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 a long time at PlayStation, Shuhei Yoshida has introduced he’ll be stepping down from his position on the firm as the top of indies initiative. Yoshida has overseen an enormous variety of video games throughout his time at PlayStation, with 429 titles complete over his whole profession, and has lengthy been a robust voice for indies on the firm. The developer took over the position of SIE Worldwide Studios’ president in 2008, earlier than finally stepping down and taking up 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 take a look at his Twitter and you may see that already, with Purple 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 every time he’d go to an occasion like E3, he “at all times went to the indie recreation space,” and that his position 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 suppose 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 basic Journey. “Amongst all of those occasions, one time stood out for me in my reminiscence as one thing actually, actually particular was when Journey received the Recreation of the Yr Award,” Yoshida stated.
“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 recreationβ¦[won] Recreation of the Yr towards all these AAA titles, I believe for the primary time within the businessβ¦.the creator Jenova Chen did a chat on the summit, and he talked a few letter he obtained from a lady who misplaced her father and he or she thought of her father and he or she was in a position to transfer on in her life. The entire viewers stood up and the entire room was crammed with happiness and an incredible feeling that this small recreation might have such a big effect on folksβs lives.”
Yoshida did not share what he’ll be doing subsequent simply but, however we are able to in all probability safely assume he’ll proceed to place indies into the highlight.