Shuhei Yoshida Said Japan Studio Was Closed As AA-Market "Disappeared"

Shuhei Yoshida, former Sony Interactive Entertainment's Head of Indies Initiative, shared why PlayStation's Japan Studio was closed, saying that it was the market conditions that led to the shutdown.

In a recent episode of the Sacred Symbols+ podcast, Yoshida said (via VGC): "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." He shared that they didn't have "many triple AAA-level successful products." The market has been changing, and the role of indie games has become more significant: "That became more and more important as the big games became bigger – the indies filled the gap and the double-A market seems to have disappeared."

According to the executive, promotion of AA-games became more complex: "Most of the IPs that Japan Studio had were in that smaller double-A sized group and the market became really difficult for these kinds of games." As an example, he told that Keiichiro Toyama, the director of Gravity Rush 2, tried to pitch a new concept, but they were "not able to greenlight" any of his new ideas, "even though they were really interesting."

Japan Studio, best known for titles such as Ape Escape, the Knack series, and Gravity Rush, was closed in April 2021.

Shuhei Yoshida, who worked at PlayStation since 1993, left the company this January. Before the retirement, his job was Head of Indies Initiative, and recently, the executive shared that he had no other choice than to take this role.

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