Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) – initially local – studio starts to shed more and more talent, and it doesn’t seem to be a good omen for its future.

The newest departure we need to talk about is Masaaki Yamagiwa. He was previously a producer of Bloodborne, Deraciné, and Tokyo Jungle, so in the background, he was an important person in these games’ development. He announced his departure on Twitter: „I’m leaving Sony Interactive Entertainment at the end of this month. I’m going to continue working hard on creating games. Many thanks to everyone!” Unfortunately, Yamagiwa did not further detail his plans regarding his game development career.

It’s not the first time we hear someone leave SIE Japan Studio in the past year or so. We can name Teruyuki Toriyama as well. He was a producer on Bloodborne, the Demon’s Souls remake, and Soul Sacrifice. There’s also Keiichiro Toyama, who was the director of the first Silent Hill, as well as the creator of Siren (Forbidden Siren) and Gravity Rush. He left along with his colleagues Kazunobu Sato and Junya Okura, and the three of them have formed Bokeh Game Studio. (We discussed their first game recently  it looks to be quite promising.)

Going by these departures, it’s somewhat safe to say that Sony’s previously more important studio is not in a good shape at the moment. Despite what Jim Ryan, the president and CEO of SIE is saying about the Japanese market being important, the company has become Americanized (or more global; SIE’s headquarters aren’t in Japan but California) during the PlayStation 4 era, and what we see around the PlayStation 5 is just the result of the changes.

What’s next for Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio? We have yet to see…

Source: Gematsu