Sony Might Be Considering a First Party Return to Console JRPGs

Giuseppe Nelva August 6, 2017 7:56 PM EST

Sony might be considering the return of of its Japan Studio to developing some of its beloved Japanese franchises for consoles.

Recently, Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan and Asia President Atsushi Morita and Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studio Shuhei Yoshida took part in a panel organized by Weekly Famitsu and Dengeki PlayStation at the National Entertainment Festival held at the Yanagase Shopping Arcade in Gifu, Japan.

During the event, one of the questions inquired on whether Sony would ever release a RPG dedicated to the Japanese audience for consoles again, since Arc the Lad and Wild Arms games are being developed for mobile platforms.

The answer, relayed by the Japanese site Panora (which did not identify whether it came from Yoshida-san or Morita-san), was certainly vague, but not entirely discouraging.

We hear that Sony has received many requests from veteran fans – not limited to Arc the Lad and Wild Arms – for the resurrection of SIE Japan Studio’s titles focused on the Japanese audience, especially a few JRPG franchises. Yet, in Recent years, due to the soaring of development costs, investment has been mainly focused on titles which could be hits on a global scale.

That being said, recently Japanese studios’ games developed for Japanese gamers have received high praise overseas. This is leading Sony to begin considering whether it could be profitable for its Worldwide Studios to make that kind of game again.

There are a lot of “maybes” and “considering” in there, which means that we definitely should not take this as a promise. Yet, it’s nice to hear that a return of Sony’s first party studios the JRPG genre is at least being considered in some capacity.

After all, Sony Interactive Entertainment certainly isn’t blind, and I’m sure they have taken notice of the commercial and critical success of games like Persona 5, NieR: Automata, Final Fantasy XV and Dragon Quest XI.

We can only hope that they’ll take the bait and give it a try. One thing is for sure: I’ll keep throwing money at the screen until something happens.