Sony's Japan Studio 'Forgot What It Feels Like to Have a Hit'

Really hope they grow team asobi. There's a lot of promise with that studio. Maybe make it a two team studio, one dedicated to Astro bot and one to maybe innovative games or ip revival like ape escape. Would love to see an Astro bot karting.

I wish ASOBI the best, very talented folks, a shame about Japan Studio but it is true, during the PS3 era Japan Studio really started to be hit and miss and it only got worst

The same argument though could be levied at the likes of Media Molecule and they are still somehow around. Their last commercial success was LBP2. That was a PS3 game. I wonder if Sony might be considering a similar approach with them in the future.

It does still sting with Japan Studio. Yes Gravity Rush didn't set the world on fire with sales but those two games are fantastic. They deserved more credit than they got.

I do understand what's being said here, but I think that the after effects of Japan Studio's closure is being felt hard now, and arguably Astro Bot kinda shows that. The market now does want more unique and small experiences, and that is something this generation has lacked big time first party wise for Sony. I think Astro shows that people do sometimes want smaller titles that aren't the usual over-the-shoulder, cinematic, triple A experience all the time. Sometimes variety is truly the key.

@Korgon Media Molecule was a 50-80 person studio throughout that time period. Tokyo studio was a 400+ person team that by all accounts had become completely dysfunctional with people all over the place working on whatever they felt like and nothing coming to fruition.

I think people often fail to realize that just because they love a game, doesn't mean the game is necessarily a success. Like, there's nothing more I want in this gaming world more than Dark Cloud 3. But the game sold roughly 1.1 million worldwide. That's not considered to be a resounding success. I hate that it works this way, but gaming is a business after all.

So when a studio like Japan Studio shuts down, even after having "fan favorite" games. You have to realize that "fan favorite" doesn't mean commercial success.

Shawn layden fans having a meltdown now

I don’t care for commercial “hits”, I care for great games. Unfortunately when chasing the former you tend to lose track of the latter. That’s when the ”malaise” sets in, in my opinion, especially for creative types.

Apart from the discussion of fan-favorite vs commercially sucessful this is a bit off-topic - But I wish the gaming industry would adopt the old Hollywood formula of having a director do a box-office slop for the masses and in return they got to make a personal passion project. It might've helped with morale/burnout, kept the creativity flowing and so forth.

On the other hand making a game is a multi-year endeavour, so not exactly a 1:1...and I guess there's a reason (money) why movie studios stopped doing it.

Thank the emperor for Indie studios keeping gaming fresh.

@ChrisDeku
That is true about the different team sizes but my point still stands. It took MM almost a decade to put out Dreams and it completely flopped. Just like it had been ages since Japan Studio had put out a hit before they were transformed into Asobi.

I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if Sony is considering a similar route with MM as it doesn't seem like they got all their ducks in a row over there either.

I think the biggest problem with Japan Studio was they divided themself into too many teams and too many projects.

There's team ICO, team Gravity / Siren, team Asobi, team Knack, and who knows with the staff who helped with games like Patapon, Loco Roco, Tokyo Jungle, Puppeteer, Everybody's Golf, Death Stranding, Demon's Souls remake, etc etc.

It's like the studio try to be 'jack of all trade, master of none'.

But hopefully Team Asobi can continue Japan Studio uniqueness but this time with better management and focus.

One game I have from JAPAN Studio is Kung Fu Rider PS3.
One of the most hilarious 1st party Sony game on PS3. 😂
I think I have some family friendly 1st party Sony games on PS3, mostly from PS3 Move games.

I was furious about JP studio closing but it makes sense. I'm just glad we have team asobi instead of sony just erasing them completely. Maybe Asobi ends up expanding (not too much), putting out various games and becomes the new japan studio. Wishing them the absolute best

One game I was hoping in the early stages of PS3 to get a sequel was Folklore I still have it and I love that game

They released The Last Guardian in 2016, and Gravity Rush 2 in 2017. Considering how long games take to make, that's not that long, before they were shut down. Sony should have been a lot more patient before pretty much gutting it's oldest studio, and only studio in Japan that isn't committed to Gran Turismo.

As part of the bonsai pruning, they should've negotiated a deal with Clap Hanz to keep the Everybody's Golf franchise on the PS platform.
Another iconic title lost (now on Apple Arcade or the Nintendo Switch, ffs...)

All I know is, every game where I saw the Japan Studio logo at the start, I had a fantastic time with it.

To me, they represented so much about what made PlayStation great. The willingness to take risks, be creative, try new things and see what sticks, come up with smaller unique experiences etc. I get that not everything they did was commercial, but that studio gave Sony so much cachet as a company that genuinely loved and nurtured video games as an art form, rather than just a cookie-cutter, copy and paste shareholder profit machine.

