The former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida has said that one of the main contributing factors behind the closure of Sony's Japan Studio was the disappearance of the AA market. Speaking on the Sacred Symbols+ podcast (via VGC), Yoshida said that one of his failures during his tenure as the Head of Worldwide Studios was not having "amazingly successful games made in Japan".
He goes on to say that the market dictated the closure of Sony Japan Studio, as it was increasingly seeking big-budget titles, and Sony's Japanese outlets weren't producing them outside of Gran Turismo. "Other than Gran Turismo, we had many great products but didn’t really have many AAA-level successful products. That became more and more important as the big games became bigger — the indies filled the gap and the AA market seems to have disappeared."
The market became "very difficult" for AA games at the time, and most of Sony Japan Studio's releases fell into that category, said Yoshida. "For example, after Gravity Rush 2, [director Keiichiro Toyama] tried to come up with a new concept, but we were not able to greenlight any of his new concepts, even though they were really interesting." Sony was looking for AAA titles, so "we really struggled to get the game going", according to Yoshida.
While the Japanese developer created many hardcore PlayStation favourites like Forbidden Siren, Gravity Rush, and Puppeteer, the games very rarely sold well — a regularly overlooked fact when fans call for the return of the studio. The team was disbanded in 2021, though Team Asobi remained and went on to create last year's critical darling Astro Bot.
How do you react to Shuhei Yoshida's comments? Let us know in the comments below.
[source patreon.com, via videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 82
Weren't they involved in Blood Borne too?
However, the market fluctuates and people seem to be more open to AA games again. So i hope Playstation has the insight to keep pivoting.
A real shame. Japan Studio gave Playstation 1st party that much needed creative touch that they kind of just don't have anymore. I love my big budget single player games as much as the next guy but games like Gravity Rush always set Sony apart from the rest. At least for me anyway.
I want to say I disagree but the sales numbers prove this sentiment right. People complain about closures but weren’t buying games. A lot of people get mad when a big publisher makes a smaller game (even if the game is good) because they feel like it is taking a massive game from them instead of being a way to bring in revenue, train newer staff, increase profit and market share so they get more budget for the big games while giving consumers more good games to play. Indies are getting better but imo there aren’t enough consistent studios to make up for the loss of the smaller but high quality games. Here’s hoping more space gets carved out for these types of games to flourish again.
Sad situation. Sony needs these types of mid-sized games to fill the calendar between their major releases.
I'm still mad about the closure of Japan Studio and Sony focusing more on AAA games and expecting them to be a multi-million dollar hit.
Hopefully, with the success of Astrobot and with the problems that AAA games are encountering nowadays, Sony would go back and make more AA games
Did the market not want AA games or did they just not market AA games well (or much at all?)
Still a huge waste of talent to close them down. Could've tasked them with making a big budget AAA that would appeal to the West. Or have them work support until the market favored AA again. OR, marketing could've figured out how to sell their games; I remain very convinced that any game can be successful with the right marketing.
But no, they just closed them. I'm just saying, if Nintendo's consumer-base allows teams like Next Level and Good Feel to succeed, Sony could've figured out something for one of the most legendary teams in the industry.
Puppeteer on a 3D TV was a unique and wonderful experience which became one of my personal highlights of that entire generation.
It saddens me that it never found more of a fanbase.
This is the thing a lot of people don't seem to understand. Back when Sony made smaller games they were filling a large gap in the market. Now there are literally hundreds of studios making games that fill the Indie, AA and triple-I space. There isn't a large gap that needs to be filled anymore.
This recent SoP had loads of cool AA games. A lot of people don't seem to care about them. This is a potential result for many of those studios.
They'll keep coming though 😁 and I'll keep buying them. Many of my favourites games would be classed as "AA".
It's got to be tough making these kinds of decisions.
On one hand, you have someone like Nintendo who can balance out making games that don't cost more than the GDP of a small country to develop as well bigger budget titles and pretty much every game is profitable.
On the other hand, you have Sony who would probably love to be able to make cheaper games to fill the void between larger titles but lose money doing it because the audience doesn't want those games.
