According to recent reports, Sony Japan Studio is shutting down as the company has laid off most of its staff, and recently, Bloodborne and Tokyo Jungle producer Masaaki Yamagiwa announced on Twitter that he is leaving Japan Studio as well at the end of this month. Sony Japan Studio is known for a lot of great titles such as Gravity Rush, Shadow of the Colossus, Ape Escape, and many others however future of these franchises is currently unknown.
2月末でSIE JAPAN Studioを離れることになりました。これまでありがとうございました。次の場所でもゲーム制作を頑張ります。
I’m leaving Sony Interactive Entertainment at the end of this month. I’m going to continue working hard on creating games. Many thanks to everyone! pic.twitter.com/WPpiLpCtoY— 山際眞晃 Masaaki Yamagiwa (@giwamasa) February 25, 2021
Apart from Masaaki Yamagiwa, the creative director Ryo Sogabe who has worked on various AAA PlayStation exclusives such as Uncharted and Ghost of Tsushima is also leaving Sony Japan Studio. He announced his departure on Twitter as well.
I have a information.
I will leave from SIE JAPAN Studio at the end of Feb.
Rather than working, I've been playing with PlayStation and videos for the past 14 years.
I will continue to play new challenges in the new company to bridge between game and video.
Thanks. #JAPANstudio— Ryo Sogabe / SIE JAPAN Studio – Video Manager (@sogachin) February 24, 2021
According to VGC, Sony has confirmed that the leftover team will be merged with Team ASOBI who is working on titles such as Astro Bot. This also means that any future hope for Bloodborne 2 is currently dead until Sony announced future plans for all of the titles that were under Sony Japan Studio. Shadow of the Colossus was yet another masterpiece and one game that was released on PS2 however it was released again on PS3 and then even came to PS4 as a completely remastered version.
Sony Japan Studio is one of the studios that helped PlayStation establish itself as a strong gaming console with multiple AAA exclusives coming out from the stupid over the past years. The studio also collaborated on multiple titles such as The Last Guardian, Bloodborne, and Everybody’s Golf. All of these titles were PlayStation exclusives and every one of them helped build PlayStation overall as a strong brand. Seeing it being shut down is just sad and it could eventually bite Sony in the back down the future.
What do you think about Sony shutting down its one of the oldest studios? Let us know in the comments section below.
