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David Jaffe: Herman Hulst pushed for playstation's Japan Studios closure.

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Those type of games still exist and are still being made, Team Asboi literally is hiring more.

giphy.gif

For what they were doing with The Last Guardian, they felt they needed the budget, had development hell and it just didn't pay off for the developer, why blame everyone else for the choice of the team? Most publishers would have cancelled a game taking that long and taking up that much resources and it’s even more shocking they were not closed down soon after its release, but continued to make games.
I would welcome game from them as long as it’s not VR game because I don’t want to pay close to $800 to buy VR just to experience their game. I also play their playroom game that came with PS5 when you first got it and it was good experience.

Also I maybe alone on this fucking hell I loved The Last Guardian, it was such interesting experience. I hope we see new from Team ICO soon.
 
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nial

Gold Member
Far fewer of those games are being made. ClapHanz was a reliable partner that could work with a modest budget and got sent to the shadow realm.
Clap Hanz wanted to have their own IP for a long time. This is a weird studio to choose for this talk considering that they took almost 6 years to develop NEW Everybody's Golf for the PS4 (and they went on to make the PSVR entry afterwards), and Sony doesn't really announce stuff until it's due out soon anymore.
It would be a much better conversation in 2027.
 
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Alex Scott

Member
True but worth a shot
I would say that too, but when NaughtyDog and Insomniac game is making one, then it is not. These companies have never made live service games.
They might grasp the basics of making live service games, but I highly doubt they understand the intricacies. Even with assistance from Bungie.

It is worth a shot when PlayStation takes a chance on Haven and funding Firewalk game. It is worth a shot because those developers understand multiplayer and live service games.
 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
That is the kind of thinking that create wannabe World of Warcraft Killers. If all you think about is copying what's hot, you die. Penny counters don't make fun games, formulas don't make fun games. Games have to be FUN, and if you don't care about fun then get the fuck out.

Newsflash: The people who are playing Battle Royale games right now are doing so because they're having fun. Additionally, the players who stopped playing Halo Infinite, Lawbreakers, and Knockout City, stopped playing because they were no longer having fun.

This entire industry has been built off the back of seeing what people like, identifying the formula, and improving upon it with your next game. Identifying the right trends leads to huge success. We've seen that ad nauseam for the last 50 years.
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
Let’s be real. Most successful Japanese game studios at this point make mobile games. The remaining few can make some profit but aren’t doing ridiculous numbers or consistent results.

Basically Japan is :

Fromsoft
Square ENIX
Capcom

Even the above release wet noodles like exoprimal and forspoken . Fromsoft doesn’t miss. Bandai namco tends to publish fromsoft games but everything else under them is low budget caca aside from what, Tekken ?

Then when we focus on specifically PlayStation exclusives from Japan all the good ones stopped long ago.

You can only shovel so many whack anime games that look like PSP titles.

P.S Atlus fans relax.
 

EDMIX

Member
I would welcome game from them as long as it’s not VR game because I don’t want to pay close to $800 to buy VR just to experience their game. I also play their playroom game that came with PS5 when you first got it and it was good experience.

Also I maybe alone on this fucking hell I loved The Last Guardian, it was such interesting experience. I hope we see new from Team ICO soon.

Dan wants them small, creative difference experiences, but shit doesn't want to pay or actually get the device that is offering this different concept

Proceeds to tell use how expensive them games are and they don't NEED to be big budget, oh btw "I loved The Last Guardian" ....

Sir ,I think you love what comes from that, but seem to be disregarding its budget and tech behind it and oddly are asking for different experiences, but don't want to acknowledge we literally have a device for that you seem to ignore to cherry pick 1 or 2 games from a past generation lol

So I think they make those games still, you simply don't wish to pay for em and I think you want what is made from those budgets, but refuse to acknowledge that was needed to actually produce that game you loved.

It was a game made with amazing tech and a budget that justified it, it simply didn't sell enough to continue making them.

Thats it.



