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PlatinumGames is interested in pursuing a games-as-a-service project

The developer has opened PlatinumGames Tokyo with the intention of pursuing an ongoing 'live ops development' project.

TJ Denzer

February 27, 2020 7:15 AM

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Historically, PlatinumGames has always been known for their rich and stylish single-player games. That may be changing soon. It’s not that Platinum is going to stop doing single-player games, but the developer has recently revealed the opening of a new studio in Tokyo, and one of the major goals of PlatinumGames Tokyo will be to pursue a “live ops development” project, likely a games-as-a-service game.

PlatinumGames announced the formation of the PlatinumGames Tokyo studio and its live ops development initiative in a message from Executive Vice President and Studio Head Atsushi Inaba on the developer’s website. According to Inaba, PlatinumGames wants to pursue something that it can work on in the longterm, even after an initial launch is completed.

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

What Inaba seems to be alluding to is a games-as-a-service model like those found in Destiny 2 or Warframe. Again, it doesn’t mean that PlatinumGames single-player games are going away at all. After all, we just recently saw a teaser for the new Project G.G. from director Hideki Kamiya of Bayonetta, Viewtiful Joe, and Devil May Cry fame. PlatinumGames has been hustling in every direction since it announced its desire to begin self-publishing and PlatinumGames Tokyo and a games-as-a-service project seems to be just further evidence of that expansion.

Whatever PlatinumGames has up its sleeve in regards ongoing “live ops development,” we’re interested to see what a PlatinumGames games-as-a-service model might look like. Shacknews will follow this story as further news and information becomes available. Would you play a PlatinumGames games-as-a-service game? Let us know in the Shacknews Chatty comment section below.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.