The former PlayStation lead Shuhei Yoshida has revealed more on the story behind his switch from the President of SIE Worldwide Studios to bossing an indies initiative within Sony.
Speaking during an ALT: Games panel, an Australian video games festival, Yoshida recounted his career and shared that he was “fired” from his role by Jim Ryan because he “didn’t listen to him”. Yoshida then continued: “He asked to do some ridiculous things, and I said ‘no’.”
Via This Week in Video Games, the full quote reads:
I helped Santa Monica to make God of War, Naughty Dog to make Uncharted and The Last of Us, and Sucker Punch to make the beautiful Ghost of Tsushima. Ghost of Tsushima was one of the last games that I worked on as the president of Worldwide Studios. But in 2019, after 11 years leading the first-party development, I was fired from the role. Jim Ryan wanted to remove me from first-party because I didn’t listen to him. He asked to do some ridiculous things, and I said ‘No’.
Shuhei Yoshida was replaced by the current PlayStation Studios lead Hermen Hulst, who moved over from a leading role at Horizon developer Guerrilla Games. Yoshida was made the lead of a new indies initiative within PlayStation, a position he has repeatedly praised in the time since he left the company.
During the panel, Yoshida reiterated his love for the role: “I really enjoyed the role of promoting and evangelising indie games.” He’s doing a similar thing now with his own consulting firm, Yosp Inc, adding: “I was helping indie publishers and developers at Sony for the last five years, so I feel like I’m continuing to do the same kind of thing, but now I am freelance.”
