When will Sony shut down Media Molecule?

[Bryank75]

Japan Studio was restructured, not closed. There's zero reasons to close an award winning studio whose all games are profitable and very well reviewed like Media Molecule.

Getting rid of the creator of Gravity Rush and then Team Ico gone as well..... it seems like they are giving away people and opportunities to Epic.

Why not build PlayStation with things like Rocket League, Fallguys and in the context of this subject Team Ico.....

Makes little sense to me

 

[Remember_Spinal]

cause team Ico games only come out once every 10 years if you’re lucky

 

[Killer_Sakoman]

cause team Ico games only come out once every 10 years if you’re lucky

Yeah, unfortunately they were unable to manage time and budget.

 

[Bryank75]

cause team Ico games only come out once every 10 years if you’re lucky

Worth it though! IMO

 

[arvfab]

Getting rid of the creator of Gravity Rush and then Team Ico gone as well..... it seems like they are giving away people and opportunities to Epic.

Why not build PlayStation with things like Rocket League, Fallguys and in the context of this subject Team Ico.....

Makes little sense to me

Look at my avatar. SotC is my favorite game ever. The Last Guardian, even with its technical problems, is a masterpiece in my eyes.

Yet Ueda hasn't done anything since leaving Sony and after TLG launched in 2016. And I'm pretty sure that whoever within Team ICO was talented enough, was kept during the restructuring.

 

[Kokoloko]

I think they are a great team. And is one of the few games I think should come to PC.

I do believe if Bends next game isn’t on the leve as Ghost of Tsushima, Demon Souls, Returnal, TLOU, Spiderman, Horizon etc. They will be cut.
Unlike the other studios, they didn’t up their game after having years to work on Days Gone.

 

[Kokoloko]

It was closed for the most part. Team Asobi was just a fraction of it and no signs have been shown that anything else exists outside of Team Asobi.

I think the Bloodoborn team from Japan studios also joined Xdev external playstation studios.

But I would love to have Ueda and Team Gravity back at Playstation studios. Aswell as a few more

 

[Remember_Spinal]

I think they are a great team. And is one of the few games I think should come to PC.

I do believe if Bends next game isn’t on the leve as Ghost of Tsushima, Demon Souls, Returnal, TLOU, Spiderman, Horizon etc. They will be cut.
Unlike the other studios, they didn’t up their game after having years to work on Days Gone.

I dont think sony will close any studio, talent is too hard to come by these days. Its not the ps3 era, sony is rapidly expanding all their studios

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Next week.

 

[Sleepy Brown]

They wont.... cause of the leader of the studio winning an award and Jim Ryan favoring UK studios.

But here....I agree with you, they should have been shut down before Japan Studio.

Japan Studio got no justice.

Pretty much this.
LittleBigPlanet 2 was over 11 years ago.
Just drop Dreams already and make something new or shut down.
Media Molecule has been a waste of money for over a decade.

 

[Sleepy Brown]

@Sleepy Brown let's stop with the low effort bait threads, shall we? Both your threads will be kept open so people can openly discuss, but you need to step up your game and everybody needs to be respectful.

Why warn me for "low effort bait threads"?
Insomniac is struggling to create successful new IPs. Media Molecule's last hit was LBP2... over 11 years ago.
What exactly is the "bait" here? Stating facts people don't want to hear here?

 

[nominedomine]

They wont.... cause of the leader of the studio winning an award and Jim Ryan favoring UK studios.

But here....I agree with you, they should have been shut down before Japan Studio.

Japan Studio got no justice.

(Disclaimer: I don't want any studios shut down in reality)

They are a fraction of the size of what Japan Studio was and already had more commercial success than Japan Studios ever had. Again, it's obvious how Dreams was actually positioned to be a massive success but Sony completely failed to capitalize on it, allowing garbage like Roblox to occupy that space.

That's not to say closing Japan Studio wasn't a bad decision.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

They are a fraction of the size of what Japan Studio was and already had more commercial success than Japan Studios ever had. Again, it's obvious how Dreams was actually positioned to be a massive success but Sony completely failed to capitalize on it, allowing garbage like Roblox to occupy that space.

That's not to say closing Japan Studio wasn't a bad decision.

The thing is Japan Studios was like 6 different studios and they were all super unorganized and inefficient. Restructuring means basically trimming a large portion of fat and reinvesting in the most efficient of those studios.

The way i see it is, Japan Studios felt more like a large support studio/incubation studio. From what i read they had liek 15 different projects in various stages that would just never come to fruition because it was all managed really badly. Games would be pitched, start production and cancelled, one after another which is why we barely got anything in the last 5 years of the PS4’s life cycle.