So you are asking to make the thing you loved, disregard its budget and remove it from the conversation annnnnd this is never going to make sense lol

I love Last Guardian too, but I understand that in order for a game like that to continue to have other entries, it must sell much more to support that budget. The budget wasn't the issue, soooo relax with this idea that Sony some how as a publisher forced that, they allowed that team to work on that title for damn near 10 years so you and I can have that great game, so I doubt Sony was just running around forcing them to or something, they designed something that is expensive and technical , it didn't move enough units to continue with other titles.

The answer was never "less budget"

It was "more units sold"
 

ulantan

Member
lol.....if Bungie can't then the rest of them are really screwed. Bungie was the one that was supposed to teach the rest how to do it.
Nothing is a sure thing they have said as much plus what if you want to try different genres other than shooters
 

bender

What time is it?
Clap Hanz wanted to have their own IP for a long time. This is a weird studio to choose for this talk considering that they took almost 6 years to develop NEW Everybody's Golf for the PS4 (and they went on to make the PSVR entry afterwards), and Sony doesn't really announce stuff until it's due out soon anymore.
It would be a much better conversation in 2027.

Nothing was stopping them from creating their own IP in the past. And they IPs they've created are rebranded Hot Shots/Everybody's Golf for IOS and Switch but with simplified mechanics and progression typical of mobile games.

And what's different about Everybody's Golf (PS4) than previous entries? It had a major push towards online components. ClapHanz was there for Sony's home systems, handhelds, entry in PlayStation online, motion controllers and entry into VR. Everybody's Golf for PS4 was probably considered a commercial failure or at best, a modest success. And even in the best case scenario, that's not something that modern Sony wants to invest in. There is obviously an audience for these games as Clap Hanz is alive and kicking. It's another brick in the wall for the sentiment that Sony is leaving behind long term fans and partners. 13 titles over 20 years for the studio and I don't think we'll see another. I hope I'm wrong.
 

nial

Gold Member
Nothing was stopping them from creating their own IP in the past.
Financial and development resourses were, they got a huge help from Apple in this regard with their Arcade service.
Everybody's Golf for PS4 was probably considered a commercial failure or at best, a modest success.
It did as good as Everybody's Golf 5 at the very least, it had a pretty dedicated fanbase in Japan (obviously). I don't think they ever saw it as a commercial failure at any point.
My point is that we see a lot of assumptions about what Sony considers worth funding or not, but we can never be so sure because of the way they do things now.
Helldivers 2 was supposed to release just 4-5 months after its announcement, mind you.
 

proandrad

Member
Then let Bungie make that "one good one" and let the other studios do what they are good at: single player games.
It must be a zoomer thing because it's crazy for any regular consumer to want devs to focus on gaas games. Gaas doesn't do anything new that regular multiplayer games didn't already do.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Then let Bungie make that "one good one" and let the other studios do what they are good at: single player games.
Because Sony wants more GAAS, including exclusive ones. And Bungie is judge and jury. Assuming the claims are true when Sony bought Bungie, Bungie is supposed to have latitude to do what they want including making multiplat games.

MS buying Activision is for sales, reach and still selling COD and Diablo everywhere. Sony buying Bungie was supposed to be for their GAAS expertise which they are using for evaluating internal exclusive projects.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
Nothing is a sure thing they have said as much plus what if you want to try different genres other than shooters

Yeah, that's the mantra for failure in which case, genre is the least of their problems.
 
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NikuNashi

Member
I would welcome game from them as long as it’s not VR game because I don’t want to pay close to $800 to buy VR just to experience their game. I also play their playroom game that came with PS5 when you first got it and it was good experience.

Also I maybe alone on this fucking hell I loved The Last Guardian, it was such interesting experience. I hope we see new from Team ICO soon.

Team Ico dont exist anymore.

However Ueda formed his new studio in 2016 Gen Design.

From 2016 ~ 2023 (7years) he has shown a grand total of nothing. Make of that what you will.
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
Let’s be real. Most successful Japanese game studios at this point make mobile games. The remaining few can make some profit but aren’t doing ridiculous numbers or consistent results.

Basically Japan is :

Fromsoft
Square ENIX
Capcom

Even the above release wet noodles like exoprimal and forspoken . Fromsoft doesn’t miss. Bandai namco tends to publish fromsoft games but everything else under them is low budget caca aside from what, Tekken ?

