PlayStation veteran Shuhei Yoshida leaves Sony after 31 years
PlayStation veteran and gaming industry legend Shuhei Yoshida announced that he is leaving Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) after a 31-year career with the company. The Sony executive, who currently leads the company’s independent developer initiative, will leave SIE on January 15, 2025. Yoshida said it was time for him to move on after more than three decades at Sony in various roles. The director joined the Japanese company when it was still developing the first PlayStation console in 1993 and later served as president of PlayStation Studios until 2019.
Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida announces his retirement
In an interview on the PlayStation Blog On Tuesday, Yoshida said he would leave the company next year. ‘Yes, I have an announcement to make. I’m leaving Sony Interactive Entertainment on January 15, 2025… it’s like announcing the launch date of a new game, [something] I haven’t done that in a long time,” he said.
The executive said that after working at Sony for 30 years, he began to think it was time to move on. Yoshida felt Sony was in a good position and added that he was excited about the future of PlayStation. “You know, the company is doing great. I love PS5, I love the games that come out on this platform. And we have new generations of management that I respect and admire,” he said. “So you know PlayStation is in good hands. I thought, OK, this is my time.”
Yoshida joined Sony in 1993 when the company developed the first PlayStation console. The director reminisced about the early days of PlayStation, when it was just a division at Sony. The company was working to bring 3D graphics and CD-ROM to the console while keeping production costs low, Yoshida said in the interaction.
“However, we were not known in the video game industry. And there were other electronics companies, big companies that tried to get into the video game industry and, you know, didn’t do well. So in the beginning, before the launch of PlayStation, I don’t think we were taken very seriously by the industry, to be honest,” he said.
The industry veteran later became president of PlayStation Studios in 2008, before stepping down to lead the new indie initiative at Sony, where he worked with and supported external independent game developers. In the interview, Yoshida called his current role a “dream job.”
“…when I went to events like E3 or Gamescom, I always went to the indie game area. And I found games that I liked, and often the developer was there to demo them. So I would take a picture with the developer, trying to help promote these games,” he said. “I did that almost as a hobby when I was running PlayStation Studios. So when I got this job, where I could spend 100% of my time helping India, it was like a dream job.”
