Japan Studio

Native name	JAPANスタジオ
Company type	Division
Industry	Video games
Founded	1 July 2005; 19 years ago (2005-07-01)[1][2]
Defunct	1 April 2021; 3 years ago (2021-4-1)
Fate	Merged intoTeam Asobi and other studios
Successor	Team Asobi
Headquarters	Tokyo , Japan
Products	Shadow of the Colossus Talkman Siren LocoRoco Ape Escape Gravity Rush Knack The Last Guardian Astro Bot
Parent	Sony Computer Entertainment (2005) PlayStation Studios (2005–2021)
Divisions	Team Asobi

Japan Studio was a Japanesevideo game developer ofSony Interactive Entertainment based inTokyo. It was best known for theApe Escape,LocoRoco,Patapon,Gravity Rush, andKnack series, theTeam Ico games,Bloodborne,The Legend of Dragoon, andAstro's Playroom. In April 2021, Japan Studio was reorganized and merged withTeam Asobi and other SIE studios.

Sony Computer Entertainment was founded in Tokyo on 16 November 1993, jointly established bySony andSony Music Entertainment Japan.^[3] The studio was run similar to Sony Music Entertainment Japan during its first few years, with producers seeking out creative talent and nurturing them to help develop new games.^[4] Examples of these works includedPaRappa the Rapper byNanaOn-Sha, andEverybody's Golf byCamelot Software Planning.^[4]

Shuhei Yoshida oversaw the company from 1996 through 2000. Yoshida started creating teams and hired for them, while simultaneously assisting other developers for Sony-published exclusives; said teams included Sugar & Rockets, Arc Entertainment and Contrail.^[5] These teams were consolidated into the company in 2000.^[6] Sony's internal development team also developed original titles such asApe Escape andThe Legend of Dragoon, with dedicated teams such asTeam Ico forIco, Project Siren/Team Gravity forSiren andGravity Rush and Polys Entertainment forGran Turismo (which eventually was spun out asPolyphony Digital) emerging.^[7] Alongside these first-party titles, the latter years of the original PlayStation saw strong third-party support, with games likeSquare'sFinal Fantasy VII andKonami'sMetal Gear Solid. According to Yoshida, this led Sony into some complacency on relying on third-party games to support further consoles, and oversight and support for first-party games was less of a priority.^[7] The studio was moved toSCE Worldwide Studios in 2005, rebranding afterwards as Japan Studio; the brand first appeared inGenji: Days of the Blade, the studio's first game for thePlayStation 3.^{[citation needed]} Though Japan Studio's output during thePlayStation 2 years were strong, it struggled to release successful games during the PlayStation 3 era. Yoshida attributed this to the general game development practice in Japan which he described as a "grassroots and bottom up", without a clear vision of what a final game would look like, with exceptions being for people likeKazunori Yamauchi orFumito Ueda who possessed a specific drive towards a product. In contrast to Western video game development, Yoshida said Japan Studio's methods tended to allow games to wander.^[7] Allen Becker, who led Japan Studio starting in 2011, said that their complacency during the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 era caused the studio to fall behind on updated tools and methodologies for game development.^[4]

Yoshida took over full control of Japan Studio in 2008, at the same time that the PlayStation 3 was out and Sony was preparing to launch thePlayStation 4 andPlayStation Vita. Around that time,mobile gaming and casual gaming started to become a major factor in the Asian video game market and drove competition from the consoles.^[7] Sony found that there was a lack oftriple-A third-party support for these new products, and they had to turn to rely on their internal studios for game support. To get Japan Studio back on track, Sony brought in Becker, who had been working atSanta Monica Studio, to lead Japan Studio. Becker made several tough calls of the 40-some games that were in development at the time of his arrival to terminate development of those unlikely to be successful and implemented similar development processes as Sony's Western studios to get the studio back on track.^[7] Though Becker's approach, the studio was able to release shorter but cohesive titles that still reflected a Japanese approach to video games, such asPuppeteer,Rain andKnack.^[7] Also during this time, emphasis was placed onThe Last Guardian, the highly anticipated third title from Ueda which had been in development for over six years, eventually released in 2016, years after Ueda left the studio and formed genDesign.^[4]

Across late 2020 and early 2021, several notable Japan Studio employees announced that they were departing the company.^[8][9][10] According to multiple sources speaking withVideo Games Chronicle Sony had not renewed most of the contracts for the studio outside of those onTeam Asobi because the studio was not considered profitable enough to continue with original game development.^[11] In a statement, Sony stated that, as of 1 April 2021, Japan Studio would be re-centered around Team Asobi to build on the popularity ofAstro's Playroom.^[12] Before and shortly after 1 April 2021, several additional Japan Studio staff announced their departure from the studio.^[13] Team Asobi was moved intoPlayStation Studios in June 2021.^[14]Shawn Layden, former chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios, stated in 2024 that Japan Studio had been suffering from "legacy malaise", having failed to recreate the successful games they once had and lacked the experience to do so again, and eliminating all but Team Asobi was akin to "trimming a bonsai", hopeful that the smaller team would be able to recapture the earlier successes.^[15] Yoshida said in a 2025 interview that with the growth ofindie games, the gap widened betweentriple-A games and smaller games of the type Japan Studio specialized in, and it became difficult for the studio to gain approval for such concepts within Sony. Yoshida gave the example ofKeiichiro Toyama, who led development ofGravity Rush 2; though he had ideas for smaller games, he could not get approval by Sony for these, so left the company in 2020, founded his own independent studio Bokeh Game Studio, and began releasing his own smaller games, starting withSlitterhead.^[16]

Japan Studio was formed by several internal development teams, with all of them being disbanded, reorganised, or spun off into a separate studio.

The studio's unnamed main unit, its first development team, is responsible for all co-development efforts. As a primary developer, they developed theApe Escape andLocoRoco series as well as individual titles likeThe Legend of Dragoon andFantavision.

A unit of SCEJ headed byKazunori Yamauchi dedicated toracing games and the second established. Initially developingMotor Toon Grand Prix and itssequel, the success of its 1997 racing gameGran Turismo caused it to be formally spun off intoPolyphony Digital.

A development unit established in 2012 by Nicolas Doucet, who previously worked forLondon Studio andSaffire.^[30] It worked on theAstro Bot series in the entire span of its existence under Japan Studio. In April 2021, they were formally spun off into a separate studio underSIE Worldwide Studios, serving as a successor to Japan Studio after its redundancy.^[14]

A development unit headed byFumito Ueda and the third established in the studio. It developedIco andShadow of the Colossus.^[31] They were disbanded following lead game designerFumito Ueda departing the company and establishinggenDESIGN during development ofThe Last Guardian.^[32]

A development unit formed in 1999 by former members ofTeam Silent, the creators ofSilent Hill.^[33] The team developed games in theSiren andGravity Rush series and was led by game designer and directorKeiichiro Toyama, who, alongside designers Kazunobu Sato and Junya Okura, left Japan Studio in late 2020 to formBokeh Game Studio.^[34]

• Official website(in Japanese)

• First-party video game developers
• Japanese companies established in 1993
• 2021 disestablishments in Japan
• Software companies based in Tokyo
• PlayStation Studios
• Video game companies established in 1993
• Defunct video game companies of Japan
• Video game development companies
• Video game companies disestablished in 2021

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