Astro Bot director promoted to PlayStation Japan Studio head

Astro Bot: Rescue Mission director Nicolas Doucet has been promoted to head of PlayStation’s Japan Studio, it announced on Monday.

The French designer is a PlayStation veteran, having started his Sony career in London working on the original PS2 EyeToy, before directing the PS3 version’s EyePet in 2007.

In 2011 Doucet moved to Toyko to direct PS4 launch software The Playroom and follow-up The Playroom VR.

Doucet’s latest title, Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, is one of the highest rated VR games of all-time. The VR platformer has a Metacritic score of 90 based on 54 reviews, and a user score of 8.9

It’s unclear what the move means for Japan Studio’s previous head, Allan Becker.

Japan Studio is Sony Interactive Entertainment‘s oldest first-party studio, with a focus on introducing new styles of gameplay.

The developer is known for games such as Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Everybody’s Golf, Gravity Rush, Knack, LocoRoco and Ape Escape.

PlayStation launched Its console VR hardware over three years ago in October 2016. PlayStation VR sales topped 4.2 million units worldwide as of March 2019, according to Sony, which suggests that around 4% of PS4 owners have purchased a headset.

While the company has said “the current PS VR headset is compatible” with PlayStation 5, a recently published patent suggests Sony may be preparing to release a next-gen PlayStation VR headset.

Doucet’s promotion represents another European among the senior staff at PlayStation. Guerrilla Games’ Herman Hulst was made head of Worldwide Studios last year, alongside former Europe boss Jim Ryan who now oversees all of PlayStation.