• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Shuhei Yoshida was forced to move to the indie sector

Fabieter

Member
I just saw this edit. What exactly do you mean? He was at the company when they made it but what do you mean under him? He wasn't the one who gave the go ahead to make it if that's what you mean.

It was under development for years while he still took care of 1p games.
 

SmoothBrain

Member
Not a fan of Jim Ryan and the direction they took. I was heavily invested in my PS4, not so much with the PS5.
Profits =/= profitability.
Operating income is money made after costs have been deducted. G&NS made $10B, outperforming PS4 era and at a faster pace—3 years earlier. Or what am I missing here? I just had a look at their financial report. It looks pretty solid, no? Can't really make more money in their other business branches. There are only so many sensors you can sell.
 

Fabieter

Member
If we're doing metrics like sales and CCU drop Bloodborne and Until Dawn didn't exactly set the world on fire either when comparing to 2015. HD2 beat them both there.

Well the point is the baseline is good but people got tired of the game which is naturally worse with gaas games. This isn't debatable.
 
People didn't buy PS4s instead of XB1 because of COD or Fortnite as they could play those on both platforms!

They bought and invested into Playstation because of Bloordbone and others few exclusives games (Infamous at launch for instance, The last Guardian later, Uncharted, TLOU 1 & 2 etc.) that were just what they needed to select this platform and not Xbox. Nowadays people are encouraged to buy PCs instead of PLaystations. Good thing right now is that PCs are still very expensive (and Cerny made 2 cheap Playstations) so the money they make on Playstation right now is mostly thanks to 3rd party games / DLCs.

Right now Playstation are losing money on their first party games and projects! While they were making plenty of money (records even) on 1st party games in the end of PS4 era! That's a big problem for the future of Playstation.
 
Last edited:

Topher

Identifies as young
Eh... He failed to acquire any new studios and oversaw closures. Under his watch they failed to acquire the Crash IP and just brought it back for nostalgia while also making the classics multiplatform. Maybe it wasn't his call, but SIE was awfully tight back then.

I mean.....even Ken Kutargi had negatives, but if that's the worst that can be said about House when he was the one who guided PlayStation to its second most dominant generation and heralded in some truly awesome games for PS4 then yeah, I'll still take him over what succeeded him.
 

PeteBull

Member
People didn't buy PS4s instead of XB1 because of COD or Fortnite as they could play those on both platforms!

They bought and invested into Playstation because of Bloordbone and others few exclusives games (Infamous at launch for instance, The last Guardian later, Uncharted, TLOU 1 & 2 etc.) that were just what they needed to select this platform and not Xbox. Nowadays people are encouraged to buy PCs instead of PLaystations. Good thing right now is that PCs are still very expensive (and Cerny made 2 cheap Playstations) so the money they make on Playstation right now is mostly thanks to 3rd party games / DLCs.

Right now Playstation are losing money on their first party games and projects! While they were making plenty of money (records even) on 1st party games in the end of PS4 era! That's a big problem for the future of Playstation.
Exactly, we want high quality exclusives.
72417fa4fdf60376f036821ef1e90d31a384cb5139a76c612f5cb2c6c4bf6d17.jpg
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
LOL

Try asking any former Psygnosis/Studio LIverpool employees about Shu's "kindness" when he was the hatchet man closing them down.
Didn't he give an interview where he was talking about how everybody at Sony/playstation was always scared of him, until he became a father and he softened up a bit?
 
Thats just a straight up lie, the game was already in development long before sony payed for exclusivity.


No. Stellar Blade was a small indie project before Sony's involvement. They contacted Mr. Shu, who visited their offices and liked the game enough to fund it. The same with Phantom Blade Zero devs.

Also, it was Mr Shu who made possible the partnership with Mihoyo, which turned out in a gold mine for Sony.

After being demoted to a supposedly irrelevant position, he brought more money to Playstation than the dumb fucks who took his place.
 

Astray

Member
Jim Ryan got elevated for the same thing he eventually accomplished: Killing off Xbox as a mainline competitor.

If you're on the board of Sony and you need to choose a new CEO, do you promote the guy who managed to completely obliterate the immediate competition in his region, or do you promote the guy who didn't?

Like consider that even with all the stuff we constantly bring up about how Xbox One failed and tanked the brand, the infamous Shuhei video etc etc, Shawn Layden still didn't manage to kill them off when that shit was at its hardest, and that's ultimately what matters to the likes of Totoki.

Now was Jim Ryan's reign a bad or good thing for Sony from a holistic POV? Only time will tell imo.
 

