the staff of Japan Studio had great capabilities , they just didnt have the right direction and right materialo to work on.......for example if Sony have bought Crash Bandicoot in PS3 years where the IP had trash value , and had given it ot Japan Studio to remake it ala Astro Bot , or they continued the lore of ICO ,SOTC TLG with more quality games the studio would have been one of Playstation Powerhouses now like Naught Dog but with Japanese talents
Bloodborne, ape escape, legend of dragoon, demon souls and knack were never bad. Jim Ryan wants blockbuster hit games. Bloodborne sold even more PS4 cause of the exclusive. Jim Ryans just a Don Mattrik in disguise
You want to do some research on those games you listed. From Software made Demon's Souls and Bloodborn, not Japan studio. They helped with development, but it was From Software that made those games.
Also, companies are in business to make money, not lose money. If certain games are bringing in millions of cash to a company, guess what? That company will invest more in them. I don't agree with this decision, but I fully understand from a business standpoint.
I am actually surprised so many people think Japan Studio made Bloodborne and Demon's souls.
"They just didn't sell". And there ya go. This isn't a participation event where everyone gets a smiley face or a gold star for showing up. This is a multi-billion dollar industry. Sony gave this studio more time to get their shit together than anyone else. They failed, simple as that.
The creatives behind Siren and Gravity Rush left to create their own horror game and now the rest of the studio fused into team asobi concentrates on working on Astrobot. Win win.
The only game in the recent era that was good (setting aside games where they merely provided assistance such as Demon Souls) was Astrobot. And the devs behind Astrobot are sticking around and doubling down on the property. Other than for the employees who are let go, this has no meaningful impact.
Shu yoshida being demoted was the start of this western rise. He said not all exclusives makes profits but your hope is few will make a lot to cover the costs and turn an overall profit. Jim ryan is just a businessman and maybe that's what sony needs at the moment. But I feel like after jack tretton, shawn and Andrew house brought playstation brand to where it is at today sony didn't need drastic changes
Jim is europe through and through and when he removed yoshida the person in charge is also europe now. Jim strategy is buy timed exclusives but I believe the better strategy in the long run is to buy studios. I don't think insomniac games would have sold themselves of they knew shawn and others would leave sony all together
Buying the right studios is definitely a better strategy than the short term gains from timed exclusives. We will wait and see how this turns out for Sony.
Sony has leaned more heavily on their American and European studios because have grown and produced some of most bankable games in the industry. It is not something Jim is responsible for. The author brought up a good point in that some of the quirky games that Japan Studios made are being made small and indie devs.
These days a team of 10 can make a solid game with a smaller scope that still sells millions of copies. The increasing frequency of such things has probably led to smaller games not having an excuse for selling poorly.
I know people have short memories now days but I remember when we had the execs from all 3 companies on stage. Sony, Nintendo, and Xbox.
To me, that was the end. That's should have been a sign. At the end of the day, it's all about the money.
Everything that we see is strategic and calculated. These companies are slowly taking control of what we play.
MS is leading the charge, Sony is going to follow. And finally Nintendo. MS is just the most aggressive at the moment. Sony is sliding it in gently. 🤣🤣
Nintendo may be our last hope but they will fall in line as well. They're starting to release special edition consoles and controllers. This will ramp up.
Once these companies start seeing the dollars come in, it's over.
People want everything for nothing. They want Marvel movie graphics but don't want to pay for it. They want blockbuster games but don't want to pay for it. They don't want to support the games they love because at the end of the day, paying that cheap monthly price will be the main focus. Not the quality of the games.
Then what happens when a game is trash or not up to standards, people will just say they only paying $10 a month lol.
My hope is that this doesn't turn into cable where we have to pay a subscription to these different companies to play games.
Funny how that works huh. Also, expect more episodic games. What better way to keep you subscribed to a service?
Y'all want to be like Netflix, well be careful what you wish for. Look how many TV shows they put out now days. That's for a reason. How many of those shows, even when good, only last for a season maybe 2.
Oh well, gamers from both sides talk a lot but at the end of the day, they fall in line woith whatever their favorite platform does.
People talk a lot of 💩 on here and say they going to do this or that but I feel a lot of the time it's all talk lol. Like I'm not buying Duty this year, yet it's still the highest selling game every single year and one of the most played. 🤣🤣
Ok I'm done, rant over lol. I could go on but it really doesn't matter. Happy gaming everyone!!
