Shuhei Yoshida Says PlayStation's Japan Studio Closed Because the AA Market Disappeared - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 19 February 2025 / 4,007 Views
The former President of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida with the Sacred Symbols + podcast explains why PlayStation's Japan Studio was shut down.
Yoshida it was the market that dictated Sony in shifting away from Japan Studio IP and because the AA market disappeared.
"During my time, people give me credit, but one of the things I was not successful at was having a successful service game, and the other thing is I was not able to have amazingly successful games made in Japan," said Yoshida (via VideoGamesChronicle).
"Other than Gran Turismo, we had many great products but didn’t really have many AAA level successful products. That became more and more important as the big games became bigger – the indies filled the gap and the AA market seems to have disappeared.
"Most of the IPs that Japan Studio had were in that smaller AA sized group and the market became really difficult for these kinds of games. For example, after Gravity Rush 2, [director Keiichiro Toyama] tried to come up with a new concept, but we were not able to greenlight any of his new concepts, even though they were really interesting."
Yoshida on Toyama added, "In my mind, I remember his product looked like something the company wouldn’t support, the company was looking for AAA titles, and we really struggled to get the game going. So when Japan Studios was shut down and he became independent, he was able to create and release Slitterhead."
PlayStation's Japan Studio was re-organized and centered around Team ASOBI in April 2021.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Bluesky.
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Disappeared, right... They just shifted their focus to big budget cinematic games, but the AA market still exists.
Those were GAMES? I thought they were just movies with mild interactivity.
"Because the AA Market Disappeared"
YEah... disappeared.
That's why Nintendo sells a lot doing AA games.
In other words: Sony should exclusively invest in that which generates >10mil sales. Might sound smart on paper, but it’s entirely unrealistic… Lengthy dev times would mean having dozens of studios working on projects which each cost hundreds-of-millions USD; high cost means high risk; market saturation of Sony games would be quickly reached; etc. It’s this kind of thinking which leads to over a dozen live-service products getting canned, sending Sony likely billions in a hole.
The problem is people want AAA games. But costs go in the 100s of millions. Soon they will crack 1 billion or more. People hate cross gen games and they want 100% exclusivity so also no PC port. DLC is seen as "greedy" and if game prices go over 70€ (70$ in the US?) people are wining as well! So, where should the money come from? AAA games get less every gen as we see with Xbox Series and PS5. I even see it starting Switch 3 as well. So there are 2 options: AAA games with said disadvntages (DLC, more expensive, multiplat at least with PC, higher priced) or entierly smaller projects. The ones farting out minus i ask if they are ready to pay 100€/$+ for a AAA game like Halo/ GOY... standard edition.
Very sad state! Now Sony's over reliance on triple a games is taking its toll,
Having AA games could've balanced out releases
Whilst I agree, we need to take into account most simply didn't sell well. Even the ones that actually where of good quality. Nintendo has the brand power to release about anything and it will do great. Many AA games from Sony failed financially.
Playstation doesn't have that brand power. That probably also has to do that every season an AAA game does release on Playstation even if PlayStation has nothing to do with it. On Nintendo is side it's a bit less overcrowded on the AAA front.
smaller games filled in the gaps between big releases
Considering a game like Candy Crush can dominate so thoroughly, I think perhaps we need to re-think AAA entirely.
Or even a successful AAA launch can still somehow cause layoffs and studio shutdowns has me thinking we need to re-think AAA as well.
I have a bad feeling AI will be the ultimate catalyst in bringing everything back down to the way AAA used to be. Which means the overall industry will shrink in terms number of developers.
So sad to read, you'll always be the king Japan Studios.
Games about recovery from alcoholism were a major part of the health of the industry! So much for the 12 step program . Goodbye AA games…
I don't think Sony necessarily needs to make AA games. The problem is that corporate environments are naturally wasteful and expensive, even if a group is working on something smaller in scale. The less money and interest a game is expected to bring in, the harder it is to justify in terms of resource investment.
I think they'd be fine listening to pitches from smaller independent studios or contracting out their own ideas that aren't considered big enough. Some things just turn out better when suits aren't micromanaging a project. They could also actively search out projects in the indie PC space, since that is where many of the latest hits are coming from. There are often multiple ways to accomplish a goal.
Thats probably why we did not get an update on Astro Bot's sales. If the Studio behind this game is closing, no way in hell it sold enough to satisfy investors, let alone Sony fans!!