Sid91

Neo Member
People have memory like a fish.
You read the posts in that thread and you will realize that nothing has changed regarding Sony first-party discussion in this forum.
Then the excuse was ‘there is PLENTY TO PLAY!’ or ‘only third party games sell consoles so it doesn’t matter’. People completely forget how awful PS4’s first party output was when compared to every PlayStation prior.
 

BbMajor7th

Member
Not a fan of Jim Ryan and the direction they took. I was heavily invested in my PS4, not so much with the PS5.

Operating income is money made after costs have been deducted. G&NS made $10B, outperforming PS4 era and at a faster pace—3 years earlier. Or what am I missing here? I just had a look at their financial report. It looks pretty solid, no? Can't really make more money in their other business branches. There are only so many sensors you can sell.
Profitability is a measure of efficiency: the profit margin on revenue. This has fallen in recent years, meaning returns are not keeping up with investments. Profits can still go up while margins are dropping.

If I make $10,000 in profit on $50,000 of revenue in 2024, and I make $12,000 of profit on $80,000 revenue in 2025, my profits have soared by 20%, which sounds awesome. My margin, however, has slipped by a quarter from 20% to 15%. My business is 5% less efficient than it was a year ago; my returns on investment are falling. I'm getting less money out for what I'm putting in.

Statistics are like lingerie: what they reveal is exciting, but not nearly as crucial as what they conceal.
 
Last edited:

Three

Member
It was under development for years while he still took care of 1p games.
He hasn't been head of SIE Worldwide studios since 2019 and even then it wouldn't have been under him since it's not an SIE studio. I love Shu but trying to attribute things to him to make last year seem like it's different is a reach.
 

Felessan

Member
Profitability is a measure of efficiency:
It's oversimplification of things
Profitability as a measure of efficiency only true for opex, capex as long-term investment is another story.
And Sony spends a lot on capex as it gets a lot of money and see a lot of opportunities to scale it's various businesses so their margins plummeted
 

BbMajor7th

Member
It's oversimplification of things
Profitability as a measure of efficiency only true for opex, capex as long-term investment is another story.
And Sony spends a lot on capex as it gets a lot of money and see a lot of opportunities to scale it's various businesses so their margins plummeted
Yeah, some of that Capex was Firewalk Studios though... also, it might be an oversimplification, but in the age of quarterly capitalism, it's how things are ultimately viewed.
 
Last edited:

Fake

Member
People do realize most of Sony's studio shutdowns were the result of decisions made under Shuhei Yoshida, right?

He's likeable, but it's all business, not charity.

You talk like Hermen and Jim don't have their share of closing studios.

Even Phil have and both have their job dude.
 

Saber

Member
Sad that all my suspicious were confirmed and those bastards have nothing but displeasure(envy) for the guy.
Fortunatelly it worked for him as he is the one people have high respects, not for these clowns of Hermen and Jim. What a freaking western take over bullcrap this end up being.
 
Last edited:

Killjoy-NL

Member
You talk like Hermen and Jim don't have their share of closing studios.

Even Phil have and both have their job dude.
Did I say otherwise?

The studios that got closed by Ryan and Hulst have already been on a decline under Yoshida. Hence why I said that we are seeing results of decisions prior to Ryan/Hulst.

And if you look at how Sony has been talking about maximizing profits and running the company more efficiently, these closures by Ryan/Hulst fall in line with that.

That's not to say that one is better than the other, but people need to look at it more objectively instead of just the standard whining about Ryan and Hulst.
 
Last edited:

Fbh

Member
Of course he was.
They needed new people as he clearly didn't have brilliant enough ideas like having one of the best remake/remaster studios in the industry waste years of time and resources making a God of War GAAS.
 

Fake

Member
Did I say otherwise?

The studios that got closed by Ryan and Hulst have already been on a decline under Yoshida. Hence why I said that we are seeing results of decisions prior to Ryan/Hulst.

And if you look at how Sony has been talking about maximizing profits and running the company more efficiently, these closures by Ryan/Hulst fall in line with that.

That's not to say that one is better than the other, but people need to look at it more objectively instead of just the standard whining about Ryan and Hulst.

You said and I gonna quote, "but it's all business, not charity" dude wtf are you smoking?

And stop with this bs of 'Yoshida do this and that'. I don't fall.

Yoshida was not the CEO of the Playstation and never was. He was not making demands or making devs do what he want.

Just stop with this bs. Hermen and Jim are the CEOs and take responsibility for their action.
400m on Concord and half a billion on Spider-Man 2, so much talk about charity.
 
