Silent Hill and Gravity Rush creator Keiichiro Toyama has told VGC that Sony wanted its now-defunct Japan Studio to move towards big budget games. Japan Studio was PlayStation’s oldest first-party developers, and its closure / reorganization in 2021 — after 30 years of operation — took fans by surprise.
Sony’s Japan Studio was behind some of PlayStation’s most creative games
In a new interview with VGC, Toyama said that he personally wanted to make “original,” creative games rather than be bound by massive budgets, but that’s not the direction Sony wanted to go in. Toyama departed Japan Studio shortly before its closure, and ended up founding Bokeh Game Studio, where he’s making upcoming title Slitterhead.
“With Sony, there was an increasing motive to make more highly budgeted games, and it wanted to go that way with the Japan Studio brand,” Toyama said. “My motive was always to create original games. I feel I can do this without a massive budget.”
Japan Studio was behind some of PlayStation’s most beloved IPs, but towards the end of its life, it struggled to make commercially successful titles with a few exceptions like Astro. Some of its creative endeavors, like Gravity Rush, didn’t quite make their mark despite positive reception.
