Bloodborne and Demon’s Souls “href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/games/demons-souls/ “> Demon’s Souls remake producer Teruyuki Toriyama has announced that he will leave SIE Japan Studio” href = “https: // www. videogameschronicle.com/companies/sony/sie-japan-studio/”>SIE Japan Studio in late 2020.
Toriyama, who also worked on Astro Bot Rescue Mission and Soul Sacrifice, revealed his imminent departure from PlayStation “href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/playstation/ “> Japanese PlayStation arm via Twitter on Thursday .
In his message, he thanked fans for their support during his time at Sony Interactive Entertainment “href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/companies/sony/ “> Sony and said he plans to“ accept the challenge of creating new IPs games in my new company ”.
SIE Japan Studio recently lost several high-profile creatives.
Keiichiro Toyama, director of the Silent Hill and Gravity Rush series, announced this month that he was leaving the company to form the new development studio Bokeh, which is making a horror action-adventure game.
Toyama formed the Bokeh Game Studio with Junya Okura, chief designer of the Gravity Rush series, and Kazunobu Sato, chief designer of the 2013 PS3 exclusive Puppeteer, who also left Sony after nearly two decades of service.
The exits of Sony’s veteran creators follow a recent Bloomberg report that stated that the company’s Japanese territory was increasingly being “marginalized” as the corporation placed more importance on the US market.
And the newly launched PlayStation 5 “href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/playstation/ps5/ “> PS5 broke with more than 25 years of tradition in Japan by changing the circle and buttons on the X controller to make the last the default selection button, aligning the interface with the west.
PlayStation’s Japan Studio, which co-developed games like Bloodborne, Astro’s Playroom “href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/games/astros-playroom/ “> Astro’s Playroom and The Last Guardian, would have seen the rolling contracts of many of its creators have not been renewed and developer support teams have been reduced by up to a third of its peak.
In response to the Bloomberg report, Sony spokeswoman Natsumi Atarashi said “our domestic market remains extremely important” and stated that any suggestion that Sony was shifting its focus from Japan was incorrect and “does not reflect the company’s strategy “.
In an interview published in a recent issue of Edge, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan also said that reports that the company is marginalizing Japan’s role “are inaccurate”.
“Sony’s position is that the Japanese market remains extremely important to us,” he said. “We are not as excited about the involvement of the Japanese game development community as we are now for many years.”
Ryan said there was a five-year period between 2010 and 2015, during which Japanese game companies mainly focused on mobile games according to the tastes of the market, but that they became more engaged in the development of consoles again in the years following.
“This continues and strengthens once again with PS5,” said Ryan. “In our two launch programs – which featured a fair amount of games, but not a large number of games – there were eight titles developed in Japan, many of which are the subject of collaboration and partnership between the PlayStation and the Japanese publishing community.
“I would also note that we are making a statement when launching in Japan day and date with the US, and that’s not what we did with the PlayStation 4″ href = “https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/ playstation / ps4 / “> PS4. I read those things. Many of those comments are inaccurate, and Japan – as our second largest market and as Sony’s home country – remains very important to us.”