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Sony Expanding Team Asobi

ManaByte

Member

51219612048_ea1193ad59_h.jpg
 
What! I think you are confused, it was the other guy making fake outrage complaining about a western guy heading up Japan Studio, are you reading posts correctly?

Yes you incidentally ended up doing the same by bringing race into a subject that had nothing to do with race.
 

kyliethicc

Member
PlayStation Blog post

Gimme more of this cute guy, Sony.

OIP.vmNDMZb34SUffXw90HfC0AHaEJ
Great news! They are really talented. Can't wait for the next game they make, better be Astro Bot!
Not sure what ip that might be? hope it's a big budget astro game


"Astro will be back with news soon." - Nicolas Doucet (Team Asobi) back in November 2020.


Asobi made Astro Bot Rescue Mission in 18 months with like 25 people.

They can definitely make another Astro Bot game for PSVR2, hopefully at launch in 2022.
 
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kyliethicc

Member
Their focus was gutting the Japanese team and re-hiring in other regions that combine into a Team Asobi. The Japanese team wasnt cutting it.
Japan Studio was a bigger group of various teams. They fired all of the other teams, and the XDEV team, and focused just on Team Asobi.

Sony did the same thing to London Studio back in 2016.


Sony did the same thing to San Diego Studio back in 2016.


There had been other teams at San Diego, and XDEV stuff like David Jaffe's game Drawn to Death, etc.. but Sony laid them off and focused San Diego on just the MLB team. Now all of Sony's XDEV stuff in handled out of their Liverpool XDEV office, (formerly XDEV Europe), instead of having a separate XDEV team in Japan Studio (Bloodborne, etc).

Team Asobi are mostly Japanese, btw.

"Well, since we are a PlayStation game development studio located in the cool and vibrant Tokyo, the majority of the team are Japanese. We also have several members coming from various other countries: England, Germany, France, Scotland, Korea, Spain, and Colombia. It’s important for us to have this mixed background to help us create games that are universal."


fOJ68aS.jpg
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Japan Studio was a bigger group of various teams. They fired all of the other teams, and the XDEV team, and focused just on Team Asobi.

Sony did the same thing to London Studio back in 2016.


Sony did the same thing to San Diego Studio back in 2016.


There had been other teams at San Diego, and XDEV stuff like David Jaffe's game Drawn to Death, etc.. but Sony laid them off and focused San Diego on just the MLB team. Now all of Sony's XDEV stuff in handled out of their Liverpool XDEV office, (formerly XDEV Europe), instead of having a separate XDEV team in Japan Studio (Bloodborne, etc).

Team Asobi are mostly Japanese, btw.

"Well, since we are a PlayStation game development studio located in the cool and vibrant Tokyo, the majority of the team are Japanese. We also have several members coming from various other countries: England, Germany, France, Scotland, Korea, Spain, and Colombia. It’s important for us to have this mixed background to help us create games that are universal."


fOJ68aS.jpg

Hope they merge both Japan Studio and them under one, and make them a big studio making more than 1 project at a time!
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
This is good news, please make us a full game of astro's playroom, maybe with a new character instead. If they can hit the quality of the demo it's 9/10 game easily.
 

zeorhymer

Member
The good part is you can do the same yourself. I'm sure in preparation for this hot take you may have practiced what you're preaching?

As far as this news goes, good. They have something with Astrobot which should be expanded upon.
Cool beans to insult someone with a different take than you. Is this your default action when you're simping for Sony?

They were the only ones making good games.


They shut them down? Looks like they're still open!
Are you sure we're looking at the same company? Team Asobi's 4 games: The Playroom, The Playroom VR, Astro Bot, Astro's Playroom. Japan Studios been around for 20 some odd years. They're the one who did Bloodborn, Last Guardian, Shadow of Colossus (remake), Demon's Souls (PS5).
 

Aenima

Member
Always good to see when talent is rewarded. Asobi Team is one of the most talented small studios Sony owns and making it grow is a no brainer.

Hope they next full game is not VR only though.
 

Aenima

Member
Cool beans to insult someone with a different take than you. Is this your default action when you're simping for Sony?


