Former PlayStation veteran Shuhei Yoshida was featured in a lengthy video chat with Greg Miller of Kinda Funny Games. Yoshida worked for over thirty years at Sony’s PlayStation division, holding positions such as Vice President of Sony Computer Entertainment America, President of Sony Worldwide Studios, and later Head of the Independent Developer Initiative.
His tenure officially ended yesterday and that’s also when the interview went live, diving into the executive’s whole career. However, the most interesting part was discussing his replacement with Herman Hulst as the head of the internal first-party studio organization. Shortly afterward, Sony pushed heavily into live service games after many successful single player releases.
When asked if the new business strategy made sense to him, Yoshida replied that the resources were additive rather than replacing investments in single player. However, he also admitted he might have resisted that change in direction, and jokingly added that may have been why he was replaced.
I was managing this annual budget and was responsible to allocate resources to what kind of games to make. If the company was considering that way, it probably wouldn’t have made sense to stop making another God of War or whatever, like a great single player game, and put all the money into these service games. However, what they did after I moved on and Herman Hulst took over is that they added a lot more resources. I don’t think they told him to stop making these single player games. They said, oh yeah, these games are great. Continue doing that, and we give you additional resources to work on these service games and try it.
I’m sure they knew it was risky and that the chance of a successful game in this hugely competitive genre would be small. However, the company knowing that risk gave Herman the resources and the chance to try it. I think that’s the way they did it, so in my mind I was, oh wow, that’s great and hopefully some games will become successful. Luckily, Helldivers 2 did so well. No one would have expected it. You cannot plan a success in this industry, that’s the most fun part.
I thought if I was in the position of Herman, I would have tried to resist that direction. Maybe that’s one of the reasons they removed me (laughs).
It was definitely a risky move for Sony with more than a few missteps, such as The Last of Us Online (canceled after Naughty Dog decided it wouldn’t want to become a live service studio) and Concord (shut down just a few days after launch with the subsequent closure of the studio). As Yoshida said, luckily there was one success, albeit the least anticipated among the bunch, with Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2, which became the fastest-selling PlayStation title ever.
There is at least another major tidbit that’s worth reporting from the interview: the executive’s take on the whole Bloodborne situation. Fans have been clamoring to get a sequel or at least a remaster for years, but Sony and FromSoftware appear deaf to those cries. Here’s what Yoshida believes is the main obstacle:
I have only my personal theory on that situation. I left first party, so I don’t know what’s going on but my theory is… I remember Miyazaki really, really loved Bloodborne, what he created. I think he is interested, but he’s so successful and so busy that he cannot do it himself, but he doesn’t want anyone else to touch it. That’s my theory, and the PlayStation team respects his wish. That’s my guess.
Indeed, if Miyazaki is busy with an Elden Ring sequel, he certainly doesn’t have time to work on Bloodborne 2. However, Sony has recently become the largest shareholder of FromSoftware parent company Kadokawa Corporation. They might have more sway in choosing his next big project.
