Shuhei Yoshida speaks on the closure of Sony Japan Studio
, by Thibaut
The former head of PlayStation Studios and independent games has been very talkative since he left the company in January. Indeed, Shuhei Yoshida doesn't hesitate to tacke sensitive subjects such as changes in hierarchy and departures within Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Now, during the Sacred Symbols+ podcast on Last Stand Media, Yoshida has returned to the subject of Japan Studio's closure in April 2021, a branch that was responsible for titles such as Gravity Rush, The Last Guardian, Patapon, Knack and LocoRoco.
In particular, he spoke of the virtual disappearance of AA games, which were no longer able to exist between the independent scene and AAA titles.
“During my time, people give me credit, but one of the things I was not successful at was having a successful service game, and the other thing is I was not able to have amazingly successful games made in Japan."
"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."
"Most of the IPs that Japan Studio had were in that smaller double-A sized group and the market became really difficult for these kinds of games. 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."
Source: patreon.com