Former PlayStation President Reveals Why He Was Fired from Role
Shuhei Yoshida was asked to do "some ridiculous things."
Sony
Shuhei Yoshida was once PlayStation Studios' (known as Sony Worldwide Studios before) president, who then became head of Independent Developer Initiative and later left the company altogether.
While he said he believed in the future of the indie scene, it was no secret that the position change was forced on him: "Moving from first-party to indies? Well, I had no choice," he said last year. "When Jim 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."
The Jim in question is Jim Ryan, then-CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, who had a difficult relationship with Yoshida, as he revealed recently at the Alt: Games convention (via This Week in Video Games).
"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," he said. "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.'"
Ryan left Sony in 2024 without mentioning these "ridiculous things," and Yoshida didn't disclose them as well. Maybe one day, we'll learn what exactly made Ryan "demote" Yoshida.
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