix them and a long string of poorly reviewed, poorly selling releases.

Like, how do meaningfully make a coherent argument against Sony's decision to shut the studio down and focus on 3rd party partnerships with Japanese devs (like Kojima Productions, FromSoftware etc that make 90+ MC games that sell internationally)?

Outside of Team ASOBI and Polyphony Digital, Japan Studio hasn't put out a decent game in decades.

Just because folks like to wax lyrical about the days of Ape Escape and their PS1-era JRPGs, doesn't somehow mean the Japan Studio of late was anything like the productive studio of those many decades ago.

I mean, I get it... a studio that made many of the most beloved games of your childhood was eventually shut down. It hurts. But it's far better than them being kept open, only to put out disaster after disaster, bastardizing both the name and acclaim that they once held....

Spoiler

*cough*.... Bioware... *cough*

Speak for yourself. Gravity Rush, Soul Sacrifice, Freedom Wars, Hotshot/Everybody's Golf, and The Last Guardian are some of my favorite games ever. I also really enjoyed parts I played of Bloodborne.

 

[Amiga]

Technical capabilities of SJ were great. They just weren't given a good project to work on.

Say Sony bought a small publisher with a high value IP like Falcom. SJ could have taken Trails and Ys to AAA level.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Speak for yourself. Gravity Rush, Soul Sacrifice, Freedom Wars, Hotshot/Everybody's Golf, and The Last Guardian are some of my favorite games ever. I also really enjoyed parts I played of Bloodborne.

The Last Guardian developer, Team Ico, left Japan Studio. Hot Shots is by Clap Hands who are not part of Japan Studio and Bloodborne was by FromSoftware which still has contracts to make games exclusively for PS.

The rest of the games on your list bombed in terms of sales and generally weren't all that good.

The discussion isn't about whether you as an individual gamer enjoyed the titles. It's about why Sony had to shut down the dev.

I thought Sleeping Dogs was one of the best GTA-like games ever made by a developer not called Rockstar. It's a fucking travesty that the dev had to close, but fundamentally, it's a tough industry and if your game doesn't do multiple millions in sales, you're not staying afloat as a dev... that's just the reality of the gaming market, whether we like it or not.

 

[LordCBH]

I miss the old Japan studio. I mean the OLD old Japan studio. They made some good games the past decade and a half, but it seems for every Gravity Rush or Patapon we got absolute shit like Last Guardian (still the biggest piece of shit game I think I’ve ever played.)

 

[Abriael_GN]

To sell games, you need to give them proper marketing. They don't sell themselves.

It's a fact that Japan Studios' games *never* received even close to the marketing spend that their western counterparts did, so if they "spent a decade trying to save" Japan Studio, they did a terrible job of it.

Be nice if people stopped trying to find excuses for the incompetence Sony showed in treating its Japanese developers and even more so its Japanese IPs. The developers of Wild Arms had to go to Kickstarter to get the funding to make a spiritual successor, and there's a very good chance it'll be a success. Another missed opportunity for Sony.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Ok.

Japan wasn't there least performing studio when they moved them off. Especially in terms of investment and roi.

They also kept Japan Studio over studios that had higher potential and the ability to reach further.

Sony mishandled the studio both ways. Really it should had been closed after The Last Guardians long delay cycle and string of mediocre releases didn't do anything or the studio. I'd argue before that.

What studio had a worst cost to benefit ratio when they closed them? They were almost certainly the least performing studio and probably one of the most expensive.

What studios had more potential but got closed down? Pretty much any studio Sony has ever closed at ample reason to be shut down.

Team ICO was only one studio within Japan Studio, but they should have shut it all down because of Fumito Ueda's team? They gave the other studios a chance to perform, which I think is in line with what consumers would have wanted.

Last Guardian released basically in 2017 (december 2016) and Japan Studio was pretty much shutdown since. Not a single big budget title came out afterward and almost all the games that did release were ports or made by external studios.

 

[nial]

Repeatedly pressing X to doubt here, amigo.

I think they got off to a great start with the PS1 and then fell apart until the PS4. However, PSP was still pretty nice.

