Bloodborne was a partnership with From. I'm sure if From was up for taking on exclusive contract work again Sony would gladly pay them to do it. Last I checked From has successfully made games without a Japan Studio producer in the past. Only obstacle here is From getting too big.
Days Gone was a big budget swing for Bend. It did ok, but clearly Sony's internal metrics on reception indicate that a sequel isn't advisable.
When they cancelled the Asmussen project within Santa Monica early in the PS4 generation they laid off half the studio, this forum clutched its pearls that Santa Monica might be shut down, then a few years later they release a GOTY winning reboot of the God of War IP.
Sony isn't even laying people off at Bend, at least not in meaningful numbers, they just don't want another Days Gone. The team is still a comparatively big team, so their next game is going to be a big budget project.
Gravity Rush is exactly the kind of game Sony should stop putting big effort into, yes. It doesn't fit the cost:benefit needs of a company with a global platform to support. I'd like to see them work on building a Japan team that services a similar under-served niche. Astro Bot and Gran Turismo actually both fit well in that regard, as platformers are under-represented outside of Nintendo's lineup and big budget racing games are scarce. But this wasn't something they'd solve with the existing Japan Studio. Team Gravity like to make what they make, and that is a very niche kind of game. Ueda isn't someone Sony can continue to bankroll for so little output generation after generation. The rest of the Studio was basically producers who kept picking super niche projects with small developers to kick around unless they were handed something on the scale of Bloodborne by WWS.
Growing ASOBI into a reliably high quality platformer studio should be step one. Concurrent to that they should look to pick out a chance to build step two. I know a lot of people were probably hoping that was another KojiPro project, but the reception of Death Stranding was as mixed as Days Gone so it makes sense if Sony feels hesitant to rush headlong into it. Pursuing Ikumi Nakamura's next project would be a good fit for it in my opinion. Do a similar thing as Death Stranding, provide the engine and substantial support, but as a bridge to internalizing the team if its successful, like the traditional Sony studio acquisition model.
They have a global platform to support and unlike the PS3 generation and the early PS4 generation they now know that their production process can get big blockbuster success from more than just Naughty Dog. In the last generation they hit that mark with Guerilla, Insomniac, and Sucker Punch. They're giving Bend another shot at doing the same. That is their focus, and why shouldn't it be? There is clearly huge consumer demand, very little competition, and they have a clear understanding of how to build those kinds of games.
Beyond that the actual smaller "indie" type games just aren't a viable market to fund exclusives in. In the early PS4 period they could offer platform value that outstripped the loss in audience for being exclusive.
Being PS4 only then meant getting paid and platformed by Sony and delaying Xbox and PC ports by maybe a year.
Now the alternative of taking Game Pass money and still being day and date on everything is there. Or taking Epic's deal and only skipping on Steam while hitting all the consoles. Or if its a fit Apple's platform and hitting a larger audience for more money as sales are a non-thing on Arcade with a similar timed exclusivity to what Sony can offer.
Plus forgoing platforms now isn't just skipping Xbox and Steam. The Switch is an indie money factory so any exclusivity that locks out a Switch release could cost a developer literally millions of sales.
Why should Sony spend in/chase a market that has so clearly moved on from what they're able to offer? They'll still have all the big indies. They can still platform some and work out secondary deals for the ones that take Epic's partnership (which they've already been doing), but it isn't a viable core strategy for differentiating the platform from Xbox/PC.
The big difference maker for them is blockbuster single player games, so why wouldn't they double down on blockbuster single player games, and projects like Returnal that try to couple those production values to more varied gameplay loops?
Pretty thoughtful analysis.
