The last niche games they did was in 2017 since then it's been VR .
Truth is i don't see that changing anytime soon unless Cerny does a small game for PS5.
But you never know and i could be wrong and they could give Toyama some budget but i don't see him making a RPG .
Thing is Sony team most of the time to get there JRPGs but it seem they in no rush to that unless it's From.
An AA JRPG is perfectly fine. We have this conversation every 2 or 3 months here. Take a good look at Nintendo's Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Only ~40 Monolith Soft devs worked on it. 40! That's the size of the Knack 1 team and way smaller than the Knack 2 team (which was a little bit over 60 Japan Studio devs). And yes, Monolith Soft got help from outsourcing, just like Japan Studio did for every game they make.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a nice looking game, if you ignore the atrocious art-design for some characters. So a AA JRPG, developed by a ~50 dev team, .... for the JRPG PlayStation fans... yeah, that would be nice. Sony JRPG fans would shut the fuck up and be satisfied. Instead we are waiting 9 years already for another Sony 1st party console JRPG. Shu/SIEJA don't care as it seems. So the complains will continue.
Cerny won't ever do a JRPG. That's not his thing. Same goes for Keiichiro Toyama.
AAA JRPGs have a limited audience, if Sony wants to sell 10+ million copies they need their "Skyrim" or "Fallout" or "The Witcher".
In this gen we only got 2 AAA JRPGs, KH3 selling 5 million copies on 2 platforms and FF XV selling 9 million copies on 3 platforms, making an AAA JRPG with an anime artstyle and being also a new IP is not the perfect way to secure >10 million copies. If Sony can make a big open world game with character creation, actual choices, different endings they can have a hit, easily.
We don't need an AAA JRPG. It would be cool, but we don't "need" a FF budget. An AA JRPG like Nintendo's AA Xenoblade Chronicles is perfectly fine. Selling 10+ million copies of a JRPG is almost impossible. Even Final Fantasy 15, the most famous JRPG franchise worldwide, didn't sell as much (just realized you mentioned that too in your post I only read the first sentence of your post and started typing :P). And it's available on 3 platforms.
And you have to get rid of the "has to sell 10 million copies" idea, just because God of War, TLOU, Horizon Zero Dawn and Spider-Man sold/will sell 10+ million copies. It seems like some of you are getting used to the idea that a Sony game has to sell 10+ million copies these days to be called a success, because TLOU, HZD, GOW and Spider-Man did (will do). You're in for a rude awakening next gen when the first PS5-only 1st party games are coming out and they will sell a couple of millions "only". Don't make the same mistake that Square-Enix did when they were
disappointed that Tomb Raider "only" sold 3.4 million copies in its first month. A lot of Sony's successful first party games will sell 3 to 5 million copies in the first PS5 years and it will be a success. Days Gone will sell 5 or 6 million copies worldwide when all is said and done and it will be a huge success for Bend Studio and SIE. Thanks to the huge active PS4 userbase.
SIE Japan thought is was okay to fund "super successful" games like Knack 2, Astro Bot VR, Gravity Rush 2, Déraciné VR, Everybody's Golf, The Last Guardian, No Heroes Allowed! VR, The Tomorrow Children, Everybody's Golf VR, etc. So I'm sure they can fund an AA JRPG series, too.
That's what Japan Studio does. Developing/funding mostly smaller-ish, non-AAA games.
I mean I understand why fans of multiplayer games are complaing here. And hey, they got some Sony 1st party multiplayer games this gen. Hell, they are getting another one soon with PREDATOR: Hunting Grounds. We fans of Sony's 1st party games got how many JRPGs this gen? Zero! How many Sony 1st party JRPGs are coming soon-ish, or got announced for the upcoming years? Zero! Cool stuff, Shu/SIEJA. I mean I expect that from Microsoft. But you have a huge division/presence in Japan and we got how many 1st party JRPGs this gen? Yep. As much JRPGs as Microsoft. Congrats on that!
First-party JRPGs don't actually have to be like full blown FF or Kingdom Hearts from the get go.
I mean, they could do it if they wanted to, but will it be worth it in return? The budget? The risks? The sales?
Let's say, hypothetically, Persona 5 was a first-party game, selling 2+ millions are enough in my opinion.
In the future, they could be improved, bringing new fans & more sales.
But nope, unfortunately it's not a first-party game let alone exclusive.
The current "efforts" we got are just mobile with no localization whatsoever...
Yep. it is enough for an AA game. And that's exactly what those Japan Studio games are (if you exclude Bloodborne). Looks like SIEJA has no issues with the "return", "budget", "risks" and "sales" of their games. Games like Astro Bot VR, Gravity Rush 2, Déraciné VR, Everybody's Golf, No Heroes Allowed! VR, Knack 2, Everybody's Golf VR, or The Tomorrow Children didn't even sell 1 million nor will they ever sell 1 million. No problem for SIEJA. But it looks like creating/funding a 1st party JRPG is just "too crazy" for SIEJA these days... years.
GR 1 and 2? It's not like Sony didn't try.
They didn't, because
Gravity Rush 1 and 2 aren't JRPGs.
Japan studio is the only one that could do it and they are busy with doing smaller games and collaborations.
No problem with that. Let them do another collab to fund a 1st party JRPG ¯\_(ツ)_/¯