Then when we focus on specifically PlayStation exclusives from Japan all the good ones stopped long ago.

You can only shovel so many whack anime games that look like PSP titles.

P.S Atlus fans relax.
Taito - they’re owned by SE. So there’s more than you might think. I don’t think it’s a small number.

So the dream is dead? Everything must be Fortnite? Did Epic Games make all the suits and ties over at Sony jealous and money hungry? Bring out the zoomer battle royal because zoomers need to buy more PSN cards for DLC skins. Why even be a game designer if all you make are wanna be Fortnite games?

I like Epic, but some days I wish Fortnite never existed. I feel like it’s screwed gaming. Everyone wants that type of money.
 
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bender

What time is it?
My point is that we see a lot of assumptions about what Sony considers worth funding or not, but we can never be so sure because of the way they do things now.

I think we have enough data to spot trends. Look what they are doing with Housemarque. They are no longer satisfied with boutique releases that they were more than happy to promote in generations past. And that's no disrespect to Returnal as a lot of people loved that game.

Oddly enough I think the person this thread was started about, davidjaffe davidjaffe , started Sony down this path with God of War on the PS2 and was later solidified by Naughty Dog on the PS3 with Uncharted and TLOU. Sony seemingly wants every title to be blockbuster and while blockbusters are important to the history of PlayStation, so are the likes of Vib Ribbon, Ico, and Wiepout. Previous leadership understood this and it doesn't appear Hulst or Ryan do/did. I guess that isn't surprising coming from Hulst considering a big part of his studios beginning was trying to chase down Halo.
 

nial

Gold Member
I think we have enough data to spot trends. Look what they are doing with Housemarque.
Housemarque's case was more of growing ambitions for the studio and finally being able to create their biggest project yet. Sony being happy with the results of stuff like Resogun is why Returnal was allowed to exist in the first place.
 

Doom85

Member
But if only type of game are allowed to made are the ones make big bucks then gaming industry would boring as fuck.

Developers like Vanillaware will never make big numbers but I want them continue exist because I love their games.

Then these developers making games aimed at smaller audiences need to manage budgets accordingly, market themselves quite well, and just understand how to be appealing to enough people even if it’s not a massive audience.

Hell, Japan themselves are no stranger to this. Shonen Jump, the most iconic manga magazine, is notoriously cutthroat in cancelling a series if it dips into low sales even for a short period. Chainsaw Man is one of my favorite manga of the last decade, and I’m happy its sales numbers have been very high. But if it had failed to find an audience, I wouldn’t blame Jump for cancelling it. They can’t keep bleeding money purely for artistic vision, and honestly it would be unfair to those employed who are bringing in enough of an audience.

I don’t think anybody is cheering that Japan Studios shut down, but when people start going, “mean old Sony killed them!”, my eyes can’t roll hard enough.
 

EDMIX

Member
Are we forgetting Vanillaware and Monolith Soft games here? I also enjoy Atlus own games as well.


dont-you-tell-me-to-relex-laura-haddock.gif

ok and those games sell for what they cost to put out.

So you have lots of games you enjoy, that also make a lot of sense regarding their budgets, units sold etc.
It must be a zoomer thing because it's crazy for any regular consumer to want devs to focus on gaas games. Gaas doesn't do anything new that regular multiplayer games didn't already do.

Ok, but that is because people are just calling online multiplayer games "GaaS" or "Live Service" and they are just talking about the same fucking thing....

Its an online fucking game.

It gets patches, it gets updates, it gets support ONLY if the title is successful.

That isn't any different then what we saw from online MP titles in the past, so I don't get people now trying to force the term to magically mean something else. So GaaS, Live Service etc, simply a fancy name for online game, same shit happens if they succeed, same shit happens if they fail.

I've yet to find a single soul tell me a real difference outside of what they are calling it.

Semantics.

Doom85 Doom85 To be fair, most people are not as logical as you when it comes to thinking about this.

Its why most are just jumping to some emotional appeal type thing completely disregarding any business or logic.
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
I think we have enough data to spot trends. Look what they are doing with Housemarque. They are no longer satisfied with boutique releases that they were more than happy to promote in generations past. And that's no disrespect to Returnal as a lot of people loved that game.