Are you sure we're looking at the same company? Team Asobi's 4 games: The Playroom, The Playroom VR, Astro Bot, Astro's Playroom. Japan Studios been around for 20 some odd years. They're the one who did Bloodborn, Last Guardian, Shadow of Colossus (remake), Demon's Souls (PS5).
Japan studio do alot of colabs, none of the games you mentioned was done by Japan Studio alone.
Bloodborne was done by FromSoft
Last Guadian was done in colab with Gen Studio (previous Team Ico) that left Sony to create they independent studio
SOTC Remake was done by Bluepoint
Demons Souls PS5 was done by Bluepoint.

Ppl put too much credit in Japan Studio when they bigger hits from recent year are all developed by 3rd party developers. Team Asobi with Astro Bot being the only recent hit from Japan Studio alone.

Team Ico was my favorite team from Japan Studio but they left during the PS3 gen, Team Asobi is the only real talented team left inside Japan Studio, and its great to see they now have a chance to grow on they own.
 
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kretos

Banned
"Astro will be back with news soon." - Nicolas Doucet (Team Asobi) back in November 2020.


Asobi made Astro Bot Rescue Mission in 18 months with like 25 people.

They can definitely make another Astro Bot game for PSVR2, hopefully at launch in 2022.

i hope it's a big budget regular game not vr
 

Unknown?

Member
Cool beans to insult someone with a different take than you. Is this your default action when you're simping for Sony?


Are you sure we're looking at the same company? Team Asobi's 4 games: The Playroom, The Playroom VR, Astro Bot, Astro's Playroom. Japan Studios been around for 20 some odd years. They're the one who did Bloodborn, Last Guardian, Shadow of Colossus (remake), Demon's Souls (PS5).
Bloodborne was From Soft. SOTC remake was Bluepoint as was Demons Souls. Outside of Last Guardian what game have they made in house on PS4 not including Asobi games?
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
Yeah, Sony can go fuck themselves. They shut down Japan Studios for this shit.
enough with the japan studio whining, they didnt release any good games for the past few years.

And the last guardian made me fall asleep.
 

ACESHIGH

Banned
Put that Asobi thing, whatever that is, into porting all those Japan Studio games for PC and patching them with higher framerates and resolutions for PS5 first and foremost. Then they can think about releasing a new game.
 
Am I the only one who realized Sony laid off a ton of people from the original studio this was spun from and now suddenly wants to expand?
Yes old heads were let go. The small team Asobi, dropped two hits in a row. They gave the head of the team the keys to rebuild the the japan studio. Which seems they are gonna triple down on platformers/kid games. I see Ape Escape coming back. Shifting LittleBIGPlanet to them.
Yeah, Sony can go fuck themselves. They shut down Japan Studios for this shit.
You cant be dropping commercial duds back to back to back. Their biggest failure was letting Dark Souls happen. And wasting 10 years on The Last Guardian.
 

yurinka

Member
Nice to see they are growing, they are a super talented team. Can't wait to see their next game.

I thought this was later proven false because some of the top talent communicated they were no longer working for Sony?
Japan Studio had mostly two parts: an internal game development part with some teams and a Japanese 2nd party management part.

Now all global 2nd party games will be managed from XDEV, who previously managed the European 2nd party games. So they shut down that part of Japan Studio.

They downsized their internal gamedev part and refocused into one their most successful internal team: Team Asobi. So the people from the other internal teams were either moved to Team Asobi or fired.

So now Team Asobi is their only remaining team (which is bigger than it was before), so they rebranded Japan Studio to Team Asobi, because it doesn't make sense to use 2 names for a single team. After restructuring, now they are hiring.

Sony said they will continue publishing 2nd party Japanese games and will continue keeping their existing relationships with external Japanese studios and creating new ones. But now they will be handled by their most successful team in charge of 2nd party games instead of by Japan Studio.
 
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LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Cool beans to insult someone with a different take than you. Is this your default action when you're simping for Sony?
Far from it. I brought the same energy as you did. I'm wondering what and why it's ok to say what you said and be vihamemtly vulgar over basically nothing.

The simping for Sony thing does nothing for me.

Bringing that energy to a discussion will simply inhibit or draw more of that banter.

All I did was make fun of your hot take for the very reasons I sarcastically outlined.

And you know what? I'm ok. Bring more constructive and rational takes with more tact then just F this and F OFF.
 
