There are some western people in Vanillaware too.It's all good bro, the narrative part was me pulling your leg about the team being all "Asian". Just messing around with you
Team Asobi: “We want our games to feel like they’re made in Japan”
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It doesn't talk about his parents on that link. His mother could be half-asian who knows"remember" done changed the dudes whole nationality just to push a narrative
Nicolas Doucet
Nicolas Doucet is a French game director and designer, founder and current president of Team Asobi, an internal development studio owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. He was previously the president of Team Asobi's parent studio Japan Studio from 2019 to its reconstruction in 2021. Doucet...playstation-studios.fandom.com
Thts irrelevant, in no place on the internet does it even allude to him being Asian so why think it just because it's Asobi. That was the point just because it's an Asian centric dev? Most dev companies have mixed talent from all over.It doesn't talk about his parents on that link. His mother could be half-asian who knows
Well, there are western people in basically all Japanese videogame companies.
To be developed by a studio located in Japan.
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Another feature from SIE, i guess they’re trying to to shine a light on Asobi for hiring or maybe they are ready to debut their new game
www.sie.com
This makes it sound like Team Asobi will be the new Japan Studio. They want to increase the dev count to 100 and have incubation teams for different variety of games. I could even see them making RPG’s and stuff people have been wanting
If they develop a healthy dev pipe line they could probably be putting out more games and high quality games, no more knack.
Studio Spotlight - Team ASOBI
Team ASOBI, developer of ASTRO BOT: Rescue Mission and ASTRO’s PLAYROOM, is looking towards a bright future making games to bring happiness to family homes. We sat down with Nicolas Doucet, Studio Head & Creative Director of Team ASOBI, who described their focus on the family audience as “a...
www.sie.com
This makes it sound like Team Asobi will be the new Japan Studio. They want to increase the dev count to 100 and have incubation teams for different variety of games. I could even see them making RPG’s and stuff people have been wanting
If they develop a healthy dev pipe line they could probably be putting out more games and high quality games, no more knack.
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Guys you need to stay topic, it’s not from interest if he’s Japanese or not. What matters is the result we get from his leadership.
I have a strong feeling this will be the comeback for Ape Escape. This game matches perfectly with their intentions of using the full capability and features of DualSense. And it would be a family friendly title, which would appeal to a wider audience. I am calling it, prepare for a new chapter in Ape Escape!
I have a strong feeling this will be the comeback for Ape Escape. This game matches perfectly with their intentions of using the full capability and features of DualSense. And it would be a family friendly title, which would appeal to a wider audience. I am calling it, prepare for a new chapter in Ape Escape!
Chicken accountants, lawyers with cowboy hats, loud commentators, that kind of stuff...
I was not expecting the head of the studio to be a french guyHe moved to Japan?
Lot of French and Japanese collaborations have happened. Mostly animation but they seem to have mutual respect.
Many people from the Astro's Playroom's staff previously worked on the Gravity Rush, Loco Roco, Knack and Siren series, ICO, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian, Puppeteer to name a few. Some of them before joining Japan Studio did work on Gran Turismo, Little Big Planet, Metal Gear, Persona or Castlevania series to name a few.
With the restructuring they did split Japan Studio in two: Team Asobi merged their internal development team (so now has more staff who worked in non Team Asobi games from Japan Studio) while their Asian 2nd party publishing XDEV Japanese team was moved to have their own studio separated from Japan Studio/Team Asobi, as SIE did years before with their European 2nd party publishing XDEV teams: they started inside a local PS Studios internal development studio and later they became their own team without reporting to that local internal development studio.
So combining both interviews:Studio Spotlight - Team ASOBI
Team ASOBI, developer of ASTRO BOT: Rescue Mission and ASTRO’s PLAYROOM, is looking towards a bright future making games to bring happiness to family homes. We sat down with Nicolas Doucet, Studio Head & Creative Director of Team ASOBI, who described their focus on the family audience as “a...
