Talking Point: Has the Market for AA Games on PS5 Really Disappeared? 1
Image: Push Square

Shuhei Yoshida noted in an interview this week that the reason for Tokyo-based developer Japan Studio’s closure was because the market for AA games has disappeared.

Sony’s much-loved internal studio produced a variety of smaller-scale PlayStation exclusives over the years, including Patapon and Gravity Rush. It also played an important role in bringing externally developed titles to Sony’s consoles, like Everybody’s Golf from Clap-Hanz and Tokyo Jungle from Crispy’s.

But it wasn’t just Japan Studio that was so prolific in this category: through the PS3 and PS4 era, Sony found enormous success publishing a wide-range of smaller games around the world, from Invizimals to Sound Shapes to Fat Princess and everything in between.

These titles – aside from a few notable exceptions like perhaps LEGO Horizon Adventures and Sackboy: A Big Adventure – have been effectively removed from PlayStation’s portfolio. It’s one of the reasons, along with cross-gen releases, why we believe fans have been less satisfied with PS5’s output than previous consoles.

Talking Point: Has the Market for AA Games on PS5 Really Disappeared? 2

But what has changed?

Well, the most obvious thing is that the cost of games has gone through the roof. A single AAA title from Naughty Dog, like Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, costs hundreds of millions of dollars these days, dramatically eating into the platform holder’s budget.

But these rising costs also apply to the smaller games as well. With higher costs involved across the board, it’s perhaps easier to greenlight guaranteed hits; God of War Ragnarok may have cost many magnitudes more to make than, say, Gravity Rush 2 to make – but it also sold over five million units in a week.

The other big difference is that the indie space has grown immeasurably. In the early days of the PS Store, an average week would see one or two new titles to release; these days you’re looking at 20 to 30 fresh games per day. That’s a lot of competition, and many of these indie games have budgets which rival AA titles; Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Stray, and Sifu have largely occupied that space.

Talking Point: Has the Market for AA Games on PS5 Really Disappeared? 3

Sony would perhaps argue that it hasn’t abandoned AA entirely, it’s just changed its approach. The three abovementioned titles were heavily marketed by PlayStation, and while not true first-party exclusives, they filled an important role in its portfolio.

But those are the success stories.

Yoshida explained how after completing Gravity Rush 2, creator Keiichiro Toyama approached him with a variety of concepts for new games, all of which were interesting. But given the state of the market, the platform holder passed on all of them, and Japan Studio was eventually closed.

Toyama later founded Bokeh Game Studios and released Slitterhead, a kind of spiritual successor to the Siren series. While we don’t have official sales numbers for the game, we know it sold fewer than 5,000 units at retail in Japan and peaked with less than 800 concurrent players on Steam.

Talking Point: Has the Market for AA Games on PS5 Really Disappeared? 4

In fact, there have been countless tales of AA disappointments in recent years. The critically acclaimed Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden from Don’t Nod disappointed commercially, as did Jusant.

Meanwhile, the team behind the highly recommended Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was disbanded, while Capcom’s Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess failed to meet expectations for Capcom as well.

There are countless examples which support Yoshida’s comments, and it’s reflected across all of the big publishers. It’s true that Nintendo is still a bastion of AA titles, but its position is unique in that it has some of gaming’s most iconic brands under its umbrella; most other companies can’t fall back on the pure pulling power of franchises like Super Mario, Donkey Kong, and The Legend of Zelda.

Talking Point: Has the Market for AA Games on PS5 Really Disappeared? 5

One other point that we haven’t touched upon is the rise of live service games, like Fortnite and Genshin Impact. These titles are so broad and engaging that many may prefer to invest in V-Bucks or Primogems than purchase brand new AA titles they don’t have time to play.

And with subscriptions like PS Plus Premium offering hundreds of titles on demand, there may just not be the appetite from some consumers to show up for AA titles like they used to in generations past.

It’s a shame because AA does seem to solve an emerging issue that’s been worsening for a while: blockbuster games simply cost too much money and take far too long to make.

But AA titles are not immune to these issues either, and the market doesn’t appear to be supporting them in the quantities required to make creating them worthwhile.

Do you think the AA market on PS5 has disappeared? Are you still hungry for this smaller-scale games and willing to show up to buy them day one? Does it all depend on the type of experience being offered? Let us know in the comments section below.

Do you still buy AA games regularly? (785 votes)

  1. Yes, I'm a big fan of smaller-scale software%
  2. Sometimes, it really depends on the game%
  3. No, I generally don't buy AA games anymore%