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Blond

Banned
Yeah, Sony can go fuck themselves. They shut down Japan Studios for this shit.
Sony shut down a studio that couldn’t give us a samurai game that was eventually made by American’s that was loved and sold more in their home country than anything from Japan studio in two generations.

Such a loss

51219612048_ea1193ad59_h.jpg


Ape Escape reboot, when?
 

Boss Mog

Member
That’s like an ant against a tiger considering the scale of the two, but it’s certainly a high end goal they should aim for
The level of quality on display is both Astro Bot games really comes close to Nintendo R&D. Great stylized graphics, silky smooth animation and framerate and the tightest and most precise controls on a PlayStation platformer ever. And they achieved this with a small team and limited funding. I can only imagine what those guys can achieve with a bigger team and budget.
 

Yoboman

Member
The level of quality on display is both Astro Bot games really comes close to Nintendo R&D. Great stylized graphics, silky smooth animation and framerate and the tightest and most precise controls on a PlayStation platformer ever. And they achieved this with a small team and limited funding. I can only imagine what those guys can achieve with a bigger team and budget.
Yeah but Nintendo don’t just make Mario. They make dozens of other games too
 
bring more Astro bot games , it's so charming , i would love a Astro's playroom 2 and i can only imagine what they could do with a bigger budget
 

CamHostage

Member
Am I the only one who realized Sony laid off a ton of people from the original studio this was spun from and now suddenly wants to expand?
That's generally the way a corporation has to operate when a large department is not working out anymore. Just moving the people around preserves the culture that was part of the problem, even if they're good people that you'd hate to lose. Cutting to just the successful elements allows them to set a new path forward (so long as you understand why they were successful) and then you can build anew. If you're going to make a change, do what has to be done and make a change.

It could well be that some of these new upstart studios founded by the Japan Studio staffers who got cut might get their first contracts back with Sony. That happens sometimes too. The terms are different, the process is different, but the goal is the same, and both sides know what the goal is ultimately.
 
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xrnzaaas

Gold Member
I really hope that Asobi makes a big budget Astro sequel instead of being a studio for preparing tech demos for the new hardware (they're probably doing something for PSVR2 as we speak).
 
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ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Tbh, Astro’s Playroom is probably the best “Japan Studio” game I’ve played in the past 10 years.

I love Gravity Rush but I didn’t like the sequel as much.
 

ay91

Banned
You mean they hired based on skill and suitability for the job not race. I think you are on the wrong forum with that BS.

Add to that the fact the previous person 'in charge of the studio' was a 'western guy' Allan Becker.
Since when was western a race? I'm sure that the guy is very skilled as I liked the games made under his leadership but it is strange and unusual that a non-Japanese guy is the head of a Japanese studio. Especially when the studio is owned by a company that was supposedly having a power struggle between the western and Japanese divisions.
 
They probably realised Astro is their Mario and want to keep building and expanding.

If they do it right, they'll have a killer Mascot who can be a household name.
Astro Boy doesn't work outside VR and even then it's overrated because most VR games in comparison are shallow and mechanically junk.
 

anthony2690

Banned
Playing through astros playroom on ps5, it made me wish these guys would have a stab at ape escape.

That being said, something I would like to see Sony do, is remake the first two games with the same love and quality that toys for bobs put into the spyro remakes. :)
 
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kyliethicc

Member
Semantics, this IS Japan Studio. It's their internal team that was most productive just rebranded.
Yeah, but I was trying to answer his question. Technically Japan Studio does not exist anymore.

Just Team Asobi now. But yes, Asobi are a streamlined and rebranded JS.

The point is SIE still has 12 internal studios. Not 13.
 

FalsettoVibe

Gold Member
Always good to see when talent is rewarded. Asobi Team is one of the most talented small studios Sony owns and making it grow is a no brainer.

Hope they next full game is not VR only though.


i hope it's a big budget regular game not vr

While I kinda have a feeling that Astro will be a PSVR2 launch game, I hope that they make it on the same scope as Rescue Mission.....but then have a full big budget non-VR game that appeals to everyone.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Astro’s Playroom exists as a “practice” game, to get a feel for the PS5’s controller, Sony shouldn’t listen to people saying make Astro’s Playroom a legit franchise like Ratchet, it should exist as a Wii Sports demo that’s it.
 
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