More importantly makes games selection more varied and interesting. PS1, PS2 and even PS3 had nice amount of both Japanese and western games but starting with PS4 that all changed and Sony start mostly focusing western games because it makes the most money.

I guess its good from business perspective but god damn the game selection become very dull this gen.

PS4 still had a good variety of Japanese first-party titles, even if you saw a good chunk of them on VR (Déraciné comes to mind). It's clearly a thing in the PS5 era though, you've only had the pack-in Astro's Playroom, Death Stranding again, GT7 and the Demon's Souls remake (which was mainly made by an American studio). I REALLY hope things change next year.

 

[Keihart]

Ofcourse the studio had trouble, they had a bunch of teams specialliced on making smaller more experimental games and collaborations on the same vain but management kept pushing for big AAA mainstream games, project kept getting rejected or transformed on bigger things.

You can hear devs impliying so on interviews.
it is what it is, they wouldn't fit with today's Sony brand either way.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

It seems to me that many in here are confused and don't even know that a lot of the games they think were made by Japan Studio, were actually made by 3rd Party Japanese devs.

• The Last Guardian / Ico / Shadow of the Colossus - Team Ico - now not part of Japan Studio
• Bloodborne - FromSoftware - 3rd party studio owned by Kadokawa games
• Hot Shots Tennis / Everybody's Golf - Clap Hanz - 3rd party
• Patapon / Locoroco - Pyramid - 3rd party
• Soul Sacrifice - Marvelous AQL - 3rd party
• Death Stranding - Kojima Productions - 3rd party

None of these studios were affected by Sony's restructuring of their Japan Studio, and all of them can and will continue to make exclusive games for PS.

So again... outside of Gravity Rush, Freedom Wars and The Puppeteer (all of which sold like shit), what has Japan Studio made in the last decade that justifies them being kept open?

The reality is that XDEV, Team ASOBI, Polyphony were the only productive parts of the studio, and so Sony doubling down on them, plus their relationships with the 3rd party Japanese studios listed above makes total waaaay more sense than trying to give Japan Studio any more chances to put out anything worthwhile.

So all arguments about Sony losing its Japanese identity are total bollocks.

Sony has 3rd party exclusives from FromSoft, Capcom, and a metric crap tonne of other Japanese devs in the pipeline.... you know... the ones whose games actually sell internationally.

All the best Japanese exclusives for Playstation in the past 20 years have been made by 3rd party devs. So contracting 3rd party studios has proven to be a winning strategy.

 

[Keihart]

It seems to me that many in here are confused and don't even know that a lot of the games they think were made by Japan Studio, were actually made by 3rd Party Japanese devs.

• The Last Guardian / Ico / Shadow of the Colossus - Team Ico - now not part of Japan Studio
• Bloodborne - FromSoftware - 3rd party studio owned by Kadokawa games
• Hot Shots Tennis / Everybody's Golf - Clap Hanz - 3rd party
• Patapon / Locoroco - Pyramid - 3rd party
• Soul Sacrifice - Marvelous AQL - 3rd party
• Death Stranding - Kojima Productions - 3rd party

None of these studios were affected by Sony's restructuring of their Japan Studio, and all of them can and will continue to make exclusive games for PS.

So again... outside of Gravity Rush, Freedom Wars and The Puppeteer (all of which sold like shit), what has Japan Studio made in the last decade that justifies them being kept open?

The reality is that XDEV, Team ASOBI, Polyphony were the only productive parts of the studio, and so Sony doubling down on them, plus their relationships with the 3rd party Japanese studios listed above makes total waaaay more sense than trying to give Japan Studio any more chances to put out anything worthwhile.

So all arguments about Sony losing its Japanese identity are total bollocks.

Sony has 3rd party exclusives from FromSoft, Capcom, and a metric crap tonne of other Japanese devs in the pipeline.... you know... the ones whose games actually sell internationally.

All the best Japanese exclusives for Playstation in the past 20 years have been made by 3rd party devs. So contracting 3rd party studios has proven to be a winning strategy.

