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Forums - Sony - Weird and creative PlayStation games: Japan Studio vs. Santa Monica Studio (PS2 through PS4)

 

Which Sony development department was the real king of experimental first party?

WWS Japan Studio (Patapon... 7 87.50%
 
WWS Santa Monica Studio (... 1 12.50%
 
Both 0 0%
 
Neither 0 0%
 
Total:8
TheMisterManGuy on 22 November 2025
During the height of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios (now PlayStation Studios) in the PS2 through PS4 eras, the two MVPs of Sony's experimental first party development and publishing were it's Japan Studio, and it's Santa Monica Studio.

Japan Studio was PlayStation's oldest first party production studio. Though it tragically shuttered in 2021 (spiritually replaced by Team Asobi), the group is still fondly remembered for the weird, unique, and innovative titles it supported. Whether they were making games internally or producing titles created at external studios, Japan Studio's games always brought something unique and interesting to PlayStation. From Ape Escape, to Patapon, to LocoRoco, to the Team ICO series, and games like Gravity Rush, Bloodborne and Puppeteer, Sony Japan was always exciting.

Over in the U.S. meanwhile, Santa Monica Studio is perhaps best known for the God of War franchise, still one of Sony's biggest money makers next to Gran Turismo and Naughty Dog. But the Santa Monica department's functions were far broader than just making that franchise. Perhaps they're better known in the PS3 through PS4 gens as the producers of weird, experimental indie stuff. Flow, Flower, Journey, Unfinished Swan, Datura, Sorcery, and PlayStation All-Stars to name a few. They also oversaw another Sony dev, Incognito Entertainment (Twisted Metal Black guys) before they were shut down. In recent years, Sony Santa Monica shedded much of its external development as part of the PS Studios restructuring to concentrate solely on it's own internal development.

Interestingly, Japan and Santa Monica always had a very symbiotic relationship with eachother, with SMS doing the English localizations for Japan Studio titles, and vice versa. And Allan Becker, one of the founders of Santa Monica, was in charge of Japan from 2011-2020.

So between the weird, creative output of both, which did you think had the best?
 



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curl-6 on 22 November 2025

I preferred Japan Studios' games personally; stuff like Shadow of the Colossus and Puppeteer were brilliant, whereas I was never a fan of Flower, Journey, etc.

Still such a shame the former had to die.



Random_Matt on 22 November 2025

Tokyo Jungle I hear is pretty cool.



Signalstar on 23 November 2025

Shadow of the Colossus, Gravity Rush, and Puppeteer were great.

Outside of GOW I would say I prefer Japan Studios output.



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hunter_alien on 23 November 2025
Signalstar said:

Shadow of the Colossus, Gravity Rush, and Puppeteer were great.

Outside of GOW I would say I prefer Japan Studios output.

This. While Santa Monica helped out a lot of developers with some amazing results (and GoW is one of the best mega franchises out there), there are some Japan Studio heavy hitters that are on a different level. Puppeteer is the most criminally underrated and forgotten game ever created and I am ready to fight over this!



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curl-6 on 23 November 2025

I miss when Playstation still made so many creative and quirky AA titles.

They may not always have been my cup of tea, but it was worth it for the ones that really shone. I feel like nowadays their first party lineup has mostly just been boiled down to a few megaton AAA IPs, and hardly anything that's not guaranteed to break 10 million ever gets greenlit.

At least Asobi are still around to keep an ember of that fire burning.



Wman1996 on 23 November 2025
curl-6 said:

I miss when Playstation still made so many creative and quirky AA titles.

They may not always have been my cup of tea, but it was worth it for the ones that really shone. I feel like nowadays their first party lineup has mostly just been boiled down to a few megaton AAA IPs, and hardly anything that's not guaranteed to break 10 million ever gets greenlit.

At least Asobi are still around to keep an ember of that fire burning.

Quirky AA titles started to fade around the end of PS3's life with some still on Vita and some still on PS4. But as you said, Asobi with Astro Bot is effectively the only thing keeping them alive for over the past 5 years. Though I suppose you could argue Sackboy was one of the last bastions of it as well. 

Sony is still going all in on cinematics and action-adventure. And the budgets continue to balloon. 



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TheMisterManGuy on 24 November 2025
Wman1996 said:
curl-6 said:

I miss when Playstation still made so many creative and quirky AA titles.

They may not always have been my cup of tea, but it was worth it for the ones that really shone. I feel like nowadays their first party lineup has mostly just been boiled down to a few megaton AAA IPs, and hardly anything that's not guaranteed to break 10 million ever gets greenlit.

At least Asobi are still around to keep an ember of that fire burning.

Quirky AA titles started to fade around the end of PS3's life with some still on Vita and some still on PS4. But as you said, Asobi with Astro Bot is effectively the only thing keeping them alive for over the past 5 years. Though I suppose you could argue Sackboy was one of the last bastions of it as well. 

Sony is still going all in on cinematics and action-adventure. And the budgets continue to balloon. 

The PS4 actually still had a good amount of them. Particularly in the first half of the system's life. Remember when Knack was one of the big launch titles for the system? It's just that near the end of the PS4 era, PlayStation's priorities as a brand were shifting.

PS4 doesn't get enough credit sometimes, it still felt like a classic PlayStation system for the most part.

Last edited by TheMisterManGuy - on 24 November 2025

Otter on 24 November 2025
hunter_alien said:
Signalstar said:

Shadow of the Colossus, Gravity Rush, and Puppeteer were great.

Outside of GOW I would say I prefer Japan Studios output.

This. While Santa Monica helped out a lot of developers with some amazing results (and GoW is one of the best mega franchises out there), there are some Japan Studio heavy hitters that are on a different level. Puppeteer is the most criminally underrated and forgotten game ever created and I am ready to fight over this!

It's a shame Sony launched it 2months ahead of the PS4 and didn't make a port. Nor did they put it on the Vita where I think it would of gained more traction and sold a decent amount



curl-6 on 25 November 2025
Otter said:
hunter_alien said:

This. While Santa Monica helped out a lot of developers with some amazing results (and GoW is one of the best mega franchises out there), there are some Japan Studio heavy hitters that are on a different level. Puppeteer is the most criminally underrated and forgotten game ever created and I am ready to fight over this!

It's a shame Sony launched it 2months ahead of the PS4 and didn't make a port. Nor did they put it on the Vita where I think it would of gained more traction and sold a decent amount

Yeah Puppeteer is one of the more egregious cases I can think of of a great game being sent out to die because of the circumstances at the time.

I remember hardly anyone talking about it even at the time just cos everyone was aboard the PS4 hype train and PS3 was seen as yesterday's news.

A damn shame cos it's a terrific little game.