I guess it's just gamer expectations as much as anything. Nintendo is known for IP across a broad spectrum of "budgets", where as Sony has put itself in a position that only AAA games matter to the audience.
And the AA gaming scene was never seen again.
Looks at Nintendo Switch library….
@Ashina I'd say Astro-bot is still a AAA game, just a smaller one. Around 70 full time staff plus hundreds of contractors (credits) is still a pretty large scale game. But I agree i'd like to see Sony make a few more games of this type of scope.
The AA market didn't disappear at all. Publishers and investors wanted (want) to see unreasonably high growth and abandoned AA because they wouldn't make "enough" profit.
Yet, AA games and indies are what will save the industry from doom. AAA games need to die as quickly as possible.
@Loamy
Would you recommend a few? Being from this or past generations. I always love to try new stuff.
The thing is, all those games they used to fill out their schedule with on PS3/PS4, stuff like Journey, Flower, Escape Plan, Fat Princess, Trash Panic, and so on, they've been replaced by indies.
Back in the day there'd be like two or three new games on the PS Store per week. Now there's 20-30 new games per day.
I do wish they'd still find a slot in their schedule for stuff like Everybody's Golf though.
@GigaGaia not even close,.look at sales figures the last 5 indie.and AA together still don't even come close, so no they won't be saving *****.
Hopefully the AA developers get picked up to work on some decent games in the coming future
@get2sammyb a new Everybodys Golf would be amazing. I actually took my tv and ps4 pro out into the garden in the summer and played Everybody’s Golf VR too death!!! It was godlike gaming
@themightyant Thats true! The market is just so saturated, there’s too many games releasing. This has become such a bloated industry! I say time for some more consolidation 😅 come on Sony, buy a few of your own publishers already.
Not sure how it will help exactly lol, but just want them to bolster their studios before others snatch everything up
One look at the sales for their AA games says it all, and now the market is flooded with AA games and I'd even go as far as classing the majority of Nintendo's games as AA. So I would say there's no point in sony going back to making AA games in mass, the odd one here and there like Astro Bot or Ape Escape etc would be fine.
This sounds like AA market was stuck on portable consoles, aka the PSVita Sony abandoned on release. That's too bad.
They could make a great Horizon or GOW spinoff action-adventure in a top down perspective that would sell like hot cakes. They could make 10 of these on the same budget as the main series, lowering the risk and guaranteeing steady income. I'd be up for a 40€ 20h adventure if the gameplay is good.
I just... dont believe this? The focus on AAA games only needs to die and quickly. Perhaps as a market leader Sony could have led the way and made more effort in developing better AA games with their Studios instead of chasing live service vaporware and over bloated AAA games.
If as they said, Indies replaced AA then why didnt they get Japan Studios developing fantastic indie games as a way of reacting to the market instead of shuttering a studio and wasting all that talent.
Funny how the market changes. Im only buying games from eastern devs at this point. Not much in the AAA space from the west
It's a sad truth 😔
Even if Japan Studio still exist today and showed some of their unique AA games lineup at this month SoP, i bet plenty of people aren't gonna buy it. Instead, they're gonna mocked those games "it's too weird", "not worth the money", etc etc.
But i hope Team Asobi can carry Japan Studio torch...
This honestly seems like a very dumb reasoning. If you price the product appropriately, AA games will sell just as well (or better) than AAA games. Sometimes it's nice to have games with a little bit more meat around the bones than some smaller indies, but not as bloated as AAA games.
Gravity Rush was one of my favorites of all time. For some reason I liked the first more than the second
Truthfully, I’d rather have Sony backed AA titles than most of what releases nowadays. They padded the release schedule and I bought more of them in the past than the Sony AAA games. Journey and Flower impacted me personally more than Killzone and Infamous did in the PS3 era.
The lack of “creative Sony” is probably a chunky enough reason why I’m sort of feeling iffy on the release schedule this year.
Days gone, hzd, tlou 1/2, dead space, silent hill 2, resident evil, soul reaver, tomb raider remasters/remakes. Baldurs gate iii, astro bot, kcd2, and other sequels.
I don't think gamers WANT new experiences.
It's a shame cause Japan Studio made a lot of unique titles, but the writing was on the wall that they just didn't sell well enough.
