It doesn't look very bad. At least it has better character design than the game with name of an aircraft.
Slitterhead Gameplay debunks Japan Studio rants
- Thread starter mibu no ookami
- Start date
OP
OP
That's a reflection of the Japanese industry at the moment.
While not SUPER expensive, they aren't super cheap either. The cost of studios generally doesn't pay off.
The original plan was to really build out Team Asobi but they elected to stay smaller. They were supposed to double in size to 100 for Astrobot, but they realized adding more people at the time wouldn't have made a better game. Maybe they'll still grow in the future, but Japan has a massive problem right now.
Without Team Ico, present Japan Studio was barely a studio. Sony wanted bigger games and Team Siren didn't want to deliver, so they restructured around Asobi which was the only studio left, since Polyphony Digital had already move out.
Shuhei Yoshida gets a ton of love on the forums, but if he had taken a different approach FromSoftware likely would have been part of PlayStation Studios, although they probably wouldn't be the studio they are today if that happened.
Others have said that Sony should buy Square Enix despite the company being a shell of its former self.
I think mostly they just out right don't understand the mentality in Japan that a lot of these major designers want to build their own studios rather than work for a big publisher and they want to call their own shots. That's largely a recipe for failure.
they only released one of the most unique and fun games of the ps4 gen, people who actually plays games instead of obsessing over company money agree
idk, you showing a rad piece of game probably isnt helping with that, i need slitterhead NOW, better try harder when the next ueda game releases (we all know it will still be a banger lol)
you looking at this game and thinking about watch dogs instead of siren tells me everything i should know lmfao
thats the thing, some people out there dont care about games being 100% polished, there are a lot of classics with some jank to it, but they always compensate with atmosphere, story, music, experimental mechanics
the swap character mechanic looks like watch dogs but in siren years ago we also had this and it was used in such a cool way to surprise survival horror fans, we dont know yet how far toyama pushed this to spice things up on the action character genre, but we know the dude has the brains to that
so if you look at slitterhead with general eye you would think its slop, but being a fan of his job and other small japanese devs you have all the reasons to hype this, its like a garage rock band delivering the fun despite their shortcomings instead of a fancy orchestra
Correction: I had not actually watched the gameplay video in the OP until now. I'm confused now that this is being used to dunk on it?? This game looks cool! Constantly being chased by a Nemesis/Mr X style monster while being able to move from person to person and even animals to escape is a really cool and tense concept and I'm actually kinda excited for this game now. Its still not a must buy day one for me, but this is a game I actually really wanna play now!
Watch Dogs isn't a horror game where you're being chased by a creature. A similar mechanic being used in a different context can be interesting.Rad? The game looks like a vastly worse version of Watch Dogs: Legion.
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Completely agree.
If Japan studios were profitable for Sony they would never have closed down.
What type of games and budgets is irrelevant.
Reality is Japan studios were bleeding money before they closed down.
Our nostalgia and feelings means fuck all to Sony.
Sony is a business not a charity.
If Japan studios were profitable for Sony they would never have closed down.
What type of games and budgets is irrelevant.
Reality is Japan studios were bleeding money before they closed down.
Our nostalgia and feelings means fuck all to Sony.
Sony is a business not a charity.
OP
OP
They changed part of the management around 2019 (this is when Doucet became Studio Head) and then another part when resctructured it in 2021. I'd say the issue maybe was profitability during decades instead of not meeting deadlines: it's ok if from time to time some game tanks and doesn't end being profitable, gets cancelled or delayed. This happens to everyone.
Seeing that in 30 years they never had a sales hit, and instead had some games with bad reviews, several cancellations and at least a handful money pits due too long delays, pretty likely the higher ups ran out of patience and decided it was needed to clean the house and shake the things a bit witht the restructuring, rebranding and new offices in that same building.
Looking at the first results in Astro Bot or Stellar Blade, I think they did a good job.
There was no closure announcement because there was no closure. They made a restructuring and rebranding instead, as already did many years before. Do you think that Astro Bot, Death Stranding Director's Cut, Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin, Convallaria, Lost Soul Aside, Death Stranding 2 or Physint grew on trees or what?
They weren't shut down, they were restructured. Since the restructuring they developed internally Astro Bot and published/manage/supported the Asian 2nd party games Death Stranding Director's Cut, Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin.
