Sony Japan Studio closed down and rolled into Astros Playroom team as support

[dope_danny]

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/...-japan-studio/

So this fucking sucks to be blunt. Japan Studio has made directly or acted as the support team for a lot of the names people recognise in relation to the Playstation brand. Arc the Lad, Wild Arms, Ape Escape, Parappa the Rapper, Bloodborne, Gravity Rush, Dark Cloud, Rule of Rose, Ico, Okage, Shadow of the Colossus, Tokyo Jungle, Forbidden Siren and the list goes on and on.

The news is still coming out but the sentiment appears to be that their "focus on Japanese appealing games with a hope for potential worldwide appeal" didn't gel with modern sonys shift to what in japan is being called "a transition to becoming an american company" where they want wide market appeal third person action games and the like. Can't deny it makes them money but boy is it giving me flashbacks to 2008 era Square Enix where similar things went down.

The question for Sony of course is how much is it worth it in the longrun? They lost a lot of creatives in this such as Keiichiro Toyama the creator of Gravity Rush and Forbidden Siren and Writer on the original Silent Hill games for example. A fair few of them are already setting up new studios and announcing they have games in the works and it seems safe to say "a new horror game from the dude behind silent hill" is probably going to do okay in terms of finding an audience. But what does Sony do when the "moviegame" interest dries up like any other trend? How many The Last of Us' or Horizons will they get compared to Days Gone's if thats the focus of their output now? and how long before the consumer starts to drift and look at other options? Nintendo seems to firmly be ending up the place where most japanese games are going and the xbone may have burnt a lot of people but theres going to come a point where you can only play sequels to things like Doom or the Elder scrolls on the latest Xbox. How many third person action games with slow down walk and talk can you push as your first party exclusive content before it dries up in terms of interest? I don't recall hearing many people gush about the Xbone having such must play experiences as gears 4 and state of decay and this feels like we are in for a higher production value equivalent of that in the PS5's future and thats worrying as someone whos bought every playstation hardware day one but still struggles to find a reason why i would want a PS5 any time soon.

Its just a sad situation really. If the moneys not there its not there but they went from getting nearly a hundred projects green lit on ps1 to barely over a dozen on ps4 but were expected to have the same market reach and profit margins for a lot less in terms of product variety. A lot of those IP's were already long shelved and i get the feeling until the current Sony games division direction changes -or like their movie branch they plan to ride it into the ground regardless of any changes in the market- i think 99% of those games IPs can probably safely be considered dead now. For a good few years at least.

Hopefully the people who made all those amazing games find work elsewhere its just sad to think all those creative, memorable experiences are now firmly a thing of the past and not something to look forward to in future. What a shame.

[Zenfoldor]

Yep, they made and helped make some of my favorite games. Really sad.

[Coolascancer]

those are some of the games i would refer to as gems and important building blocks in the playstation universe. that does fucking suck

[Stormwolf64]

Japan has joined the west in being terrified in taking chances. And when no one is taking chances and only producing games with popular IP's then we'll not have much innovation and new fun games to discover. Just more of the same same, same and same.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Ape escape is the one that I have the most nostalgia(Or at least any nostalgia at all). Sucks

[Jtbrig7390]

Japan has joined the west in being terrified in taking chances. And when no one is taking chances and only producing games with popular IP's then we'll not have much innovation and new fun games to discover. Just more of the same same, same and same.

Indie and AA company's are taking chances, buy from them.

It sucks but not surprised its clear Sony wants each game to be a big hit like God of War or Last of Us 2. It really sucks but like I said above, buy from Indies/AA company's if u want something different.

Not saying all AAA games are bad (because some like God of War IMO) is great. But if you want verity buy from smaller studios.

[Stormwolf64]

Indie and AA company's are taking chances, buy from them.

It sucks but not surprised its clear Sony wants each game to be a big hit like God of War or Last of Us 2. It really sucks but like I said above, buy from Indies/AA company's if u want something different.

Not saying all AAA games are bad (because some like God of War IMO) is great. But if you want verity buy from smaller studios.

I simply want the industry to keep innovating.