@LogicStrikesAgain (glances at Koei Tecmo) 😉😉
I loved Gravity Rush, Rain, Locoroco, Puppeteer to name a few of their games. They may not have been sellers but they gave Sony character showing that they are willing to try something different. Their current games are fantastic but sometimes feel a bit generic. Sony needs to realize that they need to supplement their AAA games with smaller and unique games.
Please, even his own wording bookmarking that statement makes it rather clear that the AA market didn't disappear, Sony execs just made the conscious choice to sideline it. They were looking for AAA, big-expense-big-profit titles and refused to give anything less the time of day, it's right there.
This is a marketing issue. If the market changed without a fight then you’re just weak.
@somnambulance “Truthfully, I’d rather have Sony backed AA titles than most of what releases nowadays”
But they did continue to back AA and indies this generation though. Whether by financial backing, publishing them, making exclusivity deals or marketing them in SoPs. Think Sifu, Tchia, Stray, Bugsnax, Dave the Diver, Ultros, Pacific Drive, Kena Bridge of Spirits, Humanity, Fist: Forged in Shadows. And now with Midnight Murder Club, Baby Steps and Sword of the Sea
Well, you can’t blame me because I’m one of the few that actually bought those games.
a bit of nonsense all these yoshida takes. does anyone actually believe that gamers were disappointed by the budget of gravity rush 2 and that is why it didn't sell well? how many people are even able to tell the difference between AA and AAA? with good art direction and polished mechanics, that line can be blurred rather well. it was a great game, but it was a bit niche and there was a lack of marketing in the west just like the first game. this has nothing to do with its budget and trying to justify the closure of japan studio like this is really sad.
In the case of gravity rush, I think the marketing was completely fair for what is apparently an AA series and idk what else people are expecting from them. They revealed it at their E3s back when those were important along with the usual trailers, games get leading up to release. They gave it 2 really cool animated specials available for free, had a cool live action ad for Japan and still couldn't get people to buy these amazing games. Hell it's getting a live action movie now too if it's not stuck in limbo. Hopefully it's actually good, so maybe it'll push even a few extra people towards the games like tlou did
@LogicStrikesAgain I suppose that’s true to some extent. Really enjoyed about half the games you listed, but I did buy them all. Shu did his job getting decent indie partnerships for sure. Dave the Diver, in fact, was the game I invested the most time into last year, topping even Final Fantasy Rebirth (though my son’s five playthroughs of Astro Bot ranked that game #1 for the year on total hours count for my console). I just wish Sony was still making these games too. There’s a different vibe, you know?
As of right now Dreams of Another and Sword of the Sea are two of my most anticipated titles. I’ll likely buy Baby Steps too, just because it’s different. Midnight Murder Club, I liked the beta, but that one would have to have a good price to entice my multiplayer friends to party up on it. The games are coming, but some of these games I wonder where the updates are when new stuff keeps getting announced sometimes.
@Oram77 They basically produced it but they didn't do any development on it I don't think. That part of Japan Studio did a lot of working with third parties but it was nothing that couldn't be transferred to Xdev, which is what they did. Given that is Xdev's day job, it made more sense to scale them up to be worldwide rather than just Europe, then it did to keep that ongoing in Japan.
I completely agree with this. We now get AAA games or indie games and not much in between is successful.
Look at games like Banishers (which I'm playing now and is incredible), Outcast: New Beginnings and unknown 9 for example. all were recent examples of AA but all very poor sales
@Ryu_Niiyama Agree 100% with this. Look at POP the Lost Crown. People SAY that want that type of game but don't really support it on the rare occasion they are made.
2 biggest PlayStation mistakes is the closures of japan studio and raising the prices for psplus essentials.word up son
Utter nonsense. It closed because of greed and very narrow vision from their overlords. The real problem with the industry and Sony is greed driven live service chasing, and extremely bloated developer operation structure and overall dev times.
It's become increasingly clear that these games that are taking 7 years to produce shouldn't be, and there are a myriad of ways to shorten that time and cost by at least 30%. So to suggest that AA is dead is just insane because they take less time and done more efficiency wouldn't need to sell 10 million to simply make their cost back. What is dying is the tolerance for the predation, remakes, and sequels that cost 300 million, take 7 years to produce, and end up being repetitive uninspired clones anyways.
