It's been a little over a year now since Sony Interactive Entertainment, rebranded its software department, Worldwide Studios, as PlayStation Studios. And I've noticed something about Sony's new strategy to acquiring and running studios so far. In the past, Sony Computer Entertainment's development structure was a hybrid of the internal department structure of other Japanese game companies, and the more autonomous subsidiary structure of Western publishers.
Throughout the PlayStation 1 and 2 era's SCE gradually established their own internal software development groups, as Sony began to develop many of its first party titles in-house to compete with the in-house talent of its fellow Japanese competitors, Nintendo and Sega, as well as other Japanese publishers like Capcom or Namco. Unlike those companies however, where the majority of their internal teams were divided into small groups within the same building in Japan, SCE took a more global approach to in-house development, establishing additional internal studios in places across the globe like Santa Monica, San Diego, London, and Cambridge, as well as expanding its studio in Tokyo HQ. Nintendo and Sega toyed around with this a little in America with Nintendo having Nintendo Software Technology, and Sega's Technical Institute. But Sony made it their primary focus.
SCE Japan Studio, SCE Santa Monica Studio, SCE San Diego Studio, SCE Bend Studio, SCE London Studio, and SCE Cambridge Studio were gradually built, and helped create some of the PS1 and PS2's best games. By the end of the PS2 generation, Sony's in-house development started to become a force to be taken seriously, with games like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus (SCE Japan), God of War (SCE Santa Monica), and The Getaway and SingStar (SCE London). SCE established its Worldwide Studios division in 2005 in order to unite both Sony's internal teams, and its acquired studios like Naughty Dog and Incognic under a centralized umbrella. The internal software teams would also start individually overseeing games from independent developers as well, with Santa Monica Studio leading the charge with titles like Fat Princess, Flow, Flower, and Journey.
With the previous structure, SCE's development was a combination of both the worldwide subsidiary approach of western companies like EA and Microsoft Game Studios, and the more Japanese internal-department focused approach of publishers like Nintendo or Capcom.
As we move into the PlayStation 5 however, Sony has been moving in a different direction. With PlayStation Studios, SIE has focused more on buying unique, individual studios, rather than growing or expanding upon its pre-existing internal ones, moving more closer to the western publisher model than the hybrid model SCE used. I think that's part of the reason why, Sony controversially replaced Japan Studio, with Team Asobi, and why Santa Monica, London, and San Diego Studios shut down their external production groups. It was a way to move away from the more Japanese elements of the previous WWS structure such as internally named departments. The focus now is on buying out promising new developers to fill a role in PS Studios such as Firesprite or Nixxes, while any external partnerships could be handled by either Xdev, or the larger, more homogeneous functions of PS Studios.
I'm not saying one is better than the other, but I feel like the combination of Japanese and Western studio philosophies was what made Sony Computer Entertainment pretty unique as a game developer/publisher, especially a Japanese one.