Freedom Wars and The Puppeteer are technically not japan studios games by your definition, at the end of the day, Japan studios had a speciallity that none of the other studios ever developed to the same level, they were really good a cooperations with other devs, they were capable of bringing the best out of smaller japanese studios, the how is not clear to me, but they did, your whole list is evidence of it.

Santa Monica's incubation program was never even on the same ballpark.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Fuck Japan, we all about that chinese life now

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

They were almost certainly the least performing studio and probably one of the most expensive.

Can't see how you can look out their output and claim they were one of the most expensive studios Sony ran.

Team ICO was only one studio within Japan Studio, but they should have shut it all down because of Fumito Ueda's team?

It's like you refused to read, i said that PLUS the string of mediocre releases (and failures at that) already released. Sony was cutting off aall their westrn studios and support teams for small things despite the potential, yet left japan Studio almost untouched among its parts.

Not a single big budget title came out afterward

Money wasted for no reason basically, which is the problem.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Abriael_GN really blowing up my feed.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Can't see how you can look out their output and claim they were one of the most expensive studios Sony ran.



It's like you refused to read, i said that PLUS the string of mediocre releases (and failures at that) already released. Sony was cutting off aall their westrn studios and support teams for small things despite the potential, yet left japan Studio almost untouched among its parts.



Money wasted for no reason basically, which is the problem.

Their output doesn't determine their cost. Their personnel and the location do.

Sony was cutting of all their western studio and support teams for small things despite potential? I don't know what you're referring to. Can you elaborate?

A lot of staff had already left, so the amount of money "wasted" was more minimized. The decision to close out the rest of the studio was probably about getting out of the building unless they owned it and if they did about leasing it to someone else. They wrapped up their projects post-Last Guardian, which as I mentioned was almost entirely all port jobs, which were almost certainly done by skeleton crews.

 

[Badlucktroll]

I remember when Japan Studio was rumored to be making a new Silent Hill, thanks to KatharsisT

 

[Cyber_hunter026]

 

[bentanchorbolt]

"Taint it with failures"...

This apologistic justification of shutting down studio Japan by modern day Sony "fans" is becoming ridiculous. I mean, you're welcome to think what you want, but at this point the modern day Sony PS5 fan sounds more like a financial controller or accountant coming straight out of their economic department rather than an actual gamer.

There seems to be way more concern and focus thrown around their spreadsheets and YoY performance rather than the actual appreciation of the genuine creativity, quality and inventiveness of the output that stemmed from the Japanese outlet. If anything the reformed Sony is to blame for sidelining their endeavours and not displaying much confidence in them compared to their western titles.

It’s not about playing and enjoying games, but instead caring about sales and revenue even if you are merely an end user, a consumer.

The modern gamer cares more about brand prestige than they do art and enjoyment.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Broadening your portfolio of Game offerings isn’t “tainting your brand”.

Sony used to at least put out some pretty unique games, but now it’s just Hollywood blockbuster style games. The variety is gone.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

Honestly, Sony only really cares about big budget, Western AAA games that sell millions so even if Japan Studio was remotely successful, I feel they still wouldn’t be much of a priority. We are just talking about one Japanese studio that wasn’t successful. Wasn’t there failed Western studios as well? I said it before, but I wouldn’t mind seeing Sony investing into “multiple” Japanese studios for more first party offerings to create a more diverse and unique catalog of games. The failure of Japan Studio shouldn’t mean shying away from all first party Japanese games because some of them are still popular worldwide.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Freedom Wars and The Puppeteer are technically not japan studios games by your definition, at the end of the day, Japan studios had a speciallity that none of the other studios ever developed to the same level, they were really good a cooperations with other devs, they were capable of bringing the best out of smaller japanese studios, the how is not clear to me, but they did, your whole list is evidence of it.

Santa Monica's incubation program was never even on the same ballpark.

That's because they were largely a publisher while other studios were actually developers...

Sony would have been better suited acquiring small development teams like 1up studio (brownie brown), level 5, acquire, clap hanz, media vision,.

