Shuhei Yoshida, a long-time veteran of PlayStation, is set to retire in January
On January 15 next year, Shuhei Yoshida will step down from his position at Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Yoshida's tenure at PlayStation, which began in 1993, saw him occupy key leadership roles, initially focusing on working with developers and publishers in Japan to produce games for the original PlayStation console.
He gained significant recognition as the president of Worldwide Studios, where he directed PlayStation's first-party game development for over ten years, from 2008 to 2019. Following this, he led the charge in fostering relationships with independent developers as the head of PlayStation Indies.
In discussions on the official PlayStation Podcast, Yoshida reflected on his formative years with Ken Kutaragi's pioneering PlayStation team.
"I joined Ken Kutanagi's team in February of 1993, when they were still developing the original PlayStation. Ken's team had only engineers. Everyone was engineers. And I was the first non-technical person to join the team as the company, Sony Corporation at the time, started to plan to bring PlayStation to market."
Yoshida continued to express excitement about the innovations Kutaragi's team introduced, highlighting their use of 3D graphics, real-time technology, and cost-effective CD-ROMs filled with data, which fueled their high aspirations.
Despite initial skepticism from the video game industry towards Sony's venture into gaming—a landscape previously navigated with difficulty by other electronics companies—Yoshida's local efforts bore fruit.
Yoshida regards his role with indie developers as a "dream job." A personal highlight during his tenure was in 2013, when the indie game "Journey" was celebrated as Game of the Year at the DICE summit.
"The whole audience stood up and the whole room was filled with happiness and an amazing feeling that this small game could have such a big impact on people's lives," he noted.
GamesIndustry.biz had its last conversation with Shuhei Yoshida in 2023, preceding his reception of the BAFTA Fellowship Award. Read the discussion here.