I think "seeking hits" is exactly what went wrong with the entire games industry. It should never be about "seeking hits." If that's the goal they lost sight of the destination. It should be making about making content for which there's a market, big or small, and budgeting accordingly.

Japan Studio made games people loved. They may not have been "hits", but making a "hit" requires making a very specific generic mass market product, in which all products are the same. Once all games are trying to be hits, they all need to appeal to everyone, and then they all become flavors of the same game which is what we have.

Japan Studio made games people loved, still love, and critics didn't disapprove. They simply weren't generic games made to appeal to everyone, everywhere, all at once, and didn't become "hits." That should never have been a point of failure.

Personally Japan Studio was the main attraction to Playstation for me. Never really cared much at all about the popcorn moviegames. I'll play them. I'll enjoy them. I'd never buy hardware just to play them.

What a load of nonsense. Literally says nothing. If this is how sharp he is then it's little wonder Jim Ryan managed to oust him.

@AhmadSumadi "So when a studio like Japan Studio shuts down, even after having "fan favorite" games. You have to realize that "fan favorite" doesn't mean commercial success."

I think that's the inverse though. The problem is the gaming market isn't one big market that all likes one thing. It's a market of many many niches that all makes different things. The industry used to have many products that cater to many niche's and as a whole keep everyone entertained and engaged. Japan Studio highlights this. Sony used to have tremendous variety for all types of gamers. Nintendo still does that (ring fit, labo, etc.)

Once the main industry focused on "big commercial hit or gtfo", the industry focused on the current state of the industry which is that all games feel like the same game. Without all those niches being served, lots of people just got out. So now every game is a "hit" proportionate to the market size, while more and more of the market just stops buying consoles at all. Their niches aren't appealed to if they don't like the same thing everybody else is supposed to like.

Homogenization is what's killing the industry not an abundance of fan favorite games that aren't "hits". The problem is the businesses aren't willing to be profitable, they need to be quadrupling the money quarterly.

@PuppetMaster
If Team ICO goes, I will burn all my Playstations and throw them out the window

I see more people complaining about Japan Studios closures in comment sections in a week than probably ever bought a game made by them in a decade.

@CousinRoman
He's a turd. It's just that Jimbo was that much worse that people are suddenly listening to the nonsense he's spewing.

I'd feel incredibly disheartened if I heard this absolutely buffoon talk to me and my ex coworkers like that. Snipping a bonsai tree to see IF we grow back again?

That is some disconnected, inhumane garbage he's letting out of his dumpster truck of a mouth.

There's a meme of fans of Japan Studio in a big crowd but people that buy their games and it's a desert. Money where your mouth is and all that.

@McTwist Layden has generally been more coherent than the rest of Sony corp, but he's way out there on this one. I think being a life-long Sony staffer does something to people's minds. The company has always been a nasty one. Playstation was good because it wasn't like the rest of Sony until recently, but Sony itself was always nasty, long before PS existed. Much as I love most things Japan, being a company that thrived mostly on export, Sony has always run perfectly inverse the normal norms for Japanese companies - always. Layden's a core Sony guy, from long before PS existed.

Still he's generally been a positive in the industry, and even though he was part of the problem of the endless budget movie games blockbuster industry, he also recognized the problem he created and also tried to avoid it, until Jim threw him overboard and ran the engines at ramming speed to break through the iceberg. Even with that, though, he's quite wrong on this one.

@TheEnygma Erm, how would we be fans if we hadn't bought their games?

Websites like Push Square cater to a certain type of gaming enthusiast that is not necessarily representative of the gaming masses that play nothing but Fortnite and Call of Duty etc. So you'll see lots of people lamenting the passing of Japan Studio on here, which makes it seem like a big proportion of gamers, but in reality it's only a small portion of those who own consoles.

Everybody's Golf was Japan Studio yeah? That was a great game. And they seem to have made an iPad version of it. It's not just about having hits, it's also about having the variety of games on the platform

@McTwist I think a lot of Team ICO talents already left Sony after The Last Guardian released back in 2016. They followed Fumito Ueda who build his own game studio, GenDesign, and since then he's not yet release a single game. The rest probably moved on to Team Asobi.

@ThroughTheIris56 i can't personally count for Team Gravity, but you may be glad to hear that Team Ico of The Last Guardian spun out into "genDesign" before Japan Studio closed. GenDesign are still around and working on something new.

Sounds incredibly revisionist... possibly as an attempt to hide Sony leadership's own shortcomings?

Ape Escape 3 was rated but never released as a PS2 classic on the Playstation Store. Why?

At least Shadow of the Colossus got a great remake, but even then, simply re-releasing/remaking old games with no other flair or build up isn't likely to expand the audience much. New releases are still needed.

And speaking of new releases, Gravity Rush 2 had little to no marketing despite being a proper AAA open world "superhero" action game in the same caliber as Spider Man. Online support was killed very early, leaving several items including a fan favorite costume utilized briefly in the story completely unobtainable. Why?