Last edited:

Killjoy-NL

Member
You said charity dude wtf are you smoking?

And stop with this bs of 'Yoshida do this and that'. I don't fall.

Yoshida was not the CEO of the Playstation and never was. He was not making demands or making devs do what he want.

Just stop with this bs. Hermen and Jim are the CEOs and take responsibility for their action.
I never said Ryan and Hulst shouldn't take responsibility for their actions. Like the massive flop that was Concord was entirely on them.

But what's funny is that after reading the actual interview, OP left out a crucial part that put context to this situation, that's right before the part OP quoted:
"When I got the job, I told Jim that I didn’t want to create a department. There were enough verticals in the company. Coordinating a department is hard already. I didn’t want to create another vertical. I worked through the existing organization. My personal goal, when I started the indie job, was to make my position obsolete. The company would be doing so well that there was no need for someone like me to tell everyone that this was important. I feel like we’ve achieved that pretty well. There’s still a lot we can do, but people are working on it. You had the combination of Jim leaving and Nishino and Hermen stepping up, and I felt good about the state of our support for indies. I decided to leave."

Ryan didn't seem to have forced Yoshida to do anything.

Edit:

There is this part before that as well:
"Yoshida: Well, I haven’t retired. I left the company. Jim Ryan was the last leader of our generation. Ken Kutaragi, Kaz Hirai, Andrew House, Shawn Layden, myself, we were all the same group from the PS1 days. We handed down to the next generation of management, like Hideaki Nishino and Hermen Hulst. For the last five years my responsibility was to promote indie games inside and outside of PlayStation. I wanted to communicate, especially to new people joining PlayStation, how important it is to support indie games. They create the future. Externally I was communicating to indie developers and publishers that we wanted to make things better for them. Bit by bit, we’ve been able to improve our systems, our store functions, our communication.

A few years back, one of the reasons I got that job from Jim–we’d been criticized by the indie community. They said that PlayStation doesn’t care about indies. You don’t hear that kind of criticism anymore. "
 
Last edited:

nial

Member
The entire company is not just one person. In a global corporate set-up, global SVPs, VPs, and Directors have oversight of all major business functions. If you know where all those people are based, you have a much clearer idea of who's running things.
You're not saying anything new. We already know about the corporate set-up; Hideaki Nishino (Platform Experience Group, the most important global division of SIE) and Lin Tao (Corporate Strategy) came from Japan, Jim Ryan (previous global CEO) and Hermen Hulst (PlayStation Studios) came from SIE Europe, while Eric Lempel (Sales and marketing), Phil Rosenberg (Partners relations) and Jennifer Clark (Communications) came from SIE America.
I seriously want to know where the ""huge power transfer to the US"".
Says 'both', tries to win the argument by naming the least popular out of the two..

Smooth moves.
Making the absolute claim that EVEN Until Dawn was better than anything Sony released on the PS5 generation (which includes Astro Bot) was where he lost any credibility whatsoever. I already said that comparing Bloodborne and Astro Bot is a moot point and it's a matter of preference at this point, and you can't really measure that one is objectivelly better than the other.
I suggest not joining into discussions you were not part of if you don't have anything of substance to say.
 

nial

Member
And AstroBot would have never happened without Yoshida as he was the one who allowed Doucet to come back to Japan and nurtured him into his new position as he knew Doucet was important for Playstation.
I love how you can't even get any credit whatsoever for mantaining and further developing a well-established pool of talent. Messing up with talent and losing it is more common than you think, do I have to remind everyone that SIE lost Fumito Ueda under Shuhei Yoshida's watch?
One of Hermen Hulst's first moves was appointing Nicolas Doucet as a creative studio director at Japan Studio, and then giving him his own studio department in Japan (Team Asobi) a year later in 2021.
 
Last edited:

Killjoy-NL

Member
Just stop with this bs. Hermen and Jim are the CEOs and take responsibility for their action.
400m on Concord and half a billion on Spider-Man 2, so much talk about charity.
I gave you Concord, but what's with Spiderman 2?

It sold 11+M copies back in May 2024.

Edit:

Or are you stuck up on the use of 'charity'?
How about not misinterpreting my post?
 
Last edited:

Dr.Morris79

Gold Member
Making the absolute claim that EVEN Until Dawn was better than anything Sony released on the PS5 generation (which includes Astro Bot) was where he lost any credibility whatsoever. I already said that comparing Bloodborne and Astro Bot is a moot point and it's a matter of preference at this point, and you can't really measure that one is objectivelly better than the other.
I suggest not joining into discussions you were not part of if you don't have anything of substance to say.
In ten years, If none of them have been remastered or re-released, which of the three games mentioned would have the most call for a release at that current time?

