PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida retired from Sony Interactive Entertainment last January, and he left behind a career of working for 30 years with the gaming giant.
With Yoshida spending his final years coordinating with indie developers, he reveals that PlayStation forced him into the position.
“I had No Choice”
In a recent interview with Venture Beat, looking back at his 30-year career with Sony, Yoshida was asked when he shifted from first-party games to indie ones. He says:
“Well, I had no choice. When [former PS head Jim Ryan] asked me to do the indie job, the choice was to do that or leave the company. But I felt very strongly about the state of PlayStation and indies. I really wanted to do this. I believed I could do something unique for that purpose. That was the bigger change for me personally, moving from first-party to indies, than leaving the company this year.”
Despite Yoshida being forced to work on the indie development front, it seems like he’s still very passionate about his position and indie games overall. He continues, “I’m very lucky that the indie community, the publishers and developers I work closely with–they believed that they could use my help. I became an adviser for some of these companies. I’m continuing to work with some of the indie publishers and developers I respect. The transition out of Sony to becoming an independent adviser is less of a change than moving out of first-party.”
Before Yoshida became responsible for indies, he said that PlayStation was criticized for not caring enough about indie games. Years later, multiple indie partners have testified that they sell their games better on PlayStation than on any other platform—even PC.
While the Nintendo Switch was said to have been pretty great at selling indies, Yoshida says that he and his team handling indie games at PlayStation were able to close the gap as the years went on.
What’s Yoshida Up to Now?
Though Yoshida has left Sony after such a long tenure, he says he’s still far from retired and will continue working with independent publishers and developers. If anything, Yoshida said that the moment he got the job focusing on indie publishers for Sony, his goal was to make the position obsolete. He says, “My personal goal, when I started the indie job, was to make my position obsolete… The company would be doing so well that there was no need for someone like me to tell everyone that this was important. I feel like we’ve achieved that pretty well.”
Yoshida says that his departure shows that he’s confident in the current state of indie games on PlayStation.
Though Yoshida may be gone from PlayStation, the platform has continued to support indie games. Let’s hope they can keep that going and help more indie developers get the platforms they deserve.