Ex-PlayStation indies boss Shuhei Yoshida has revealed throughout a chat on the Laptop Leisure Builders Convention that Sony Interactive Leisure Japan Studio shut its doorways primarily on account of its video games failing to drive {hardware} gross sales.
Gamers from world wide have mentioned that it’s unbelievable that Sony would shut down Japan Studio. Japan Studio launched a great deal of video games, inventive video games, didn’t it? At the moment I used to be saying one thing related.
At the moment, as the top of improvement, I used to be anxious about [Keiichiro] Toyama [creator of Silent Hill] and the opposite Japanese builders at Japan Studio. However whereas they got here up with a variety of inventive concepts, the video games they made weren’t massive in scale. What we name AA video games are an ideal match for the PlayStation Vita, however we had been slowly shifting to AAA on the PS4 and PS5, and typically it’s troublesome to scale up like that.
As an organization, PlayStation needed to drive {hardware} gross sales with video games like God of Conflict and Uncharted, as a result of that’s the sort of recreation that’s in demand. It’s laborious for Japan Studio to launch a brand new sequence on console.
Yoshida’s feedback echo what he advised AV Watch final yr, when he revealed that the Japan staff was shuttered as Sony needed to shift away from AA video games, one thing which the staff had been excellent at however once more, they weren’t sufficient to push gross sales of {hardware}. SCI Japan Studio was shuttered in 2021, with its final venture being the Demon’s Souls remake with Bluepoint Video games.
Over time, the corporate had been accountable for a myriad of key titles for PlayStation, together with Astro Bot, Shadow of the Colossus, Gravity Rush 2, White Knight Chronicles, Echochrome, Siren, Ape Escape, and The Legend of Dragoon amongst others.
Since leaving Sony, Yoshida has taken half in quite a few interviews about quite a lot of subjects. Again in April this yr, the previous PlayStation govt reportedly revealed that the he was fired from his place with SCI Worldwide Studios as he “didn’t hear” to then-CEO Jim Ryan. He additionally advised Sport File in April 2025 that he doubtless wasn’t thought-about for the position of PlayStation CEO as he bosses “didn’t belief me as [to] making the perfect enterprise selections.”
[Source – Computer Entertainment Developers Conference via GamesRadar]