It was a big battle royal to see which studio would come out victorious and after Team Asobi put out two successful projects in a genre sony desperately lack in it was clear they would win the title. Team Asobi can put out high quality games on a timely schedule which is the most important aspect of any of their studios. Not only do they serve a niche but they are multi-talented, in both standard tv and VR.

With the ICO team we’d still be waiting on their next game, for years. Only for it to possibly not even sell well again. With Bokeh/Project Siren team we’d be waiting on Slitterhead which honestly doesn’t look great either.

Make Team Asobi a two team studio and it’s already a far better studio than Japan was

 

[nominedomine]

The thing is Japan Studios was like 6 different studios and they were all super unorganized and inefficient. Restructuring means basically trimming a large portion of fat and reinvesting in the most efficient of those studios.

The way i see it is, Japan Studios felt more like a large support studio/incubation studio. From what i read they had liek 15 different projects in various stages that would just never come to fruition because it was all managed really badly. Games would be pitched, start production and cancelled, one after another which is why we barely got anything in the last 5 years of the PS4’s life cycle.

It was a big battle royal to see which studio would come out victorious and after Team Asobi put out two successful projects in a genre sony desperately lack in it was clear they would win the title. Team Asobi can put out high quality games on a timely schedule which is the most important aspect of any of their studios. Not only do they serve a niche but they are multi-talented, in both standard tv and VR.

With the ICO team we’d still be waiting on their next game, for years. Only for it to possibly not even sell well again. With Bokeh/Project Siren team we’d be waiting on Slitterhead which honestly doesn’t look great either.

Make Team Asobi a two team studio and it’s already a far better studio than Japan was

I think Team Asobi is doing great as it is I wouldn't mess with them. I just think Sony really needs another big Japanese studio, for a Japanese company they have very few Japanese devs. Even when Japan Studios was struggling it still helped with that identity and diversity of getting games like The Last Guardian, Gravity Rush, Bloodborne, Everybody's Golf, I don't feel like we are getting those games anymore.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

I think Team Asobi is doing great as it is I wouldn't mess with them. I just think Sony really needs another big Japanese studio, for a Japanese company they have very few Japanese devs. Even when Japan Studios was struggling it still helped with that identity and diversity of getting games like The Last Guardian, Gravity Rush, Bloodborne, Everybody's Golf, I don't feel like we are getting those games anymore.

No ones really getting them because those studios still exist, they are just slow as hell to produce games. Bloodborne 2 wouldn’t exist right now regardless.

I think sony is better off investing in some of it’s indie partner studios rather than searching japan for some undiscovered talent. Outside of the big 3 japanese publishers there really isn’t much left to invest in

 

[Yurinka]

Getting rid of the creator of Gravity Rush and then Team Ico gone as well..... it seems like they are giving away people and opportunities to Epic.

Why not build PlayStation with things like Rocket League, Fallguys and in the context of this subject Team Ico.....

Makes little sense to me

Maybe they were fired for not being able to make a profitable game in decades (and in the case of The Last Guardian, spending a shit ton of money on it and having to ask other teams to complete the developent because they weren't able to), or maybe they left because wanted to have their own studio to make their own games or something like that. Or maybe both, who knows.

Being a company it's great to make good games but they can't be sinking money forever, they must be somewhat profitable and take responsabilities. Moving the 2nd party publishing to a different studio that reported to the global XDEV team instead of to a local devteam is something they did in the other regions too, made sense to have the same worldwide. A change of management and restructuring with som people taking responsability was needed too. They downsized them and now are growing them with fresh blood and also rebranded the studio with a new leadership of their most successful team. For a company makes a lot of sense.

It could have been worse they could have closed the studio as they with with many underperforming western studios.

We'll see what happens once they publish their games Team Asobi, Bokeh and Gen Design and let's see in the case of the non-Sony ones in which consoles do they release them. Who was their boss, Yoshida (who said they considered to cancel TLG but rebooted its development due to fan demand) now is in charge of PlayStation Indies, who would be partner with them.

Epic bought the creators of Fall Guys and Rocket League, regarding GenDesign Epic didn't bought them or invested on them: they said that are going to fully fund their first game and get half of its revenue in exchange. The game already received funding from Kowloon before that. Almost 6 years after the release of TLG we still have to see something about the game.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Epic bought the creators of Fall Guys and Rocket League, regarding GenDesign Epic didn't bought them or invested on them: they said that are going to fully fund their first game and get half of its revenue in exchange. The game already received funding from Kowloon before that. Almost 6 years after the release of TLG we still have to see something about the game.