Team Asobi: “We want our games to feel like they’re made in Japan”
Team Asobi interviewwww.gamesindustry.biz
- Their next game will be bigger than the previous ones, they target family audience
- Studio values: Magic, Innovation, Playfulness, Universal and Quality. "No crunch" policy
- They'll create additional development teams to work in more games at the same time as they continue growing, aim to reach 100 devs. Games with same spirit and values, but in completely different genres
- Their current team has over 60 devs, soon 80
- Not limited by time or money
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Almost seems like they will be the ‘nintendo’ inside of playstation, as far as design sensibilities go. Out of all the SIE studios im rooting for them the most. They have the potential to restore some of that PS3-PSP quirky energy playstation has been missing in its first party games
I think they'll continue doing what they were already doing under the Japan Studio name.
Regarding kind friendly games they also have Media Molecule, in addition to external teams like Sumo to help them with Sackboy.
I think to like to introduce many game mechanics and homages to previous PS games, so something cool they could do as a bigger 3d action platformer would be a game where Astro travels across universes visiting the worlds of other Sony series, specially kid friendly ones or a kid friendly version of them: Ape Escape, Gravity Rush, Loco Roco, Ico, SotC, TLG, Little Big Planet, Parappa, Knack, etc. and using a handful of specific game mechanics on each.
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I keep forgetting about them. Let's hope their next game, being AAA-ish finally makes that studio relevant. I saw potential -special in visuals, and being brave with new game mechanics- on their most recent one but it was too boring.
Having an R&D group and encouraging people to experiment / start new projects is very Japan Studios like.
Interesting considering Sony brought in Western management to reign in their devs who were experimenting and not actually following through with anything or co-operating or sharing code.
The spirit of the approach but you hit the reset button and try to make it more organized would be my guess.
The "not limited by time or money" thing is what you have to be careful with.
Interesting considering Sony brought in Western management to reign in their devs who were experimenting and not actually following through with anything or co-operating or sharing code.
The spirit of the approach but you hit the reset button and try to make it more organized would be my guess.
The "not limited by time or money" thing is what you have to be careful with.
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I enjoyed Concrete Genie, especially the last 3rd when it gets more action heavy. They have the potential, their story telling is really good and they have a good design sense they just need a bit of a boost when it comes to gameplay design/combat. With Sony Picture Animation and a bigger budget we already know it’ll be graphically superior to CG also.
I think the actual plot and presentation of CG was better than Rift Apart, it just didn’t have insomniacs gameplay and graphics
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I believe the key reason sony kept Team Asobi is because they liked the way they were managed and able to put out polished finished products. I’m sure sony also loved projects Ueda and Toyama were making they just didn’t like how long they took to make them and they didn’t really sell that well.
Even looking at it now who even know when their next projects are coming out, Slitterhead does not look that great and Ueda’s next game will be lucky to come out this generation. There’s an interview that went up recently with Shu interviewing Toyama and they talk about Gravity Rush 2 and how he feels like the project just wasnt managed well and got too ambitious for its own good.
Yeah I mean the story of Japan Studios is they got complacent and were a mess.. Allan Becker said there were 40 games in development when he took over (couple years before PS4 gen).. and the teams weren't using updated tech/tools/doing modern dev really.
He cleaned house a bit and focused them on less projects.
Basically people weren't business focus.. had no urgency.. no sense for budgets.
What eventually remained by the time Japan Studio was disbanded were those who actually could finish games lol (like you are talking about)
And it makes the "not constrained by time or money" comments here interesting.. sounds like they want to bring back having teams feel freedom but I imagine it'll be a bit more business focused than the early 2000s Japan studio full of auteurs who didn't give a fuck lol
They didn't shut it down/disbanded it. They restructured it firing money sinkers who weren't capable to make a successful, profittable game in decades, changed its managemnt and split it into Team Asobi and their new XDEV Japanese office.
Or are you saying that Team Asobi and the team that published Death Stranding Director's Cut after the restructuring don't exist?
Obviously it isn't real, it's a way of talking. Properly justifying the time and money on a profesional and reasonable way for each project, Sony will provide them whatever time and money they need. If they ask for 500 people and 10 years only to make a 45 MC Knack 3 that sells 500K copies Sony will cancel the game and fire them.
But if they keep the costs and development time for each game on a reasonable budget, and keep releasing well reviewed and good enough games in sales Sony will give them whatever they want.
PS: A good chunk of the people who made these "auteur games" are still at Team Asobi. Click on each worker to see its previous games and think that after releasing this game many devs from the other Japan Studio internal game development teams were merged into Team Asobi during the restructuring: https://www.mobygames.com/game/playstation-5/playstation-5-included-game/credits
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