TheThreadsThatBindUs
Member
It's the opposite. They did shut down the 2nd party publishing part of Japan Studio and fired many of their internal gamedev staff, remaining only Team Asobi and some other internal devs who are now part of Team Asobi. They renamed the studio to Team Asobi because it's mostly what remains.
2nd party publishing now will be handled by XDEV, the ones who until now handled the publishing of the European games. XDEV will now handle all 2nd party games developed across the world.
Really? This wasn't what I've heard. I'd heard the 3rd party publishing function in Japan wasn't completely gutted, but a smaller regional skeleton crew were retained to support the global 3rd party publishing team (which as you say appears to now be XDev). But you seem sure so I'll take your word for it.
The idea of a European function handling 3rd party publishing globally sounds like a bad idea to me. Especially because of ethnocentric perspectives through which westerners often view Asian-developed content.