[Rennadrel]

Sony has been moving most of their operations to California, much to the dismay of their long time Japanese fans and the developers. Funny considering Playstation sales have been dwindling in Japan in recent years as well. Sony is focused on the western market, while ironically trying to appeal to a heavily censorship controlled market in China.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I simply want the industry to keep innovating.

Innovation isn't everything.

[Biomega]

Innovation isn't everything.

I think there's a BIG space in between "no innovation" and "innovation is 'everything'" and we're definitely straying towards the "no innovation" side of things more than we should right now.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I gave up on Playstation years ago. I only cared for their Japanese games, and when Sony started focusing on the West at the expense of Japanese devs (who upped and moved to the Switch or mobile), and started heavy censorship of their games, I bailed out. I have no interest in Sony's exclusives.

[TigTone]

Sony has been moving most of their operations to California, much to the dismay of their long time Japanese fans and the developers. Funny considering Playstation sales have been dwindling in Japan in recent years as well. Sony is focused on the western market, while ironically trying to appeal to a heavily censorship controlled market in China.

That brought me to the thought of Gaming companies trying to balance games to Appeal to the Western and Chinese markets will cause a decline in creativity for games.

[Nynax]

That brought me to the thought of Gaming companies trying to balance games to Appeal to the Western and Chinese markets will cause a decline in creativity for games.

It's a bit nonsensical when the west is so focused on SJW stuff and all kinds of diversity messaging that the Chinese government isn't inclined to allow.

[Tech614]

Only to clickbaiters is this news. The Gravity Rush people left, the Ico people left. Literally the only thing left was the Astro team and support staff. Captain obvious shit right here that they are only working on astro and support stuff at this time.

I love how suddenly everyone cares about Japan Studio though when none of yall mofos bought Puppeteer, Gravity Rush 1 or 2 or The Last Guardian. All of these games where commercial flops but suddenly everyone was a huge fan and is mad about this because of the clickbait. Can't make this shit up.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

It's a bit nonsensical when the west is so focused on SJW stuff and all kinds of diversity messaging that the Chinese government isn't inclined to allow.

I don't really think thats even related at all. Its more about the market China offers.

[Kithelle]

I gave up on Playstation years ago. I only cared for their Japanese games, and when Sony started focusing on the West at the expense of Japanese devs (who upped and moved to the Switch or mobile), and started heavy censorship of their games, I bailed out. I have no interest in Sony's exclusives.

Yeah...I'm not buying anything from sony anymore...they're hypocrites.

They want to censor Japanese games for showing a little skin but then tell me a uncensored sex scene that looks like almost borderline rape is "tasteful", especially when the guy who says this is in charge of the project self inserts himself in the game into the sex scene.

Sony is full of shit

[Tech614]

Yeah...I'm not buying anything from sony anymore...they're hypocrites.

They want to censor Japanese games for showing a little skin but then tell me a uncensored sex scene that looks like almost borderline rape is "tasteful", especially when the guy who says this is in charge of the project self inserts himself in the game into the sex scene.

Sony is full of shit

Your post is the only thing full of shit here.

Not only is the claims of Druckmann self inserting false: https://twitter.com/Neil_Druckmann/s...04792992563205 the character they claimed he did this as isn't even the one in the sex scene. https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Owen_Moore Is the one in the sex scene not even https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Manny_Alvarez which your fake conspiracy claimed was a self insert.

So take the advice you are giving Sony and figure out your own shit before posting blatant lies to attack a company over some click bait you don't give a shit about. Show me your stellar collection of Japan Studio games, oh wait you probably don't own any of them and just want something to be outraged about.

[StationaryHawk]

Only to clickbaiters is this news. The Gravity Rush people left, the Ico people left. Literally the only thing left was the Astro team and support staff. Captain obvious shit right here that they are only working on astro and support stuff at this time.

I love how suddenly everyone cares about Japan Studio though when none of yall mofos bought Puppeteer, Gravity Rush 1 or 2 or The Last Guardian. All of these games where commercial flops but suddenly everyone was a huge fan and is mad about this because of the clickbait. Can't make this shit up.

I was pretty confident that I had bought and played those games, but thankfully there are people like you to tell me otherwise.

Poor argument aside, you're right. This is disappointing but not surprising news.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

They should have made a Tokyo Jungle2 that surely would have kept there doors open.

[MrPaladinGuy]

Knack 3 baaaybeee