Oddly enough I think the person this thread was started about, davidjaffe davidjaffe , started Sony down this path with God of War on the PS2 and was later solidified by Naughty Dog on the PS3 with Uncharted and TLOU. Sony seemingly wants every title to be blockbuster and while blockbusters are important to the history of PlayStation, so are the likes of Vib Ribbon, Ico, and Wiepout. Previous leadership understood this and it doesn't appear Hulst or Ryan do/did. I guess that isn't surprising coming from Hulst considering a big part of his studios beginning was trying to chase down Halo.

Well, look at it this way. Which first-party developers turn games around fast, like 1-2 years between releases? The only ones I can think of are iterating on a single, proven franchise.

So, basically, if you're looking at 3 years+... doesn't that put virtually everything into AAA territory? And if you're making AAA games, a certain amount of caution is going to creep in simply due to the cash investment it involves.

This reality needs to be dealt with. Especially for a corporate management team, and that's going to manifest as them being very picky about what gets greenlit.

I'd also add that I'm kinda skeptical that Herman Hulst is the one pushing the GAAS bandwagon, I mean look at what Guerilla has been doing since the start, that doesn't seem like a studio run by a guy who's big on live service games, a guy who fanboyed so hard at Kojima that he basically gave him the source-code to his well-regarded proprietary engine!

Here's the thing; if there are multiple "camps" within Sony going back prior to Layden's ousting -something I do find plausible- who's "camp" is in Jaffe's ear? I'd be wary of taking anything at face value myself !
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Respectfully, not sure I want a future of “safer bets” in gaming compared to wild card, risky and innovative kind of games

You should be in good shape. Helldivers 2 and Concord are their next 2 GAAS titles and both represent big departures from their usual output.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Then these developers making games aimed at smaller audiences need to manage budgets accordingly, market themselves quite well, and just understand how to be appealing to enough people even if it’s not a massive audience.

Hell, Japan themselves are no stranger to this. Shonen Jump, the most iconic manga magazine, is notoriously cutthroat in cancelling a series if it dips into low sales even for a short period. Chainsaw Man is one of my favorite manga of the last decade, and I’m happy its sales numbers have been very high. But if it had failed to find an audience, I wouldn’t blame Jump for cancelling it. They can’t keep bleeding money purely for artistic vision, and honestly it would be unfair to those employed who are bringing in enough of an audience.

I don’t think anybody is cheering that Japan Studios shut down, but when people start going, “mean old Sony killed them!”, my eyes can’t roll hard enough.
I get what you are saying but Jump still continues bring new series to magazine, some will succeed and some won't, my problem with current Sony is they kind of stopped trying and putting much of their focus on western first party games because they make the most money.
 

bender

What time is it?
Well, look at it this way. Which first-party developers turn games around fast, like 1-2 years between releases? The only ones I can think of are iterating on a single, proven franchise.

Chicken or an egg scenario. Have smaller teams, working with smaller budgets on games with smaller scopes. Use these teams to test the waters on more "out there" game mechanics. Set the budget to wear one million units sold would be a smashing success (this was the bar for Greatest Hits in the past). The problem is that they can't push visual and presentational boundaries with this scope and that's largely Sony's bread and butter.

I'm not pegging GaaS on Hulst. But I also wouldn't want him to guide my game studios beyond engine work.

My feelings have little to do with Jaffe's reporting which I don't have much reason to distrust. While he does fall into years old trends to grab clicks on YouTube, his past with Sony and the relationships he has gives him insider information that your average journalist isn't going to have. My views on Sony are long entrenched and are solely based on their output.
 

EDMIX

Member
I get what you are saying but Jump still continues bring new series to magazine, some will succeed and some won't, my problem with current Sony is they kind of stopped trying and putting much of their focus on western first party games because they make the most money.

And? Sony still puts out a shit ton of new IP

Focus on western first party games?