What's missing is creativity and actual gamers involved in the process. What's missing is 100s and 100s of ips sitting dormant in favor of less than a dozen played out ones.
@Porco None of what Yoshida has said here is really news, it's really a different way of saying what we have always known. We've known since the PS3 days that Japan Studio could make good games but they simply did not sell enough. The studio was "rebooted" multiple times and never came close to being commercially successful.
So Sony took the part that sold games, and closed the rest of it. History seems to be on their side so far judging by Astrobot. People need to take off the rose tinted glasses and realise that studios need to be profitable at some point and Japan Studio wasn't doing that. Producing other games by major studios isn't enough to keep an entire development studio in business when their own games don't sell.
is it a loss for interesting, less design-by-comitee experiences? Yes. Did Sony take a businesses decision based on over a decade of trying to make the studio work? Also yes. Has Sony focusing on Team Asobi been a success? Yes.
What ever happened to...
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2024/03/rumour-gravity-rush-2-remaster-dropping-onto-ps5-pc-reveal-coming-in-may
@3Above love that game. Still working through it. I didn’t grow up with the original POP so it has been fun playing the return to that gameplay style.
As much as I hate the closures I am grateful that the studios got to put out these games in the first place. The gaming populace is so fickle so some games being a one and done is better than nothing sometimes.
Everyone living in an alternate reality in the comments section as I suspected. The people here are just so disconnected from the real market.
@LogicStrikesAgain I'm definitely against any more consolidation until they have consolidated their current studios and everyone stops getting fired!
Thankfully the AA market has made a big return this Gen. Shame Sony didn't that market coming back as having smaller games between the big AAA games would make the wait between much easier.
@themightyant Yeah, i get what you’re saying, i was just playing a bit. But truthfully, i am not opposed to them acquiring more. Acquisitions can be a positive thing as well, and don't automatically have to lead to lay offs.
I think consolidation will happen whether Sony is a part of it or not. The industry is just wayyy too bloated. The amount of games releasing just makes it way too hard for studios to find succes in sales. I think 10 years from now, the industry will look very different. Again, whether Sony snatches some of these publishers/studios or not, somebody will. Next in line, Ubisoft going to Tencent perhaps? 🤔
@KoopaTheGamer “ If you price the product appropriately “
An entire article based on an interview and you seem to be the only one to directly address the price. The problem isn’t people don’t want to play AA games, the problem is companies charging AAA prices for AA games. 🤑
And Sony didn’t drop AA for AAA, they dropped AA and AAA for live service dreck. Some of which is free to start. But they charge AAA prices for AA games. And Helldivers 2 did well at $40, a nice AA price.
And while Sony talks about no indie competition before the PS3 days the competition is really their own subscription service PS+, and previously Now. Why pay a full AAA price for an AA game when you can play it on PS+, which after PS4 launched you NEEDED it to play online, so you basically could argue you were getting the game almost free b/c you were paying for the online.
Sony talks down SO MUCH about Gamepass meanwhile they themselves have 3 different PS+ levels. Sure their big AAA games aren’t there day 1 but some are showing up in a year or 2. For a single player game, that may take a year until it’s finished anyway, why not wait. You’re paying to play online whether you like it or not.
It’s how I’ve played a lot of AA games that I didn’t want to pay the AAA price for. Or maybe even the AA price. But “The Plucky Squire” is 1 of the best games I’ve played in awhile, and I played it on PS+.
Sony could make these AA games at AA prices or just put them on their service, and still probably make a profit, but it isn’t the big “live service” bucks. B/c that has worked out so well for them.
But of course they blame it on gamers, and take no responsibility at all. 😝
I don't believe that, there's always a market for great games. Those are three of some of the greatest games ever made. So I don't understand.
The market needs more AA games they tend to be incredibly creative!
@Brundleflies21 I agree, it was such a special game!
@LogicStrikesAgain Totally agree. Wasn't sure how serious you were being originally. But the reality is too many games release considering how many people are stuck in black hole games like COD, Fortnite, Minecraft etc. It means that far too many of them are doomed to fail.
