Sony has officially confirmed that it will ‘arrange’ Japan Studio again from April 1st. One of the oldest first-party teams in the stable of the platform holder will be restructured around Team ASOBI, the developer of the recent Astro’s Playroom, as well as Astro Bot Rescue Mission and The Playroom VR.
A statement shared with IGN explained: ‘In an effort to further strengthen its business operations, SIE can confirm that PlayStation Studios Japan Studio will be reorganized into a new organization on April 1st. Japan Studio will once again focus on Team ASOBI, the creative team behind Astro’s Playroom, which will enable the team to focus on one vision and build on the popularity of Astro’s Playroom. ”
More interestingly, the manufacturer has confirmed that any external production roles will be “concentrated in the global features of PlayStation Studios”. In addition to internal projects, Japan Studio is best known for its collaborations, such as Bloodborne (which he made with FromSoftware) and Everybody’s Golf (which he made with Clap-Hanz).
This is an interesting, but not all, surprising turnaround – especially with the large number of high rooms to the developer of late. In terms of pure in-house productions, Japan Studio’s production over the past five years has consisted of a successor to Knack, two LocoRoco remasters and the aforementioned Astro Bot titles.
However, the developer’s back catalog is much more attractive, with legendary franchises such as Ape Escape and Shadow of the Colossus. It’s also true that while they may not have been big sellers, franchises like Gravity Rush added much-needed diversity to PlayStation’s first-party portfolio. It will be a pity to see the variety disappear.
The strangest thing of all is that Sony seems to be expanding in an era where competitors are buying up studios like toilet paper in a pandemic. back its operations. Clearly, quality is better than quantity, but in the here and now it does not feel like a particularly good example of the ‘organic growth’ that Jim Ryan, PlayStation boss, has been talking about for the past 18 months or so.