Their focus on producing titles rather than developing them left them awfully disjointed and without any strategy. Meanwhile, the western studios were developing themselves and getting better over time.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Broadening your portfolio of Game offerings isn’t “tainting your brand”.

Sony used to at least put out some pretty unique games, but now it’s just Hollywood blockbuster style games. The variety is gone.

Honestly, Sony only really cares about big budget, Western AAA games that sell millions so even if Japan Studio was remotely successful, I feel they still wouldn’t be much of a priority. We are just talking about one Japanese studio that wasn’t successful. Wasn’t there failed Western studios as well? I said it before, but I wouldn’t mind seeing Sony investing into “multiple” Japanese studios for more first party offerings to create a more diverse and unique catalog of games. The failure of Japan Studio shouldn’t mean shying away from all first party Japanese games because some of them are still popular worldwide.

What do you guys call Kena, Bugsnax, Sifu, Stray, Little Devil Inside

What do you call Sony giving out devkits for indie developers

Sony to Loan Out PS5 Development Kits to Indie Game Publishers

Sony will loan out PS5 development and testint kits to recently-licensed PlayStation publishers and developers.

mp1st.com

This idea that Sony has to individually publish all these games is a bit mistaken and backward

 

[ProtoByte]

How long has Media Molecule been wasting Sony’s money on pointless vanity projects?

That's a strawman. No one's on here waving a flag for them. If they got shut down tomorrow, no real PlayStation fan would he surprised or particularly upset about it.

 

[Danjin44]

I think they got off to a great start with the PS1 and then fell apart until the PS4. However, PSP was still pretty nice.

PS4 still had a good variety of Japanese first-party titles, even if you saw a good chunk of them on VR (Déraciné comes to mind). It's clearly a thing in the PS5 era though, you've only had the pack-in Astro's Playroom, Death Stranding again, GT7 and the Demon's Souls remake (which was mainly made by an American studio). I REALLY hope things change next year.

You are right PS4 had some, like titles you mentioned and Gravity Rush 2 and The Last Guardian but we saw Sony’s focus to western games in PS4 and now we seeing full force in PS5, I also hope this changes as well but chances are slim.

 

[Keihart]

That's because they were largely a publisher while other studios were actually developers...

Sony would have been better suited acquiring small development teams like 1up studio (brownie brown), level 5, acquire, clap hanz, media vision,.

Their focus on producing titles rather than developing them left them awfully disjointed and without any strategy. Meanwhile, the western studios were developing themselves and getting better over time.

they were very much different things, even the in house Japan studio devs were not focused on the same things.
Team gravity has gone on reacord stating that the scope of Gravity Rush was way smaller than what we ended up having and similar stuff happened with Ueda and The Last Guardian, so go figure.

I don't think there was any saving them from the new management that was trimming and optimizing shit, they were only around for so long despite not fitting in with the new trends because of their trajectory and seniority, eventually the people on these teams would end up leaving because of not getting to do what they felt they were good at.

Maybe with Yoshida on charge instead of Hulst they would of survived a couple more games even if bleeding money, who knows. I'm happy with Toyama and company going independent honestly, regardless. They were stuck pitching projects for a while before leaving.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

they were very much different things, even the in house Japan studio devs were not focused on the same things.
Team gravity has gone on reacord stating that the scope of Gravity Rush was way smaller than what we ended up having and similar stuff happened with Ueda and The Last Guardian, so go figure.

I don't think there was any saving them from the new management that was trimming and optimizing shit, they were only around for so long despite not fitting in with the new trends because of their trajectory and seniority, eventually the people on these teams would end up leaving because of not getting to do what they felt they were good at.

Maybe with Yoshida on charge instead of Hulst they would of survived a couple more games even if bleeding money, who knows. I'm happy with Toyama and company going independent honestly, regardless. They were stuck pitching projects for a while before leaving.

Oh yeah? Then explain Kazunori Yamauchi, who is still running strong in charge of Polyphony Digital.

What would have saved them is producing games that sold.

