• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

How SONY's Hometown Studio Rose From the Ashes In Time for the PS4

C

Callibretto

Member
I wonder if Gravity Rush 2 will end the story since the director express interest to come back making horror title. which mean he probably not going to make Gravity Rush 3
 
B

bigboss370

Member
Binabik15 said:
Every milestone reached gets them a "bring your waifu to work" day?
Click to expand...

stadium_guy_wtf.gif
 
A

AAK

Member
Oh man, when they asked about The Last Guardian:

"I think," Becker adds, "it's moving along in the right direction."
Click to expand...

LOL, you can tell that's the politically correct answer. Prefacing the sentence with "I think" and all. That project is so F'd.
 
S

Shinta

Banned
AAK said:
Oh man, when they asked about The Last Guardian:



LOL, you can tell that's the politically correct answer. Prefacing the sentence with "I think" and all. That project is so F'd.
Click to expand...

Well, it's interesting that he's being candid about it. I think one could read it as him being humble.

He says he's going one way. Ueda wanted to go another way. So I think by saying "I think" he's just showing respect to Ueda's opinion, even though Becker is the boss.
 
H

HitokiriNate85

Member
Really nice article that I wouldn't have read otherwise. Thanks for sharing.

This reinforces that I'm likely going to get a PS4 in the next year or two. If I had a PS3 I'd definitely pick up Puppeteer.
 
E

eddfromtheriver

Banned
I await to see the new fruits after the shift in work mentality, we've already seen Pupeteer and Rain, Knack is about to come out... i eagerly wanna see what's next from them...
 
P

Pound_lb003

Member
Interesting talk about Ueda and Becker not seeing eye to eye.

Really interesting.

I don't even know what to think. On one hand I trust Ueda implicitly.

On the other.... His last game came out nearly a decade ago.
 
B

BlackIronCount

Member
rose from the ashes?

i would like to see Japanese centric 1st party console title.
publishng more JRPG like they did in the era of PS1/2
and bring back Wild Arms Sony .
 
C

cchum

Member
Pound_lb003 said:
Interesting talk about Ueda and Becker not seeing eye to eye.

Really interesting.

I don't even know what to think. On one hand I trust Ueda implicitly.

On the other.... His last game came out nearly a decade ago.
Click to expand...

Ueda: "It's done when it's done"
Becker: "Get the shit done"
 
weevles

weevles

Member
Becker cracking the whip on Ueda hehe. I guess someone has to if Last Guardian ever wants to see the light of day.
 
L

LiquidSolid

Member
Elios83 said:
Japan Studio should be working on these titles:

The Last Guardian
New JRPG
Demon's Souls 2
Gran Turismo 7
Gravity Rush 2
HOt Shot Golf next

and that's pretty much amazing :D
Click to expand...

Why would Japan Studio work on Polyphony Digital and Clap Hanz's franchises? That makes no sense.

Fantastic article. I do have issues with the examples given (if you're going to mention Flower and Journey as part of Sony Santa Monica's portfolio, you may as well mention White Knight Chronicles and Demon's Souls as part of Japan Studio's) but outside of that nitpick, it was a great read.
 
F

Father_Brain

Banned
Becker now runs Japan Studio and it was in the studio's Tokyo offices that he told me about his goal: "For Japan Studio to be relevant globally in two and a half years."
Click to expand...
It's nice to want things, and I suppose relevance is relative, but Puppeteer already bombed and I don't see any of their announced games being big hits internationally. Well, there's always unannounced projects, and Knack should at least do respectably by virtue of being an exclusive launch title.
 
T

TheBaronOfNA

Banned
Father_Brain said:
It's nice to want things, and I suppose relevance is relative, but Puppeteer already bombed and I don't see any of their announced games being big hits internationally. Well, there's always unannounced projects, and Knack should at least do respectably by virtue of being an exclusive launch title.
Click to expand...

And its a shame because Puppeter is a very good game.
 
U

UrbanRats

Member
Great article but:

1) No mention of Keiichiro Toyama, which i consider a fuckin' genius.

2) This sounds scary:

"We're real-time in that process," Becker replied. "And we don't necessarily agree with each other—Fumito Ueda and I—about process. In some sense, I sort of... implemented change, which, I think, is causing some concern and consternation. But, once again, I think the benefit will come through. We're still going through that phase of adjustment and finding the right balance and groove."
Click to expand...
 
B

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
See, I read that title and all I can think of is the wise words of Kenichiro Takaki. Awfully immature I know.
 
D

Dragon1893

Member
That was a great read, thanks for the link.

Over 40 games in development... what a mess...

Rain and Puppeteer are gems though, they ended the gen on a high note.
 
R

RaijinFY

Member
They are trying to revive the whole clusterfuck that Sony Japan was and some of you want to bury them definitively with a new horrible Legend of Dragoon game?
 
S

sn00zer

Member
40 titles shows some massive management problems...I imagine it would be really hard for devs moving from that atmosphere to a single large game. Either way Im excited to see what they do.
 
J

jgmo870

Banned
Nice to see progression and that they still make quirky and artsy games despite new leadership.

Shinta said:
He may not even be making GR2 for all we know. We'll see.
Click to expand...

He teased the sequel on twitter, teased the sequel at TGS with a video of a new location/power, there was a famitsu article about it and he said he was going to work on the issues gamers had with the first one. He's making it.
 
