It's madness that I see that "light year" comment so often. Sony is the only platform holder to show up this year honestly.
Astro Bot | Review Thread
- Thread starter John Elden Ring
- Start date
Japan Studio never merged with Asobi because Asobi always has been one of the internal Japan Studio teams. And wasn't shut down, they were restructured.
After several decades of not being able to release an internally developed single hit and having had multiple money sinks, Japan Studio got downsized, restructured, rebranded (not the first time) and split (not the first time), cancelling with the restructuring the mobile games they were making back then and firing who was in charge of them (she is working at Xbox now).
Before the restructuring, their most recent releases were Demon's Souls remake (mostly developed by Bluepoint), Astro's Playroom and the Patapon 2 remaster.
Japan Studio had two parts: one with different small internal development teams where most of their members rotated between these teams. With the restructuring, these teams were merged into the -I assume- most successful/productive/popular one back then, Team Asobi (whose members already were mostly from the other Japan Studio teams).
The head of Team Asobi would be now the studio head too. After the restructuring Team Asobi got a new office inside the same SIE Japanese HQ building were Japan Studio was with the idea of slowly growing there until becoming aroung 100 people.
The other half of Japan Studio was their XDEV Japan team (which already started outside Japan Studio and also got multiple rebrands and was merged or separated several times with Japan Studio): the one who managed and supported Japanese 2nd party projects (Parappa, Everybody's Golf, Demon's Souls, Bloodborne, Death Stranding... and after the restructuring Death Stranding Director's Cut, Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin, Death Stranding 2, Physint...). They also got a new office inside the SIE Japanese HQ where Japan Studio was, because they had to grow because now were also in charge of 2nd party games not only developed in Japan, but also in the rest of Asia.
With the restructuring, the XDEV Japanese team was also split from the local gamedev team, as the EU and US teams of XDEV did before, to become their own studio, now part of the global XDEV team, that now work more closely with the XDEV ofices in the other regions in a more coordinated way (XDEV not only manages and supports 2nd party games, they also manage all the internal and external support/outsourcing studios that all 1st and 2nd party games use).
XDEV (short for "External development") isn't the only SIE department where they grouped the different teams they had working separatedly and uncoordinatedly into a single global team with a global strategy and coordination and presence in different regions. Before it they also did it with minimum the SIE marketing and PR teams (probably also with Q&A, CM and localization if they already didn't have a global team). This makes them more productive, cost effective and reduces redundancies.
And no, Jim Ryan didn't "ruin" the company. The opposite: he left it generating more revenue revenue this half generation than in the (entire) previous generations, and generating more profit than in all previous generated combined. Plus with most areas in record numbers and in a multi year growth pattern.
Not only this, Astro Bot -game greenlighted by Jim Ryan and Hermen Hulst- seems that it's going to be the best selling Japan Studio game ever.
Days before release, even before the reviews, was in top positions of the PSN and Amazon stores of the main countries. So after the reviews and release pretty likely will be top 1 or top 2 in most of these stores if already wasn't there.
Astro Bot will sell several millions of units, and now will be an universally acclaimed and very profitable studio instead of being the money pit it was in the past releasing many games that had in most cases cases mediocre or poor sales or reviews (even if some niches loved some of them).
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I applaud and thank you for your first two paragraph explanation regarding asobi and japan studio
But for the last paragraph sorry unfortunately i find it laugahable, nothing can redeem that sack of shit
I’m curious about your sincere opinion of Phil Spencer.
This guy from Larian gets a lot of attention and he's saying Astrobot is the best game ever
I think he’s mocking the game.
You're free to continue rejecting reality and believe in fantasies instead. Good luck
It’s crazy that Sony now possibly has 4 top 10 studios in gaming.
In no order Rockstar, ND, Larian, SSM, Insomniac, Asobi, From, CDPR, Respawn. I need to think one more.
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@Infinity Of course you laughed at my comment. I’m sure you’re feeling the salt right now. Also your Astro Metacritic was wrong. Lol
Yeah Remedy. Nintendo doesn’t really have a singular studio, so I didn’t put them. Everything they do is in house. Like Capcom. But you can put the, if you want.
Just consistently of good to great high quality releases. What are your top studios?
if we're talking about every game being guaranteed hits, rockstar treyarch naughty dog mihoyo cdpr fromsoft insomniac nintendo and possibly blizzard (they've suffered a lot of reputational damage in the past decade). i don't think larian is there yet but they could get there. asobi is definitely also on the shortlist but they need more of a resume