Shuhei Yoshida, former president of Sony Interactive Leisure Worldwide Studios and champion of indies, has introduced he is leaving the corporate after 31 years.
After greater than three many years at PlayStation, Shuhei Yoshida has introduced he’ll be stepping down from his function on the firm as the pinnacle of indies initiative. Yoshida has overseen an enormous variety of video games throughout his time at PlayStation, with 429 titles complete over his total profession, and has lengthy been a robust voice for indies on the firm. The developer took over the function of SIE Worldwide Studios’ president in 2008, earlier than ultimately stepping down and taking over the aforementioned head of indies initiative place in 2019, and within the years since indie video games have been an enormous focus for him.
Take one have a look at his Twitter and you may see that already, with Pink Candle Video games’ 9 Sols even being in promoted in his bio now that it is coming to PlayStation. Indies are essential to him, explaining over on the PlayStation Weblog that at any time when he’d go to an occasion like E3, he “all the time went to the indie recreation space,” and that his function as head of indies initiative was a “dream job” for him.
He additionally famous that he is been there since earlier than the unique PlayStation got here out, becoming a member of PlayStation in February 1993, and with such a very long time at one firm like that, you’d assume there’d be all types of proud moments for Yoshida. However the one which stood out for him most is definitely to do with indie traditional Journey. “Amongst all of those instances, one time stood out for me in my reminiscence as one thing actually, actually particular was when Journey received the Sport of the 12 months Award,” Yoshida mentioned.
“Journey was distributed by way of PlayStation Community. It was a digital-only, small recreation. You possibly can end taking part in the sport inside like three hours. However that recreation…[won] Sport of the 12 months in opposition to all these AAA titles, I feel for the primary time within the business….the creator Jenova Chen did a chat on the summit, and he talked a couple of letter he acquired from a woman who misplaced her father and she or he considered her father and she or he was capable of transfer on in her life. The entire viewers stood up and the entire room was crammed with happiness and a tremendous feeling that this small recreation may have such a big effect on folks’s lives.”
Yoshida did not share what he’ll be doing subsequent simply but, however we will in all probability safely assume he’ll proceed to place indies into the highlight.