Getting flashbacks to this

 

[IntentionalPun]

Getting rid of the creator of Gravity Rush and then Team Ico gone as well..... it seems like they are giving away people and opportunities to Epic.

Why not build PlayStation with things like Rocket League, Fallguys and in the context of this subject Team Ico.....

Makes little sense to me

But Ueda left Sony over a decade ago, as did much of Team Ico. He seems to have done it to create his own company.

I'm not sure what people expect out of studios that lost their talent. Is that Sony's fault? I dunno, I don't think anyone has ever gotten an answer out of Ueda.. but considering he started his own development house there's a good chance he just wanted to make more money / run his own company.

 

[Yurinka]

But Ueda left Sony over a decade ago, as did much of Team Ico. He seems to have done it to create his own company.

Some people left with Ueda then and other ones later. Other people from Team Ico left Sony before Ueda. But many Team Ico members remain still at Japan Studio/Team Asobi, see here:

It was closed for the most part. Team Asobi was just a fraction of it and no signs have been shown that anything else exists outside of Team Asobi.

No, it wasn't for the most part. It was split in two and downsized, now both teams are growing again.

Their Japanese XDEV team (its 2nd party publishing part, they moved it to be their own separate office as they did in the past at NA and EU) published Death Stranding Director's Cut after the restructuring.

Their internal development teams were merged into one of them who took the lead of the studio: Team Asobi.

Just to be clear about Team Asobi, its team that worked in Astro's Playroom featured:

• 16 programmers featuring people who previously worked on Astro's Rescue Mission, TLG, SotC, Ico, Gravity Rush, Gravity Rush 2, Knack, Knack 2, Loco Roco, Loco Roco 2, PlayStation Move: Ape Scape, Puppeteer, Legend of Dragoon, Siren: Blood Curse, Forbidden Siren 2, Vib-Ripple, Sega Rally 2, several DDR games, 4 Castlevania DS games, Persona, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner, Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers
• 15 artists or animators featuring people who previously worked on Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, Knack, Knack 2, The Last Guardian, Puppeteer, PlayStation Move: Ape Escape, Ape Quest, Gravity Rush, Gravity Rush 2, Siren: Blood Curse, Forbidden Siren 2, Gran Turismo 5, Gran Turismo: Sport, Run Sackboy! Run!, WipEout Pulse, WipEout HD, WipEout 2048, MotorStorm: Arctic Edge, MotorStorm: Apocalypse, Killzone 2, El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, Steel Batallion and its Sequel, Under The Skin, Killer Is Dead, Lolipop Chainsaw, Shadows of the Damned, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, Metal Gear Solid 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner, Lost Odyssey, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Super Bomberman 3, Sonic Shuffle, Pokémon Trading Card Game, Cobra: Kokuryū Ō no Densetsu, Dark Souls III, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
• 5 designers featuring people who previously worked on Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, The Last Guardian, Puppeteer, Knack 2, Siren: Blood Curse, Forbidden Siren 2, We Love Karamari, Mario Superstar Baseball, Mario Super Sluggers, Tenchu 2, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
• 4 composers or sound designers featuring people who previously worked on Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, Puppeteer, Forbidden Siren 2, Soul Sacrifice Delta, Bloodborne, Everybody's Golf, Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee, Gran Turismo, Gran Turismo 3, 4, 5, 6 and Sport, Tourist Trophy, echocrome, Tearaway: Unfolded, Little Big Planet 1, 2, 3, Vita, Little Big Planet Karting, Run Sackboy! Run!, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, Heavenly Sword, Erica, Gangs of London, The Getaway, EyeToy: Kinetic, Go! Sudoku, Fired Up, Marvel Spider-Man, Killzone: Mercenary, Intelligent Qube, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, God of War: Ascension, inFAMOUS: First Light, Wild Arms 3, Wild Arms Alter Code: F, Wild Arms 4, Wild Arms 5, Wild Arms XF, Knights and Bikes
• Game director and producer who worked as studio director of Japan Studio in Demon's Souls remake, producer and director of Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, producer of EyeToy: Play 3, associate producer in Bionicle and Bionicle: Matoran Adventures (Lego games from EA developed at Argonaut Games, the studio who made Star Fox), tester in more EA Lego games from there

After Astro's Playroom, with the restructuring even more devs from other Japan Studio teams joined Team Asobi, and later they hired and are now around 60 people (and continue hiring).