PlatinumGames’ Tokyo studio to develop live service games for consoles

PlatinumGames’ new Tokyo studio will lead the company’s expansion into the games as a service market.

The formation of the Tokyo studio is the third of four planned reveals on the Platinum4 website, following the recent announcement of action games The Wonderful 101 Remastered and Project G.G..

Platinum studio head Atsushi Inaba said of the Tokyo studio: “This isn’t a simple physical expansion. It represents a step towards a new challenge for us: Console live ops game development.

“So far, the name PlatinumGames has been nearly synonymous with single-player action games. But going forward, we’re looking to expand into new genres and styles of play.

“One of these new challenges for us is console live ops game development. These aren’t games we’d work on until they were done, and that’s all – rather, we’d continue working on them to provide new content long after release. We want to explore this ongoing development pattern in the home console space.

“Our new Tokyo office will play a major role as we expand into live ops game development,” Inaba continued. “The starting core members of our future live ops team who’ll be working there are already a part of PlatinumGames.

“PlatinumGames Tokyo is home to both developers interested in refining PlatinumGames-style gameplay and developers who are interested in exploring live ops support. They’ll be hard at work on electrifying content for you soon.”

Platinum said in January it had received investment from Tencent which would see the Japanese studio remain independent while allowing it to explore self-publishing.

Announced on Wednesday, Project G.G. is an action game featuring a giant hero. It’s described as the “climax” to director Hideki Kamiya’s superhero trilogy, following Viewtiful Joe and The Wonderful 101, as well as Platinum’s “first fully owned and self-published title.”

VGC published an extensive The Wonderful 101 Remastered interview alongside the Kickstarter.