@Lup oh wow, there's so many 😂 I'm big on horror so my collection is mostly of the creepy variety (none of the listed ones are particularly scary though) but here's a mix of genres from this gen - in no particular order:
The Chant (horror-action)
In Sound Mind (horror-adventure)
Tormented Souls (oldschool horror)
Fobia St. Dinfna Hotel (horror-shooter)
Chernobylite (horror/survival FPS)
Evil West (TPS)
Nobody Wants to Die (first-person investigative-adventure)
Still Wakes the Deep (Horror-adventure)
The Inquisitor (Third-person fantasy action)
Indika (Very bizzare adventure game - I have lots of love for this one)
Gungrave G.O.R.E. (TPS)
Slitterhead (horror-action)
For a PS4 wildcard try out Disaster Report 4 😂 I'll leave that one for you to discover.
I could go on for ages but these are some that I particularly enjoyed 👍
@Loamy
Evil West I finished a few weeks ago! It was great fun.
Gungrave too, I even finished the PS2 one back in the day.
There's a few ones I didn't even know about, so thanks for the list!
@Lup Awesome! Those two are so much fun. Simple but very effective gameplay. I've wanted to play the older Gungrave for a while but I don't have the means at the moment.
Glad to introduce you to some more obscure ones 😁 I go a bit mad for physical copies of the weird horror games. I've got a whole shelf dedicated to them.
@Lowdefal seeing that sony was funding all these projects, shouldn't there have been more oversight and understanding as to how japan studio should pivot if their games weren't selling? why were so many projects being greenlit that had no chance of succeeding according to their metrics? by the looks of things, it isn't japan studio that failed sony, it is sony that failed japan studio.
it is the job of the publisher to figure out the markets and determine what works at the end of the day. otherwise, it would be akin to sony encouraging one of its studios to create a product that is not desireable... and after repeated attempts at not reaching a demographic (that barely exists), sony was left with no other choice but to close the studio. that's a paradox if i've ever seen one. i believe jim ryan's warped, US centric bias also had a lot to do with this.
the solution to this would be to simply reduce the budget and scale of the teams at japan studio, thus lowering the margins required to be profitable and successful and/or focusing on concepts that might have wider appeal and be less niche by their nature. sony did neither. closing down the studio was mismanagement on top of mismanagement.
It didn’t disappear, it just stopped being understood. What really happened is that Sony tried to turn AA studios into AAA studios and when that didn’t work, they shut them down blaming lack of interest in indies. This is very similar to Jim’s excuse that the vita failed because “no one likes handhelds”. Both are copouts.
Really? Japan Studio made most of my all time favorite games. I find it hard to believe that I'm the minority in thinking so...
Ubderstandable but that doesn't mean they ahould leave their IPs behind. At the very least remaster them in a big collection in some wya or another a la Rare Replay.
Like a few others have said the market didn't f****** disappear dude, what actually happened was executives and shareholders deciding to only follow Ubisoft style "AAA" games (remember Ubi were the ones to popularize that term to begin with) and the corresponding budget inflation that causes, leading to more and more resources(as game development in general rose in costs) being put into those AAA games instead of any other internal studio. Seconding the Nintendo points as well, they have very very tightly controlled budgets specifically so games with less mainstream potential DON'T need to sell millions and millions to make a return. Smart business decisions leading to a happy, even arguably cult-like fanbase. Who would've thought?
Big sales numbers shouldn't be everything, with good marketing the smaller budget games can help mold public perception of the company's artistry, pad out calendar releases and the exclusives output. They don't even have to be original IPs, a The Last of Us or a Horizon spin-off with a simpler look and unique gameplay hook could sell well. It's literally Nintendo's playbook, put out lots of AA, remasters and remakes in between the big games to reduce droughts.
And now all Sony has is AAA remakes and remasters.
That's not the AA market, it's the niche game market.
Plenty of companies in japan still making great AA games like Falcom and nipon ichi.
The thing is, Sony doesn't want small gains to foster consumer trust, they want big blockbusters that may make millions and that is simply short sightedness.
