Japan Studio, the beloved PlayStation developer behind icons like Ape Escape and Gravity Rush, was shut down in 2021. Four years later, former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida has finally shed light on why.
The remnants of Japan Studio became Team Asobi, who just released the GOTY-winning Astro Bot.
"During my time, people give me credit, but one of the things I was not successful at was having a successful [live-service] game, and the other thing is I was not able to have amazingly successful games made in Japan," Yoshida said on the Sacred Symbols podcast (as reported by VGC).
"Other than Gran Turismo, we had many great products but didn't really have many triple-A level successful products. That became more and more important as the big games became bigger — the indies filled the gap and the double-A market seems to have disappeared."
Former Japan Studio lead Keiichiro Toyama (of Silent Hill fame), pitched several concepts before he left the company in 2020, but unfortunately, all of these were rejected.
Japan Studio also co-developed Bloodborne, Ico, and several other iconic games.
"Most of the IPs that Japan Studio had were in that smaller double-A sized group...