Sony always made sure their consoles had a great catalog that covers most niches via 1st, 2nd or 3rd party games. In the past, it was difficult to publish, so Sony published more external games made by smaller teams. Currently is way easier, and devs prefer to self publish and keep the IP for themselves, in addition to have timed console exclusives and not full exclusives. It's also better for Sony, because these small exclusive games still do their same job at a much cheaper price than in the traditional full 2nd party exclusive, so for the same money can get more exclusives. So Sony does deals with them via PlayStation Indies, more focused on helping them in marketing or depending the case funding or some kind on support (porting, localization, etc).
In the past, when games were way cheaper, it was profitable to make games that only appealed a small region as could be Japan. Nowadays, games are very expensive so they have to appeal a bigger, global audience. This is why some of them are now more 'westernized': they try to make the game more appealing to a wider audience.
As company you have to pay the bills and keep the investors happy, so you have to keep a sustainable business. In the Maslow pyramid, you first need to cover the basic needs to keep the stuff sustainable. Then once you have this covered and secured, it's when you can go for the self realization / artform.
Since the 90s they had two parts: one that internally develop their own games and another one who managed the external development of 2nd party games they published and were developed by external (meaning not owned by Sony) teams in Asia.
The publishing of externally developed games (2nd party), includes not only funding and publishing, but also in the production side to make sure they keep achieving each milestone, and also providing them any help they may need with support teams available at Sony or via outsourcing.
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Internally developed: Ape Escape main series, Ico, Shadow of the Collosus, TLG, Gravity Rush.
Some Ape Escape spionffs like Ape Escape Academy 2, Ape Escape Racing were 2nd party games developed by external studios like Shift or Epics and published by Japan Studio. Other 2nd party games developed by somewhere else were Bloodborne (by FromSoft), Demon's Souls (original by FromSoft, remake by Bluepoint), Patapon (by Pyramid), Wild Arms (by Media.Vision), Parappa (by NanaOn-Sha). In several cases these 2nd party games received some support from them via their external development team (XDEV), so in some cases you could say they were codeveloped by Japan Studio (or whatever name it had at that point) too.
Here you can check them even if a few may be wrongly listed.
Polyphony was created becoming their own different studio after the success of the first Gran Turismo, a while ago.
A few Team Ico heads moved to create genDESIGN, not the whole team. Some left or were fired since their first game, and other ones continued there. Team Asobi and XDEV Japan still has many Japan Studio people who were in any of the three Team Ico games. Same goes with Team Siren/Gravity: a few heads moved to Bokeh, since the first Siren some other ones left or were fired, and some still remain there and worked In Astro Bot.
And well, other than a few heads of these internal Japan Studio dev teams, most of the rest of the workers weren't stuck in a team: they moved from a project to another as needed independently of in what team was. Depending on the position, there was some people who worked in most if not all projects.
Yes, it has a few Team Siren members but not the whole team. And obviously doesn't have the rest of Sony staff who worked on the projects from outside the dev team.
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Nope they gave it a chance even with billions of losses, close to a decade they released unsuccessful games and had to be close... it's a good thing cause it was at a standstill with the director blocking Sony from improving the studio rejecting an AAA IP so don't try to talk while ure part of the reason they closed, most didn't buy their games...u hypocrites forget Ure the ones who keep the studios alive by supporting them and u didn't support Japan Studio, I'd suggest we shut the fuck up and accept we are part of the cause
Do you know my gaming or buying habits? How do you know I didn't support their games? Take out your anger else where but don't direct it towards me
.They shouldn't have killed the studio. Sony knee-capped the studio for over a decade but y'all wanna act like Studio Japan should own all the fault.
Kneecapped? If anything they were given chance after chance to make things right.
Believe me, no other publisher would have given the Last Guardian as much time as Sony did. Any other publisher would have just pulled the plug on the project.
I assume you will be buying Slitterhead day 1 then?
Ah yes by chance after chance you mean Sony sending over a top head from Sony Santa Monica to try and fix a Japanese studio and restructure it... Then having them work mostly on VITA while most of those games didn't even touch the western hemisphere and even games that did okay in Japan were kneecapped by the Vita's low install base.
What does Slitherhead has to do with Sony Japan? No I won't be buying day one nor have you seen me talking about this game, so might wanna try again with a better 'gotcha'...