The biggest mistakes Sony ever did handling their First Parties like Japan Studios? And others ?

[mjk45]

method114 said:

SegaHeart said:

Who is to blame for the shutdown of Japan Studio, Team Ico? Psygnosis? Nana-On Sha? If Sony could they can maybe bring them back? Because I miss Shadow of the collosus , Colony Wars, Parappa The Rapper, Gravity Rush.

The games probably didn't make much money if any at all. I remember at some point Sony saying that a lot of their exclusives lose money but then a game like TLOU will more than make up for those losses. It was really only a matter of time until a company that size decides that while the games may be interesting and have a cult like following it's not going anywhere and just continuing to lose money for them.

Yoshida said that the system where a percentage of the profits are funnelled back into WWS budget meant that each big AAA game indirectly subsidises on average 7 other games to be made, and while most of those games do end up either breaking even or making a small profit, they leave an imprint on the library that goes beyond just raw numbers and that importance is due to the less tangible aspects like their impact on the shape of the Sony gaming library through the diversity and broader range they bring to the games library.

The shutdown is linked to a number of factors like the delay of the Last Guardian and the fact that Ueda had left and the last two years of production were done with his new studio so team Ico was already defunct a long time before the games eventual release and that meant one of the major pillars at Japan studio was gone.

Also the feeling that much of what had made Japan Studio was now rooted in the past and first party development had moved on and the hole that would be left by no longer making the kind of games and variety that Japan studio added to the PS library could be filled by utilising Japanese 3rd parties, along with the benefit of no longer having to navigate the game development issues that originated from Japan studios habit of bringing in bright new producers in the hopes that they would turn out something new and interesting, while this had some great results it also had the downside of being susceptible to meandering production where you had many ideas being thrown around but struggled to get any coherency and forward movement.

Those issues put pressure on a model where the smaller production budgets and costs allowed for profitable sales to be made on smaller volumes but that meant there was very little headroom was built in for any overspending or delays.

So these and other more general  factors like globalisation of the industry also while companies are out there to make a profit there has definitely been a shift at Sony especially under Ryan away from we can chase profit while still catering for those segments that while not the most profitable are important to our customers .

Last edited by mjk45 - on 15 December 2022