You can have both. Is Nintendo not proof of that as well?
Hurts. Probably all of my favorite games are AA titles.
At least we can look back at the golden PS2 era.
@Nem I think between like 2010 and 2017 there definitely was a period where people weren't interested in AA games. But then AAA games started becoming live service eslop and people went back to wanting good creative AA games again. I think that's also why the Wii U had a great library that nobody wanted at the time until they were rereleased on the Switch and everyone realized all of those games were amazing.
Still sad, Japan Studio's games were legendary and really unique. Bad marketing didn't help either.
Been stressing the sales point forever now... but what pisses me off more than anything was how twisted the story of Sony's promotion over Gravity Rush was. Everyone says it wasn't enough when they went absolutely crazy with it!
All of that not even counting how much money that probably went into making a giant sequel to a Vita game on consoles... And no one ever talks about Puppeteer. I'm amazed it was even mentioned here!
From comments on push square it's obvious that there are quite a few that only deem exclusive AAA games worthy of any attention, so yeah... that mindset is harmful for the entire industry.
I think that's a load of nonsense. Some studios were willing to make small games like Song of the Deep or Pentiment. Japan Studio wasn't making the money Sony/Western PlayStation staff want.
I ignored mobile, many jumped on it, messed up/worked around it. People back on handhelds again.
They barely marketed the Japanese games anyway & became support staff on Japanese side to let go & Asobi/localization/marketing/Polyphony. Was it a lot of staff yes.
I hated PS4/5 gen big games so the niche were all I was buying on PS4. They cut them, I buy no 1st party anymore. XD Xbox variety is hit & miss. So 3rd party PS4/Xbox One & Switch everything else now. I don't buy the Indies that much.
Are they better of now, maybe. Were all selling well, not really but again marketing was a major factor, western studios got more support.
So fans buy Nippon Ichi, Idea Factory/Compile, Falcom, Gust, SpikeChun, & more AA devs/pubs or Nintendo. Vita fans went to Switch.
Japan Studios were Nintendo equivalent on PS.
Slitterhead was Team Siren/Gravity to be Bokeh, Puppeteer in there. Claphands Everybody's Tennis/Golf series. Ico to forget name but new studio/project now & other small titles.
Support for Deracine & others or PSP Indie style games Japan Studios had. Western fans tried, Japanese fans tried. Marketing was worthless.
No Man's Sky/Nightingale is western vets making a new game & building up/trying a new from scratch (besides Nightingale probably off back of procedural generation attempts for Mass Effect Andromanda & bad at reading survival game audience), most others make same game just different license. Sigh.
Was Japan Studios too big yes probably. But anymore & cheaper then the more western studios I highly doubt it. Western studios waste way more money.
Seeing Santa Monica, San Diego or XDev or others on occasion for PSVR or other types of games even. I forget the name. Let Alone, Left Inside, I forget its name.
GT5/Lost Guardian were expensive yes, but Gravity Rush, Claphands sports games, Knack 1 & 2, the PSP Loco Roco, Patapon & more were alongside Indies/PS Minis/mobile. So I call nonsense on that.
Western studios could have done small projects too, some even assisted on small projects.
But also do better marketing instead of ignoring them, only a niche amount of us actually cared and you did nothing to support them.
Companies want to get bigger. Staff want bigger budgets, more room to mess up clearly. More so western ones, Japanese I think with what they can they have gameplay ideas, they work in their budgets. Some get bigger sure, but even still. The west wants too big and many western vets are just so in their own world even when they split to form a new studio it's hilarious. XD
Slitterhead I think needs a bit more but is still good. Claphands doing great. New Ico like game from I get the studio's name.
Even Chibi Robo is getting a successor because Nintendo didn't really help Skip that much. Let alone Alpha Dream.
But do staff really have to be that ignorant to gameplay design (more so the west) and go yep we want to be treated as AAA/AAAA and have efficiency, execs/pubs with particular demands? Or same IP design?
I mean the vets that split off still want same budgets yet don't even pay attention to how much money is used, started again, etc., sigh.
They can enjoy making a successor all they want like prior IP or NMS/Nightingale make a new & see how they go, but nope. It's so stupid.