The Last Guardian was their opportunity to create a big budget AAA title in house. And the PS3 probably proved too difficult for the them and then porting it to the PS4 took time and now it's a PS3 port rather than a game created from scratch on PS4. Basically their eyes were too big for their stomach and it doomed Japan Studio. Had Gravity Rush or Knack had penetration to the degree of say a Ratchet game maybe we're having a different conversation too.

Even under Yoshida they were no longer putting out net new games. It was clear they were done after the last guardian.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

What do you guys call Kena, Bugsnax, Sifu, Stray, Little Devil Inside

What do you call Sony giving out devkits for indie developers

http://[URL]https://mp1st.com/news/sony-to-loan-out-ps5-development-kits-to-indie-game-publishers

[/URL]

This idea that Sony has to individually publish all these games is a bit mistaken and backward

Those do exist, but I’m talking about high profile AAA Japanese games developed from in house Sony studios with a high budget. Something on par with Spider-Man or TLOU2. Also, aren’t most of those games listed there third party timed exclusives anyway?

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Freedom Wars and The Puppeteer are technically not japan studios games by your definition, at the end of the day, Japan studios had a speciallity that none of the other studios ever developed to the same level, they were really good a cooperations with other devs, they were capable of bringing the best out of smaller japanese studios, the how is not clear to me, but they did, your whole list is evidence of it.

Santa Monica's incubation program was never even on the same ballpark.

While I think you're massively overplaying the input of Japan Studio and massively understating the talent and creativity of those 3rd party devs who worked with JS; the fact of the matter is (which is what your diatribe is sorely missing) is that the function within Japan Studio that cultivated these quirky Japanese indie games, still exists within Sony Japan... was rolled into XDEV and currently still works with the same community of creative developers in Japan.

So nothing you're remarking on, was in even lost in the Japan Studio restructuring. Only the Japan Studio main dev team who worked directly on Siren, Freedom Wars, The Puppeteer and Gravity Rush etc.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Those do exist, but I’m talking about high profile AAA Japanese games developed from in house Sony studios with a high budget. Something on par with Spider-Man or TLOU2. Also, aren’t most of those games listed there third party timed exclusives anyway?

Sony tried that and Japan Studio proved they weren't up to it. Asobi is working on a AAA game though. Sony's also promoting Silent Hill 2, Ronin,

Do they need to be exclusive? They received significant funding and promotion from Sony.

 

[In Cold Blood]

It's was a short-sighted move by Sony.
Just because the Japanese market moved to mobile games, that has nothing to do with Japan Studio.
There are plenty of healthy Japanese game studios pumping out games the West love. Capcom? Square? Platinum? Tango? Sega?

Sony however isn't alone in this. How many times have we seen what where legendary studios get closed?
I'm willing to be my left nut that Microsoft wishes they didn't close Lionhead.

 

[jigglet]

We’ll a decade is roughly how long it takes to get any Japanese company to do something slightly different.

 

[lh032]

they should close MM and acquire another gmae studio.

 

[RoadHazard]

How dare you leave out Puppeteer. That game was dope.

 

[RoadHazard]

they should close MM and acquire another gmae studio.

I'm surprised they still exist TBH. Their last successful game was LBP2, 11 years ago (Dreams is cool, but wasn't exactly a smash hit AFAIK).

 

[ungalo]

Team ICO didn't leave it's more like Sony didn't renew contracts if i recall. Same with Toyama.

There are obviously reasons why they did that. And they showed they can still have deep partnerships with japanese studios without the Japan Studio structure.

But nonetheless it's a shame for the internal teams. To have creative japanese console games with some financial support is a luxury nowadays. The first thing Toyama did after building his new studio was to announce a new horror game. Why the fuck didn't they make a Siren game ? Add some value to this industry instead of moneyhatting a third party Silent Hill remake from Bloober.

They definitely left a fraction of their legacy to die with this move. And when i see what they produce internally that's not for the best in my opinion.

 

[lh032]

I'm surprised they still exist TBH. Their last successful game was LBP2, 11 years ago (Dreams is cool, but wasn't exactly a smash hit AFAIK).

im suprised as well.
Most people dont give a crap about dreams ,its a niche game, and it has no MTX , im not sure what kind of revenue MM brings in to Sony