Shuhei Yoshida Says He Would Have Pushed Back Against Live-Service Focus at PlayStation
Shuhei Yoshida, known for his tenure at PlayStation, spoke about the current direction that the company has taken since his departure. In an interview with Kinda Funny Games, which you can check out below, Yoshida spoke about how he would have resisted the company’s plans to focus on live-service titles.
Yoshida spoke about how, under the leadership of Herman Hulst, PlayStation had been pushing its first-party studios to work on live-service titles in an attempt to capitalise on the popularity of games like Overwatch 2 and Destiny 2. This culminated in the failed launch of hero shooter Concord, which had servers shut down in less than a month since after its release.
“I was managing this annual budget and was responsible to allocate resources to what kind of games to make,” said Yoshida. “If the company was considering that way, it probably wouldn’t have made sense to stop making another God of War or whatever, like a great single player game, and put all the money into these service games.”
“However, what they did after I moved on and Herman Hulst took over is that they added a lot more resources. I don’t think they told him to stop making these single player games. They said, oh yeah, these games are great. Continue doing that, and we give you additional resources to work on these service games and try it.”
Yoshida also spoke about how trying to develop a new game in the live-service sector is an incredibly risky move, especially for a company that is known for its well-loved single-player titles. While some games have seen success thanks to this move, like Helldivers 2, many more have failed, such a the cancelled multiplayer title The Last of Us Online.
“I’m sure they knew it was risky and that the chance of a successful game in this hugely competitive genre would be small,” he said. “However, the company knowing that risk gave Herman the resources and the chance to try it. I think that’s the way they did it, so in my mind I was, oh wow, that’s great and
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