In case you missed it Astro Bot dev Team Asobi — born out of the defunct Japan Studio — just put out a banger. The game is somewhat of a departure from what we’re used to seeing from PlayStation Studios, and instantly became one of the biggest hits of 2024. It’s light-hearted and fun, and Team Asobi says it wants to keep things that way.
Astro Bot dev wants to stay small and ‘colorful’
In an interview with VGC, which makes for a very interesting read, studio boss Nicolas Doucet expressed his desire to keep the team small and continue to make light-hearted games for all ages. He pointed out that many of the top PlayStation Studios started out that way, and eventually pivoted to mature, hyper-realistic AAA blockbusters, but that’s not the path that Team Asobi wants to follow.
“If you consider the history of PlayStation and how every studio has positioned themselves, it’s interesting that – and this is also what I show management – as the audience of PlayStation grew, a lot of these [studios] went from making cartoon games to a little bit more mature, hyper-realistic games,” Doucet said, adding that keeping his team small works out for the best (Team Asobi has around 65 employees).
Doucet’s past experience at PlayStation includes working on the PS2 Eye Toy at the shuttered London Studio, and it looks like the “fun” aspect in video games is far more important to him than anything else.
“We really wanted to fill that gap, that used to be the gap filled by other studios 20-25 years ago,” Doucet added. “That’s really where we want to be: all ages, colorful etc.”