We literally just got Ghost Of Tsushima a few years ago, new IP, set in Japan

They continue because they game actually..SOLD, soooooo they need to have units moved in order to continue business. Please stop trying to disregard that as I don't know why they'd have an ode to put money into projects that are failing for lolz or something.

Why the fuck would they be even hiring more at Team Asobi? lol

Soooo its cause it making enough to justify its existence.

That has nothing to do with east or west.
 

Doom85

Member
Doom85 Doom85 To be fair, most people are not as logical as you when it comes to thinking about this.

Its why most are just jumping to some emotional appeal type thing completely disregarding any business or logic.

Yeah, I try to think about it like this: FOX became notorious for canceling a lot of TV shows in the 2000s. Two of my favorites, Arrested Development and Firefly, were among these. Now let’s see here:

Arrested Development: was ahead of its time by having no laugh track, recurring jokes and stories that made watching all episodes in order a necessity for full enjoyment, was quite expensive to make for a sitcom due to the many sets, and yet was still given three seasons. The show was low on marketing, but to be fair, I’m not sure how one markets AD’s humor

Firefly: the network aired episodes out of order including not showing the pilot until after the show was cancelled, multiple episodes were preempted due to sporting events, and the show aired on Friday which is a death sentence for most shows

In terms of the two, I blame FOX mostly for Firefly being cancelled, while AD was more an inevitability (if it had debuted many year later on a streaming service where everyone would see all the episodes in order, it would have lasted longer, like I said, it was ahead of its time)
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
Taito - they’re owned by SE. So there’s more than you might think. I don’t think it’s a small number.

So the dream is dead? Everything must be Fortnite? Did Epic Games make all the suits and ties over at Sony jealous and money hungry? Bring out the zoomer battle royal because zoomers need to buy more PSN cards for DLC skins. Why even be a game designer if all you make are wanna be Fortnite games?

I like Epic, but some days I wish Fortnite never existed. I feel like it’s screwed gaming. Everyone wants that type of money.
Fortnite isn’t even the biggest game player , sales, or revenue wise buddy. Get over your hate boner.

Go check out Minecraft, Roblox, and Genshin Impact. That’s the kind of money all these places want.

Edit: I was wrong. Seems like 2022 Fortnite made almost 6 billion and Genshin made 4 billion.

Really though I’d much rather make a successful gacha game than a BR like Fortnite. Far more work.
 
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EDMIX

Member
Yeah, I try to think about it like this: FOX became notorious for canceling a lot of TV shows in the 2000s. Two of my favorites, Arrested Development and Firefly, were among these. Now let’s see here:

Arrested Development: was ahead of its time by having no laugh track, recurring jokes and stories that made watching all episodes in order a necessity for full enjoyment, was quite expensive to make for a sitcom due to the many sets, and yet was still given three seasons. The show was low on marketing, but to be fair, I’m not sure how one markets AD’s humor

Firefly: the network aired episodes out of order including not showing the pilot until after the show was cancelled, multiple episodes were preempted due to sporting events, and the show aired on Friday which is a death sentence for most shows

In terms of the two, I blame FOX mostly for Firefly being cancelled, while AD was more an inevitability (if it had debuted many year later on a streaming service where everyone would see all the episodes in order, it would have lasted longer, like I said, it was ahead of its time)

Terra Nova

That is all lol
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
We literally just got Ghost Of Tsushima a few years ago, new IP, set in Japan
Are you serious!? Just because the game has Japanese setting it doesn't fucking make it Japanese game, it like saying RE is western game because it has western setting.

I prefer Japanese games because how they go about designing games compare to western devs, the setting has nothing to do with it.
 

Doom85

Member
I get what you are saying but Jump still continues bring new series to magazine, some will succeed and some won't, my problem with current Sony is they kind of stopped trying and putting much of their focus on western first party games because they make the most money.

They had a State of Play not that long ago focused entirely on Japanese games. I think it makes more sense for them to market and occasionally fund Japanese titles like they’ve done sometimes with Street Fighter and Final Fantasy as opposed to trying to start a new Japanese studio in an already crowded market.

Now, they could try to purchase a Japanese studio like Capcom or Square, but that’s a whole other can of worms that could spark some controversy. So let’s not dig that up at least in this thread.
 
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