M

Mario007

Member
Loved the way the article completely forgot the Vita games that Studio Japan seems to be working on these days. Also all the talk of 'quirky artsy games' makes a bit worried if they have AAA games in production, because that's exactly what has been missing from Studio Japan this past generation on the ps3.
 
L

LiquidSolid

Member
Father_Brain said:
It's nice to want things, and I suppose relevance is relative, but Puppeteer already bombed and I don't see any of their announced games being big hits internationally. Well, there's always unannounced projects, and Knack should at least do respectably by virtue of being an exclusive launch title.
Click to expand...

It's almost as if it isn't currently 2016. Weird.
 
S

Sotha_Sil

Member
"The thing I was shocked by was the number of titles in production," he said of when he first arrived. "That completely blew my mind." At that time, there were 40-something titles in production, and the environment was, what Becker called, "a free-for-all."
Click to expand...

Really sounds like the blind were leading the blind over there in Studio Japan. My god what a disaster.
 
.la1n

.la1n

Member
This was one of the best articles I've read in some time. This is the kind of video game reporting I can get behind. Keep up the good work.

I look forward to seeing what the studio puts out in the coming years. Puppeteer was great.
 
F

Flarin

Member
Yoshida produced PlayStation 1 role-playing game The Legend of Dragoon, overseeing a hundred-person team and a $16 million budget, which, at the time, was quite large. "Eventually, we recouped that, thanks to sales outside Japan," says Yoshida. "The sales in the U.S. were very strong."
Click to expand...

Sequel, please :(

Very interesting read. Thanks for posting!
 
sublimit

sublimit

Banned
.la1n said:
This was one of the best articles I've read in some time. This is the kind of video game reporting I can get behind. Keep up the good work.
Click to expand...

One good article doesn't erase years of shitty troll-baiting "journalism".They have a long way to go before i start visiting their site again.
 
R

RaijinFY

Member
Flarin said:
Sequel, please :(

Very interesting read. Thanks for posting!
Click to expand...

That's the thing though, $16m, you can recoup that. Today, if you make such a game it would cost a bare minimum of $50m, that without counting marketing costs and such... and you will probably not get the strong US sales.
 
T

ThisWreckage

Banned
The Last Guardian still seems like it is a long, long time from being released. Ueda seems like he is impossible to work for and with.
 
L

LordCanti

Member
As long as he doesn't take any sort of creative control away from Ueda and manages to get the game released while the world is still young, I'm okay.
 
R

RaikuHebi

Banned
Sounds like they really want to make the PS4's library feel like what we got from PS1 and PS2. Return of the King and all that. I hope it's a JRPG. That genre really needs a renaissance, at least on consoles.

One thing the article forgets to mention is Yoshida played a big role in helping market Crash Bandicoot to Japan. In fact it's arguably the most successful Western game in Japan.

lazydom said:
Another good kotaku article, they're really standing out from the crowd for me.
Click to expand...
Looks like they're finally getting their shit together after the redesign fiasco a few years ago.
 
S

shuraiya

Member
Good read; hopefully this means we can once again see PS1/PS2 level output and quality from Japan Studio. Their near absence this generation was strongly felt.
 
T

Takao

Banned
sublimit said:
lol...why? :p
Click to expand...

"We launched the PS Vita and saw few AAA titles to suit the Japanese market," Yoshida said. "Everyone got a wake up call." The solution was obvious and it was going to involve Sony's Japan Studio. "We really have to support our first party," Yoshida remembered thinking. That was 2011. And by the next year, Sony brought in Allan Becker to make sure that the studio could deliver.

Once Tearaway ships it looks like none of Sony's studios will be working on Vita games (outside of MLB I guess) so someone has to.

LiquidSolid said:
Fantastic article. I do have issues with the examples given (if you're going to mention Flower and Journey as part of Sony Santa Monica's portfolio, you may as well mention White Knight Chronicles and Demon's Souls as part of Japan Studio's) but outside of that nitpick, it was a great read.
Click to expand...

The article repeatedly makes mention of Rain, and that game was developed by Acquire. So I dunno what's going on there.

Mario007 said:
Loved the way the article completely forgot the Vita games that Studio Japan seems to be working on these days. Also all the talk of 'quirky artsy games' makes a bit worried if they have AAA games in production, because that's exactly what has been missing from Studio Japan this past generation on the ps3.
Click to expand...

Brian seems to be under the impression that if you don't make console games you don't exist. Which is of course hilarious given he lives in Japan.

That said, it's not like Japan Studio is pumping out the Vita games either. They've only developed Gravity Rush.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

IGN Exclusive: Connie Booth, One of the Chief Architects of PlayStation's First-Party Studio System, Is Joining EA
News
32
1K
Krappadizzle replied
Sources: Media Molecule to layoff 15-20% of staff
News Game Dev 2 3
134
6K
Heisenberg007 replied
Mapping out Sony first party's Next Four years on PS5
2
92
5K
Woopah replied
Financial Times: Sony and Nintendo left to battle in console wars as Microsoft signals exit
Opinion Business 2 3 4 5
222
15K
Solidus_T replied
  • Poll
Who's the best PlayStation Studios/Worldwide Studios head? Phil, Shu, or Hermen?
Opinion Game Dev 2
57
4K
Kumomeme replied
Top Bottom