Despite the struggles AAA has been going through over the past year or so, it seems at least one major industry player, Sony, is still very focused on big budget titles. The focus has, seemingly, even grown to the point where even long-lived and much-beloved studios like Japan Studios are now being shuttered to bolster that focus. This seems to be more less the gist from a recent interview with former SIE Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida.

As reported by MP1st, Mr. Yoshida was interviewed by AV Watch recently, wherein he explained what some of Sony’s goals were during his time as president of SIE Worldwide Studios. He said that the company wanted powerful games that would sell hardware, and it was his job to see that such titles got made. As for Japan Studios, he said that they were always coming up with creative and interesting ideas, but that their games were still just AA titles.

Games have only gotten more expensive to make over the years, so he speculated that Japan Studios’ closure was due to Sony’s desire for more AAA games that would sell better. I think this is rather unfortunate considering that this is the studio that (in collaboration with FromSoftware) brought us Bloodborne, but I suppose I can’t really fault the logic. AA games are by their very nature niche products most of the time, so I guess I can see how Sony would be reluctant to keep funding a full studio if its games are (from the company’s perspective) underperforming.

Still, I think that putting all your eggs in the AAA and GaaS (Games as a Service) basket is a mistake. Higher quality means higher budgets, which means games have to sell even more in order to make their money back. I’m not saying that Sony should abandon making great AAA level titles, but too focus on them exclusively might be a mistake. As for AA games themselves, they can sell, they just have to be in genres that people like.

As much as I respect Japan Studio for its storied history and large library of creative titles, I personally played very few of them. They just didn’t appeal to me, you know? Some ideas were too out there, while others seemed to be too half baked. In other words, they just didn’t look fun to play. It’s the same problem I have with a lot of Kojima games; they look quite impressive, but I just can’t see the fun a lot of the time. Anyway, those are my thoughts. What about you?

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Do you play a lot of AA and indie games? How do you feel about Studio Japan’s closure?