Wonder what happened to the sci-fi space epic they were developing. The director of the project even said a couple years ago that it was going to be revealed soon. Never happened
that's the thing. I love their games but it seems like the Japanese are falling out of love for the games released by Sony Japan and are now all are rooting for Nintendo over there. I don't think any of their games are particularly bad but they are Japanese-focused and if the Japanese don't buy them, the west isn't gonna either because like I said, their games are made for the Japanese audiences first. games like Gravity Rush, Everybody's golf, Knack and their old IPs like Ape Escape are good games just don't have the audience they one had before.
hopefully, this is not the beginning of Sony leaving their Japanese root behind just because they are unable to compete with Nintendo back at home. it would suck so bad if Playstations become almost 100% westernized.
this is not just about Sony's games, mind you. even other publishers' games on the PS are not selling like they used to anymore in Japan. they appear on the chart for a week or 2 and then disappear and the usual Switch games take over. the Japanese market is too harsh when it comes to a platform that isn't Nintendo, it's saddening. the fact that <10% of the total PS4 sales came from Japan is alarming enough that it looks like Sony is gradually moving away from this market.
Oh NO! you don't come here and twist thingsto make sound like Nintendo it's the bad guy in this story! That's exclusively Sony's fault for not investing in the proper advertisement for their japanese games. Sony doesn't advertise their games that are not triple A and since the Sony Japan hardly makes triple A games anymore Sony has done very little for them.
Where did I put Nintendo as the bad guy here? I simply said that the Japanese prefer Nintendo and there's no denying that. the same reason they didn't give the xbox any fighting chance and now they are doing it to Playstation.
Sony doesn't advertise? dude, do you even live in Japan to even say that as a certainty? I doubt Sony is doing nothing there to promote the PS4 and their games. and you said it like Nintendo comes up with triple A Japanese games left and right since release, which they also don't! stop kidding yourself.
It is a disappointing turn of events. I understand why Play Station is becoming more westernized too. Hopefully they can regroup in the future and get some cool projects going. The last game I bought from Sony Japan is Gravity Rush Remastered and was kinda disappointed by it. Before that was Shadow of the Colosus on PS2.
I enjoyed Japanese games-but damn that’s a low number and like a decade apart.
yeah but that's not the studio's fault at least in the technical department the games run and play like charm, it's Sony's fault for not advertising this like it should. The consequences of closing this studio is laying off people that been there years if not decades....
No it's nobody's " fault." Sony advertises plenty in Japan. The issue is gaming trends in Japan have changed. They have moved away from the traditional home console model to mobile/handheld. This is why the Switch has sold like gangbusters over there. If the Switch did not have the mobile feature to it, I guarantee you it would not be doing nearly as well over there, or anywhere for that matter. For all intents and purposes, the Switch is a slightly more powerful Wii U in handheld form. Yet the Wii U didn't sell jack shit and the Switch is a runaway success. The difference? Mobility. If Sony truly wants to compete in Japan they will need to release another PSP or Vita type of machine. Otherwise, they might as well concede that region to Nintendo.
RaiderNation I disagree, while it's true that portability is one of the main features the Switch had is mainly because of games, you can have the most console on the market but if you don't have games to appeal to you then you cannot expect them to be gagnbuster, lets take a look at the Wii U like you did...the Wii U was released November 2012 way before Microsoft and Sony announced or showed their ps4 and Xbox One let alone the features and everything else. Nintendo's Wii U was techinically speaking 3 times stronger than the ps3 and the Xbox 360 at that moment and could've been ok their first 6 months if they had games on launch and through the winter of 2013 but no games were there. So in other words games are what determine the consoles success or failure. Let get back to Sony, you telling me Shadow of the collosus, Gravity Rush and Knack didn't appealed to Japan or to the west? that's plain BS there, I remember Gravity Rush 2 was suppose to be a heavy hitter, but I ahrdly saw any advertisement aside from teh reviews whis they we good enough but people most people weren't even aware. so again that's Sony's fault man, no matter where you look at it.
Personally I feel a little sad about this, I always appreciated the more creative titles from Japan Studio.
The Puppeteer was one of my favourite titles on PS3 for example, how about Patapon or Loco Roco? Gravity Rush was a fantastic series and then there was the fantastic Tokyo Jungle. I often saw Japan Studio's involvement as a seal of quality.
Really sucks to hear. They were key to titles like bloodborne, but an internal "assist team" probably isnt what Sony wanted from them. They produced some fantastic titles (Gravity Daze series, Ape Escape Legend of Dragoon) but most of their development chops come from assisting other teams make great games, not making them on their own. I hope the talent is retained and put to good use elsewhere in PlayStation. That said Team ASOBI will continue on and hopefully get bigger with staff from Japan Studio.
I was holding out for another Forbidden Siren Game, but now I will just have to shed a tear for my shattered dreams 😥
Knack 2, baby.
When all the games you make are bad, bad things happen.
The creatives behind Siren and Gravity Rush left to create their own horror game and now the rest of the studio fused into team asobi concentrates on working on Astrobot. Win win.
The only game in the recent era that was good (setting aside games where they merely provided assistance such as Demon Souls) was Astrobot. And the devs behind Astrobot are sticking around and doubling down on the property. Other than for the employees who are let go, this has no meaningful impact.