If a parent had 2 children, but only helped 1 study for a test, is the other child at fault for failing? The blame lies solely with Sony, for not giving many of their other IPs the same respect as the likes of Uncharted, The Last of Us, God of War, etc.

@kevinm360 While Gen Design was eventually the main developer behind The Last Guardian, Japan Studio had a pretty big hand in it. But I'm hoping the staff at GenDesign are doing ok. It has been a very long time since they've made a game.

@greengecko007 Gravity Rush 2 actually got nice marketing. There's a cool live act commercial.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tgky0MmxSqk&pp=ygUZZ3Jhdml0eSBydXNoIDIgY29tbWVyY2lhbA%3D%3D

They hired Khara Studio, the one who made Neon Genesis Evangelion Rebuild movies, for an OVA that bridge the first and second game. Heck, they even made the anime free for anyone to watch on youtube.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tFeXtu-3u78&pp=ygUXZ3Jhdml0eSBydXNoIDIgb3ZlcnR1cmU%3D

Did a collab with SE for 2B costume DLC.
https://www.ign.com/articles/2017/04/26/gravity-rush-2-gets-nier-automata-outfit-as-free-dlc

As well make solid Figma figure for Kat and Raven with Good Smile Company.
https://www.goodsmile.com/en/product/3911/figma+Gravity+Kat+2.0

The online feature got shut down one year after the game release which is unfortunate. But possibly Sony doesn't see many people used it combine with the game low sales.
https://amostagreeablepastime.com/2018/01/03/gravity-rush-2-servers-to-shut-down-only-a-year-after-release/

@PuppetMaster They did cool stuff for the marketing of Gravity Rush 2, they were just awful at actually showing it. Barely anyone had heard of the game, which is bad for a 1st party PS game. It's not like there is no interest in anime style games either.

Best example of how poorly Gravity Rush 2 was marketed, was the fact it wasn't even shown during Sony's 2016 E3 conference. Instead they had a 10 minute gameplay demo for COD.

They made a lot of great games it's just that they didn't market them well, the western audience did what they could of those that actually paid attention to them though besides the Japanese or other Asian regions support.

Lego Horizon to me is just a case of if Asobi can do it enough, Ratchet/Sackboy can't for 'original' titles and Sony wants or has to milk other IPs and family friendly-ify them it will be sad so I play not only Sony but audiences for making the industry a pathetic state of things when us that do try actually try and support these games and they go nope not enough. Well market them better, offer something convincing to those audiences and us. But nope they don't try enough.

They did feel very unique and different, very Nintendo like but still their own, very Indie in varying per title.

They had great ideas. Some obviously trying to fit in and be cinematic, others being overly creative, it varied for sure for Siren, Gravity Rush, Puppeteer, Loco Roco, EchoChrome/EchoShift, Ico/Shadow/Guardian and more. Their RPGs at times.

Ah Claphands doing the arcade sports games to now do their own things.

For publishers/working out things later on with Deracine/Bloodborne or other deals I can't remember right now.

That side to the Asobi/scale down for deals and such or that region communications sure but it just isn't the same.

I can see why they were scaled down though. Very unfortunate. I never go oh I grew up and don't play those anymore. I love creative stuff but audiences are what they are Sony seeks or whatever gamers seek and vary of their preferences and those of us that still enjoy these types then those that cut them off.

Well lets hope Slitterhead gets the support it needs then ever since Siren came out and obviously the support it's getting on PS+ now.

@ThroughTheIris56 Sure they made mistake for not showing the game at their E3 2016 conference. But they brought it on the show floor where everyone can try the demo.

They also showed the game at TGS 2013, 2015, and 2016 as well Gamescom 2016 where everyone can try the demo. TGS and Gamescom are just as big as E3.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/wccftech.com/gravity-rush-2-gamescom-2016-hands-kat-learned/amp/

Heck, Sony delayed the game from December 2016 release to January 2017 because they want it to get full spotlight and not overshadowed by AAA games during holiday. So, saying GR 2 only had little to no marketing is just false.

And i bet a lot of people heard or seen Gravity Rush. I mean, pretty much everyone has internet. But they just didn't buy it for whatever reason.

Now if you're saying Sony barely market Puppeteer, Wild Arms, Soul Sacrifice, or Patapon then i would fully agreed.

Huh... did Ape escape not do well? They kind of gave up on it after the ps2 and just kept making dumb psp spin-offs.

I would say that yes, they lacked direction.
An Ape escape 4 couldn't have done that badly. It's not that different from Astro.
Same with Wild Arms. They never believed in it post PS2. Yet look at that kickstarter and turn based JRPG's doing well with Atlus.

Playstation needs more than open worlds and multiplayer games.

