Before the 2020 rebrand of Sony’s first-party PlayStation developers as PlayStation Studios, the division was led by Shuhei Yoshida, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) Worldwide Studios president from 2008 to 2019.
The former PlayStation executive revealed at a talk during the Australian games festival, ALT: GAMES 2026, that at the time, SIE president and CEO Jim Ryan had “fired” him from the position “Because I didn’t listen to Him,” according to 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… 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 [me] asked to do some ridiculous things, and I said ‘No.’” Shuhei Yoshida said to the audience.
After being unceremoniously forced to “retire” from being the head of all PlayStation first-party studios, Yoshida was offered a new job to head up a new initiative focused on supporting Indie games on PlayStation. Yoshida, who always came across as passionate about Indie games even before taking up the role, served as PlayStation’s indie head for five years before announcing his departure in late 2024 after 31 years with Sony. Currently, Yoshida manages his own consulting firm, Yosp Inc., that focuses on smaller projects where he offers his professional advice to indie publishers and developers; something that greatly benefited first-party projects at PlayStation during his tenure at Sony.
