There is currently a rumor floating around the web that Sony Japan is working on a big AAA JRPG for PlayStation 4. This rumor hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, but Sony did have a few exclusive JRPGs in the past. They mainly include Arc the Lad, Wild Arms and Legend of Dragoon. Legend of Dragoon was a big AAA JRPG, which cost Sony $16 million in 1999, and was released on the PlayStation 1. The man behind this project was Shuhei Yoshida, the current head at Sony’s Worldwide Studios.
Legend of Dragoon was released on the PlayStation 1 on June 11th, 2000. It didn’t exactly become as popular as Final Fantasy though – but was still a big hit overseas. The game wasn’t a big hit in Japan, and with a huge development budget, it felt difficult to imagine Sony profiting from it. Shuhei Yoshida talked about the game sales in an interview with Kotaku. According to Yoshida, the game sales in the US were “very strong” and they managed to recoup the budget cost through these sales.
“Eventually, we recouped that, thanks to sales outside Japan,” says Yoshida. “The sales in the U.S. were very strong.”
If the rumors of Sony working on an exclusive AAA JRPG on PlayStation 4 turn out to be true, it will be interesting to see how that fares on the PlayStation 4. Sony has made exclusive JRPGs on the PlayStation 1 and it’s successor, the PlayStation 2, but the focus shifted towards First and Third Person Shooters during the PlayStation 3 era. Being a huge JRPG fan, I sure hope that the PlayStation 4 marks the return of Sony to this genre.
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