For nogle år siden lukkede Sony det historiske Japan Studio ned, et ret stort studie der igennem årene sørgede for at levere lidt mindre, eksklusive projekter til forskellige PlayStation-platforme, spil som Soul Sacrifice, Everybody's Golf, Puppeteer og Gravity Rush-serien.
Så hvorfor blev studiet lukket? I et interview med Sacred Symbols-podcastet fortæller nu tidligere PlayStation-chef Shuhei Yoshida, at den interne vurdering var at markedet for disse AA-titler simpelthen forsvandt, så disse projekter genererede ikke nok overskud til at det kunne hænge sammen.
"During my time, people give me credit, but one of the things I was not successful at was having a successful service game, and the other thing is I was not able to have amazingly successful games made in Japan. Other than Gran Turismo, we had many great products but didn't really have many triple-A-level successful products. That became more and more important as the big games became bigger - the indies filled the gap and the double-A market seems to have disappeared."
Er du enig med Yoshida? Der er naturligvis et sprudlende indie-marked, men kigger man Japan Studios output er det let at spotte at det måske har været svært for disse spil at finde succes.