Until recent years, Sony was known for restricting PlayStation Studios titles to its own hardware. While more of the company’s published games have come to be ported over to PC lately, Team Asobi founder and studio director Nicolas Doucet says his team’s current focus is on developing games exclusively tuned for the PlayStation 5.
In an interview with The Game Business, Doucet states that while other studios appear to be more cautious in utilizing PS5-specific features (a reasonable argument, given that more PlayStation Studios titles are receiving PC ports), Team Asobi aims to fully leverage the console’s capabilities going forawrd. The studio’s last game, Astro Bot, made liberal use of the DualSense controller’s haptic feedback functions and the quick load times made possible by the PS5’s SSD.
“We really focus on PS5. We want to take full advantage of the DualSense and the console’s SSD. There is always a way to cross bridges if we ever need it. But really, the main focus is on the PlayStation console.”
The set hardware specifications of the console allow Team Asobi to focus on creating a uniform experiences for players, rather than making sure their games work across different PC setups. While PC permutations these days are more unified, Doucet still prefers consoles because of their plug-and-play nature.
“It’s specific hardware that is absolutely set. You know that what you’re making in your office is definitely what people will see in their home when they play the game. That allows us to focus, because you’re not putting in time dealing with compatibility or permutations. It’s why I’ve always liked consoles.”
Though Doucet’s love for consoles is universal, Team Asobi is a first-party PlayStation Studio first and foremost. As such, the team feels like it is their responsibility to showcase what the latest Sony console can do. That said, the idea isn’t to make every game feel like a hardware demo.
Citing Astro’s Playroom as an example, Doucet says the game was meant to be a tech demo for the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller. Because of this, Team Asobi put as much emphasis on the controller’s features as possible.
On the other hand, Astro Bot followed a different philosophy. Instead of filling the 15-hour game with DualSense-specific content and the like, they only included a feature if it added to the experience. “We continued being innovative, but we were never going to do it at the expense of the core game,” Doucet says.
Some might say that PlayStation games that rely on hardware-exclusive features will never be compatible on PC. But given that the PC ports of titles like Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 feature DualSense wireless controller integration, it shows that Sony and its associated studios are willing to deliver the same console experience to PC players.
