Japan Studio has officially been removed from the PlayStation Studios website. The Tokyo-based first-party Sony studio, founded in 1993, was known for titles such as Ape Escape and Knack. Japan Studio also assisted on the creation of other developers' titles, such as FromSoftware's Bloodborne.
Japan Studio was a prominent part of the PlayStation Studios family, having developed popular PlayStation-exclusive titles such as The Last Guardian, Knack, and Patapon. The studio also assisted with the development of other exclusives, such as the highly-acclaimed Bloodborne and the 2020 remake of Demon's Souls. Unfortunately, in February 2021 it was announced that producers and managers had begun leaving Japan Studio, hinting at the studio's closure. Sure enough, Japan Studio was officially closed in April 2021, with the developer being reorganized and merged with several other Sony-owned studios.
Following Japan Studio's closure earlier this year, Push Square reports that the developer has been officially removed from the PlayStation Studios website. Japan Studio's spot on the website has been filled by Astro's Playroom creator Team Asobi, which was formally a part of Japan Studio before being spun off into its own separate entity. While Japan Studio is no longer a part of the PlayStation Studios group of first-party developers, the studio was reportedly merged into other Sony-owned developers.
While the closure of Japan Studio is a hard blow for fans of series like Ape Escape and Gravity Rush, PlayStation Studios recently expanded with the acquisition of another studio. Sony recently acquired Housemarque, a Finnish studio responsible for the recently-released PlayStation 5-exclusive Returnal. The relationship between Sony and Housemarque goes back for years, with the developer creating a number of PlayStation-exclusive titles such as the 2007 shoot 'em up Super Stardust and the 2016 role-playing shooter Alienation. Recent rumors also suggest that Sony plans to acquire Bluepoint Games, a studio responsible for remaking a number of classic Sony exclusives such as Shadow of the Colossus and Demon's Souls. However, Bluepoint's Twitter bio was recently changed to confirm that the developer is still a "fully independent self-funded studio."
The closure of Japan Studio is surely disappointing to fans of the studio's popular series such as Ape Escape and Gravity Rush, and the studio's removal from the PlayStation Studios website is the final nail in the coffin. While the developer has supposedly been merged into other Sony studios, it is unlikely that the creator's signature style will be captured by these separate developers. From Ape Escape to Knack, Japan Studio has shaped the last few decades of PlayStation's video game legacy.
Source: Push Square