Shuhei Yoshida was the heart and soul of Sony’s PlayStation division, serving as head of Sony Worldwide Studios, but we’ve learned that the industry icon was removed as PlayStation President for not following the commands of Jim Ryan and his need for Yoshida to do some ‘ridiculous’ things.
Some of PlayStation’s biggest exclusives, AA, and indie successes have been overseen by Shuhei Yoshida. He’s been everywhere for Sony and PlayStation, from wanting Stellar Blade on PlayStation after playing it to leading PlayStation’s indie game development.
We’ve learned more about why Yoshida’s role in the company changed drastically, though.
Jim Ryan ‘Fired’ Shuhei Yoshida For Not Doing ‘Ridiculous’ Things
In a story from This Week In Videogames, we learned that Shuhei Yoshida was recently speaking at the Australian games festival ALT: GAMES.
Yoshida opened up on his role as head of Sony Worldwide Studios (which you may now know as PlayStation Studios), and how, CEO at the time, Jim Ryan and he weren’t seeing eye to eye on things:
“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. 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.”
To be clear, Yoshisa wasn’t fired from PlayStation altogether, even though the former President used the word, but his position as President became untenable.
It’s not clear what those ‘ridiculous’ things were that Ryan wanted, but we do know that it ultimately resulted in Yoshida being moved to PlayStation’s Indie division. He would then leave PlayStation in January 2025.
Jim Ryan has also left the company, stepping down as CEO.
What are your favorite Shuhei Yoshida moments from down the years? Is there one game that stands out above the rest that he helped bring to life? Did Sony mistreat him? Let us know your thoughts via the Insider Gaming Discord.
For more news, read about Pragmata selling over one million copies in two days and Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 coming in 2027.
Andy is Insider Gaming's Senior Evergreen Editor and has been in the games journalism sphere in one way or another for over 7 years. His video game taste is as…
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It’s obvious Jim Ryan and Herman Hulst pushed for GaaS games.