The following interview appeared as an extract in BAFTA's official 2023 Awards brochure, which is now available on Issuu.
Courtesy ImageImage: Supplied by recipient.
Sony executive and passionate gamer Shuhei Yoshida adds BAFTA’s highest honour – the Fellowship – to his remarkable list of game-changing achievements.
How would Shuhei Yoshida like to be remembered? As “a passionate and infectious gamer executive with some humour,” he says with a measure of his trademark humility. Anyone who’s had the pleasure of meeting Yoshida, affectionately dubbed Shu by his many fans, has only positive things to say about the renowned games executive, developer and producer. A Sony veteran of 37 years, Yoshida is recognised as one of the driving forces behind the success of PlayStation. There’s a warmth and an approachability about him that you don’t often associate with high-level executives, and Yoshida was the executive for PlayStation, acting as president of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) Worldwide Studios from 2008 to 2019.
Graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree from the Faculty of Economics at Kyoto University and later earning a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of California, Yoshida began working for Sony in April 1986 – a strategic and, some might say, prophetic move on his part. “I was a big fan of games,” Yoshida admits, “and when I joined the Sony Corporation, I had a feeling it would go into the games business in the future, and I wanted to join the team. Amazingly, that really happened.”
We had no idea PlayStation would become such a long-standing global business
Initially involved in Sony’s corporate strategy group as well as coordinating its PC business, Yoshida’s dream of working within the burgeoning games industry paid off just a few years later, when he joined Ken Kutaragi’s team as they were developing the original PlayStation console in February 1993. Yoshida, as lead account manager, headed up the platform’s third-party licensing programme, signing up studios to have their games published on PlayStation. “We were a small venture company within Sony,” he recalls. “Though we were a new entrant to the games industry, we believed in the innovation we were bringing. Our initial goal was “To sell through 1m units in Japan”, and when we achieved that within a few months, we still had no idea PlayStation would become such a long-standing global business.”
Those early years of SIE, then known as Sony Computer Entertainment, allowed Yoshida to work with games, but at some point, after ensuring all of Japan’s major publishers were signed up to the PlayStation platform, the avid gamer in him wanted to work more directly on the software. Yoshida made the switch from managing accounts to more product-focused roles within the company. “When the game development group needed a producer for Crash Bandicoot (1996) who could handle English communication, they offered me a job at the studio,” he says.
From there, Yoshida didn’t look back. He produced Ape Escape, The Legend of Dragoon (both 1999) and Ico (2001), among other console classics, and was executive producer on cornerstone PlayStation title Gran Turismo (1997).
He quickly flourished in this new environment, and soon found – somewhat unsurprisingly – his favourite part of taking games from concept to launch was testing, in other words playing them. “It was a lot of fun to see game design ideas getting implemented with every iteration we received from the developer, and to share my feedback with the developer after playing every version,” he explains.
So, given his experience, what makes a game great? “Original ideas well implemented, tested and polished. That has not changed over the years.”
In 2008, Yoshida was appointed president of SIE’s Worldwide Studios, and under his leadership the division went from strength to strength, producing world-class franchises including God of War (2005-), Uncharted (2007-2017), The Last of Us (2013), Bloodborne (2015), Horizon Zero Dawn (2017), Marvel’s Spider-Man (2018), Ghost of Tsushima (2020) and Journey (2012) – one of Yoshida’s personal favourites.
Though he’s left an indelible mark on the industry as a developer and producer, Yoshida is perhaps best known and loved by players as a top executive who genuinely loves and celebrates games. Around 2013, while gearing up to launch the PlayStation 4, Yoshida began to be more front-facing in his position at Sony – opening the stage at Gamescom, starring in unboxing videos for the PS4, and appearing on Let’s Plays for PlayStation’s YouTube channel.
At that time, it was rare for people on the more corporate side of game development – and indeed executives of that level – to publicly interact with their consumers or even their products. However, Yoshida’s genuine knowledge and passion for games, as well as a wish to better understand PlayStation’s community, led him to social media, where he still enjoys posting everything from his latest projects to whatever he’s excited to play next. Being so widely accessible on social media isn’t for everyone, but Yoshida is happy to have that ability to receive direct feedback from players.
I love direct communication with the players, so that we are aware of their feelings and concerns
“If there are some problems and concerns about PlayStation, people will let me know on my Twitter channel,” Yoshida says. “When there is great new info about PlayStation and upcoming games on PlayStation, I want people to know about it. I love direct communication with the players, so that we are aware of their feelings and concerns.” And that goes both ways: visit any Twitter thread, video comments section or online BBS where Yoshida is the subject, and you’re guaranteed to find nothing but respect and admiration for the man players see as an ambassador for the industry.
In late 2019, Yoshida stepped down as SIE president to become head of PlayStation’s new Global Indies initiative, a project that seeks to spotlight and support the best-of-the-best indie games on the platform as well as the independent developer community as a whole. It’s a perfect role for the man who has dedicated his life to championing and cheerleading games in all their forms for the betterment of the art form. It’s also testament to Yoshida’s love for the medium that, even now, his favourite part of the working day is sitting down to playtest new indie games. “My favourite thing to do on a typical day is meet indie developers, look at their games in development and sometimes give feedback to them,” he says.
You can regularly find Yoshida sharing gaming content on his social media channels, where the ‘Shu seal of approval’ is enough to put an up-and-coming indie well and truly on the map. And with good reason too; after all, it was under Yoshida’s nurturing and watchful eye that SIE Worldwide Studios became a powerhouse of award-winning titles, something he credits as a personal highlight of his career. “I’m so fortunate to have been able to work with incredibly talented teams, and be able to celebrate winning awards along with them,” he notes.
BAFTA’s other Fellows are incredibly talented people
That’s perhaps why it feels a little strange for Yoshida now to receive BAFTA’s highest honour, the Fellowship, recognising his incredible contribution to the industry. “I was always celebrating developers winning awards for their games, so it feels a bit out of place for me to receive an award,” Yoshida admits – there’s that trademark modesty again. “BAFTA’s other Fellows are incredibly talented people. I hope I did something worthy for the industry to be included in such an amazing group of individuals.”
Words: Aoife Wilson