@Porco Even besides marketing. I think it's just what they did. Gravity Rush I think people assumed it was an anime game and ignored it. People meme and don't care for Knack, Last Guardian cost too much and appealed to some. Gran Turismo 5 cost likely more with licenses/sponsors/cars/music then Last Guardian I bet. It sold well but still.
To me Knack was the God of War of old format I wanted over God of War 2018, I get the appeal of the GOW2018/R but Knack just filled in the space for me instead.
I think a another Siren would have been more ideal for sales but either way. Would have cost a bit too. Even the episodic nature of the PS3 Siren was a bit odd but understandable with PSN/PS Store in mind like that, online co-op, PSP, Move, 3D and other things Sony wanted to push.
I think they tried but they just didn't work for the Japanese or wider Western audience and the sizeable western niche audience fans or Japanese fans just weren't enough or sales expectations were too high as if they had to be on the same level as western sales and it just didn't make sense.
I thought they were great but most just didn't see them or assumed they were something else.
That or bad release times. I mean as if Blinx 2/Halo 2, Titanfall 2 and COD/BF or I assume Puppeteer and other Sony 1st party IPs or third parties crowding things didn't help.
For PSP not sure, but PS3 yeah way too many and Puppeteer just not getting seen among them.
The PS4 stuff it varies I think.
That and well Vita games like Soul Sacrifice/Freedom Wars or support side stuff, Deracine with FromSoft for PSVR among other support stuff for other studios (and even besides Bloodborne).
I personally think Sony should try making games that are not the AAA games that are cheaper and faster to produce. The problem with most game development right now is that development studios seem to only want to make games that are in their mind are guaranteed to make at least 2-3 times the development costs or it not even worth making the game. And it seems that if a game cost less than $100 million, it just not worth making. Large developer sure we could make this game for about $1 million are guaranteed to make nearly $25-$40 million in sales but that just is not enough.
Gotta love internet experts trying to school executives with far better insight than we could possibly have.
Pfft. What does Yoshida know compared to the average vocal gamer?
@FingerShot Gravity rush is the only one of the three that i've actually heard of, and wasn't that a PS Vita game?
The fact that they didn't green light any concepts shows how risk averse they had become. Chasing big money instead of modest successes. And now they are just shutting everything instead of releasing anything. How is that a better idea?
I'm glad of AA games like returnal getting a release because they are actually different.
And Astrobot wasn't a risk because the previous Astrobot Rescue Mission was widely regarded as one of the best ever psvr1 games.
Death of Japan Studio effectively killed off Everybody's Golf - causing Clap Hanz to look elsewhere and guess what, it ended up (via Apple Arcade) on the Switch, the definitive home of indies these days.
I don't think Shu is quite right - the AA market disappeared because PS didn't support it, certainly post-PS5 release and after that it was too late.
@Ultimapunch That's the thing. I think creative games as you put it are not the AA market. They are the niche market and perhaps it has disappeared.
Falcom and nippon ichi make traditional, strategy rpg's or action RPG's. They are making things that still sell.
In the case of Sony this could be a wild arms, for example. It could be a wipeout or even a more modestly budgeted legend of dragoon. Ape escape comes to mind as well. It doesn't need to be weird like gravity rush and pupeteer. Those feel more like indie games in approach, which is where the "creative" niche market moved to.
AA just released Kingdom Come 2 so dunno what he's talking about. People wan AA more then ever .
@somnambulance Flower was awesome.
@nessisonett this isn’t a marketing issue it’s an industry wide saturation issue. There are too many releases - too much choice is good for consumers but bad for business.
This year PS5 will pass PS4 in cumulative releases with 5 less years on the market. PlayStation isn’t going to put any money in creating or marketing small releases because it’s not worth it. Why would you market a small game when the ROI is going to be low? Sony isn’t going to waste time and resources on something that has minimal returns when there are more development teams than ever churning out AA quality games.
Pair that with the fact that people don’t want to pay more for games when costs are raising and the majority of playtime is spent in live service - it’s not smart business for Sony to invest in AA games. If they are going to do something it’s either go back to the well and release stuff they KNOW will do well or bet big. All the live service ***** was a result of that.
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