@Nem This is just my prediction but i think Ape Escape suffers like some platformers in PS2 era. Like, they were popular and sold well in PS1 era but they gradually losing their steam in PS2 era. Similar to Crash, Spyro, or Klonoa who didn't do that well in PS2 era and then pretty much gone in PS3 era until they got revived in PS4 era with remakes/remaster/port.

From what i read, Ape Escape 1 managed to sold 1.1 million copies ww while Ape Escape 2 sold around 630K ww and On the Loose sold 250K ww. I can't find Ape Escape 3 sales numbers though so possibly it sold much lower than previous games.

Also back in PS2 era, the platformers market was very stack. There was plenty of interesting platformers like Ratchet, Sly Cooper, or Jak & Daxter, Maximo, or Psychonauts and people choose them over Ape Escape.

Bummer considering it wasn't due to lack of quality that the majority of their games didn't sell well, it was just the market at the time.
I'm willing to bet a new Ape Escape or Gravity Rush, or an original IP entirely from them would do really well nowadays given better marketing and a platform with a larger and more receptive audience. Wouldn't do God of War numbers but they'd be getting consistent hits. But I guess we'll never know for sure.

@PuppetMaster They had stuff after the main show granted, but the people who get to play the games at E3, are a tiny percentage of the market compared to people who are likely to watch the shows. And yeah to Sony's credit it was shown as other shows, but none of them are as big as E3. Delaying the release isn't a sign of marketing. While it wasn't a bad decision, it's a sign that they knew how underlooked it was.

That's the thing, there's no clear reason why Gravity Rush 2 sold so badly. It couldn't have been the games quality, because it reviewed well. It couldn't have been the fact that it wouldn't catch some attention, because gravity shifting is a fairly unique idea. It can't be the fact no one likes cell shaded graphics, because there are plenty of popular games with a similar art style. Pretty much the only option left, is the fact that it wasn't well marketed. Maybe January isn't a good time to release game because it's straight after christmas, but that doesn't seem to be a problem with other games.

@ThroughTheIris56 You need to do some research before saying TGS and Gamescom aren't as big as E3.

FYI. E3 2016 only has 50K visitors while Gamescom 2016 has 345K visitors and TGS 2016 has more than 250K visitors. Both TGS and Gamescom also has live coverage by plenty of gaming and non-gaming media. Heck, i would dare to claim both TGS and Gamescom are bigger than E3 who at that point the popularity already dwindling down a lot especially among publishers. That means GR 2 has more coverage at TGS and Gamescom compare to E3.

Not to mention in 2016 Sony also held PS Experience / PSX in December and they not just brought the demo but also showed Raven DLC trailer for people who visited or watched the event from home. I say that already rectified GR 2 absent from their E3 conference.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LDBtebfXsSQ&pp=ygUfR3Jhdml0eSBSdXNoIDIgZ2FtZXNjb20gdHJhaWxlcg%3D%3D

Again. There's no such a thing as GR 2 wasn't well marketed when Sony paraded the game all around the world for almost a full year before release. Despite the effort, it just can't escape that very niche and experimental anime vibe that targeted at diehard gamers who's willing to try something new.

And delaying a release also part of the marketing. If GR 2 released in December 2016, it will be overshadowed by games like FF XV, COD IW, Pokemon Sun & Moon, and Super Mario Maker as well fight for that last spotlight with Sony's own The Last Guardian. In January, there's a lot less competitors with GR 2 released 4-5 days early than Yakuza 0, RE 7, and Tales of Berseria.

You and some people needs to accept the fact that good games can failed commercially despite they has solid marketing. It could have to do with oversaturated market or gamers change their taste / preference.

Not every cel shaded games with anime style sold well either. Capcom killer7, E.X. Trooper, and Okami for example, they are good games but they doesn't sold well. Or Bamco Eternal Sonata, Sega Valkyria Chronicles & Gungrave, Level 5 Jeanne D'Arc, El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, and Platinum MadWorld.

@PuppetMaster While all that is great, it's not marketing. An anime short on youtube, a Japanese commercial on youtube, and licensing for anime figures is catering only to the smallest terminally online weeb audience. A 2B costume in GR2 spreads the reach of Nier Automata influence, not the other way around. Nobody bought GR2 because of a 2B costume.

Meanwhile games like Uncharted 4, Lost Legacy, Spider Man, God of War, etc got TV commercials, youtube ads, posters in stores, and previews in movie theaters for popular blockbuster movies. Did Gravity Rush get the same treatment? No, yet it is exactly the type of game that should have.

Not improbably because a fair share of PlayStation's core audience forgot what can qualify as one.🙄 Hopefully Astro Bot's success can influence the landscape a bit, but at this point seeing is believing.

translation: once you find the right formula to make the same game over and over again, you never want to make another creatively challenging game