It’s not an April Fools’ joke whatsoever: Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE onwards) Japan Studio‘s doors have been shut…
Back in late February, Sony announced a major reorganization in Japan: „To further strengthen business operations, SIE can confirm PlayStation Studios Japan Studio will be re-organized into a new organization on April 1. Japan Studio will be re-centred to Team Asobi, the creative team behind Astro’s Playroom, allowing the team to focus on a single vision and build on the popularity of Astro’s Playroom.” Astro’s Playroom is a pre-installed title on each PlayStation 5 console, and while there is no word of any DLC happening, we suspect a sequel if we read between the lines of this PR talk.
We can add one more departure to the ever-growing list of people that left Sony or SIE Japan Studio in the previous months. Gavin Moore is the name, and he announced on Twitter that his massive stint at Sony has come to an end: „After 24 years at Sony and 18 of those in Japan, yesterday was my last day at #JAPANStudio. I will miss the great creative spirit and camaraderie of the studio that was a huge part of my life. Time to seek out new and exciting opportunities!!” In case you don’t know, he was the director of the PlayStation 5-exclusive Demon’s Souls remake… and now, he effectively hinted that he is open to working elsewhere.
We mentioned two people yesterday, but about one of them, namely Masami Yamamoto (who, for instance, was the executive producer of the PlayStation 4-exclusive Bloodborne), we thought that he might be opening his studio. We weren’t wrong, here’s his announcement on Twitter: „I apologize if this sounds like an April Fools’ joke, but on March 31, I established the company EPIGRAsm. I’ve had the privilege of living life through the things I love, so from now on, I would like to ‘live with the people I love’ as a driving principle. I’ll continue to do my best in all areas including game production!”
Still, it’s safe to say that an era has ended.
Leave a Reply