Exactly.

Stop talking bollocks.
 

ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
I never said Ryan and Hulst shouldn't take responsibility for their actions. Like the massive flop that was Concord was entirely on them.

But what's funny is that after reading the actual interview, OP left out a crucial part that put context to this situation, that's right before the part OP quoted:
"When I got the job, I told Jim that I didn’t want to create a department. There were enough verticals in the company. Coordinating a department is hard already. I didn’t want to create another vertical. I worked through the existing organization. My personal goal, when I started the indie job, was to make my position obsolete. The company would be doing so well that there was no need for someone like me to tell everyone that this was important. I feel like we’ve achieved that pretty well. There’s still a lot we can do, but people are working on it. You had the combination of Jim leaving and Nishino and Hermen stepping up, and I felt good about the state of our support for indies. I decided to leave."

Ryan didn't seem to have forced Yoshida to do anything.

Edit:

There is this part before that as well:
"Yoshida: Well, I haven’t retired. I left the company. Jim Ryan was the last leader of our generation. Ken Kutaragi, Kaz Hirai, Andrew House, Shawn Layden, myself, we were all the same group from the PS1 days. We handed down to the next generation of management, like Hideaki Nishino and Hermen Hulst. For the last five years my responsibility was to promote indie games inside and outside of PlayStation. I wanted to communicate, especially to new people joining PlayStation, how important it is to support indie games. They create the future. Externally I was communicating to indie developers and publishers that we wanted to make things better for them. Bit by bit, we’ve been able to improve our systems, our store functions, our communication.

A few years back, one of the reasons I got that job from Jim–we’d been criticized by the indie community. They said that PlayStation doesn’t care about indies. You don’t hear that kind of criticism anymore. "
The whole thread is built on misquoting and reading comprehension is hard. Thank you for this post.
 

SSfox

Member
Yeah called it since day one

It is still a mystery how the fuck this Hermen still in with a good post. Even tho he got downgraded bit recently. I'd like to think it's just that Totoki didn't find anyone worthy to replace Hulst with atm
 
Last edited:

Fake

Member
I gave you Concord, but what's with Spiderman 2?

It sold 11+M copies back in May 2024.

No way Spider-Man 2 need to cost more than half a billion dude. No matter how many videos you show to me, I saw the game and nothing there justify this bugde.

Or are you stuck up on the use of 'charity'?
How about not misinterpreting my post?

You started with the charity mention my friend. Would be better for you to just admit you don't like Yoshida. Unless you have some recipes proving Yoshida caused the 'studio closing' you mention before.

In case you don't get, I would prefer Yoshida as a CEO that anything Sony had, but he isn't. He played Project EVA, aka Stellar Blade, and push this game even Sony being this western woke mentality of not accepting good looking women. He is probably the reason for Astro Bot to be pushed to begin with, so no offense, but I'll not blame him for the Sony failures unless he was a CEO.
 
Last edited:

Killjoy-NL

Member
No way Spider-Man 2 need to cost more than half a billion dude. No matter how many videos you show to me, I saw the game and nothing there justify this bugde.
Probably a lot of marketing as well. But i never shipped a AAA title. Did you?

It's also irrelevant, as I just pointed out that not everything is to blame on Ryan and Hulst.
You started with the charity mention my friend. Would be better for you to just admit you don't like Yoshida. Unless you have some recipes proving Yoshida caused the 'studio closing' you mention before.
Lol wut? Yoshida is easily the most likeable exec in gaming history.

Why are you so defensive anyway?
I pointed out that some studios were already on the way down prior to Ryan and Hulst taking over.
In case you don't get, I would prefer Yoshida as a CEO that anything Sony had, but he isn't. He played Project EVA, aka Stellar Blade, and push this game even Sony being this western woke mentality of not accepting good looking women. He is probably the reason for Astro Bot to be pushed to begin with, so no offense, but I'll not blame him for the Sony failures unless he was a CEO.
Fr, what are you even arguing here? You've got some mental issues if you feel
like anyone got attacked by anything I said and you get all worked up over it.
It doesn't even relate to you.
 
Last edited:

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Picking individual suits and arbitrarily anointing them as heroes or villains based on overall corporate actions is so dumb its laughable.

Especially as its typical done with the actual purpose of saying "this guy is bad" (i.e not giving them what they want) by making out their predecessor was responsible for everything that was "good".

Its a ridiculously juvenile way to frame corporate steering and management, and really makes me wonder if people have a clue about how big business actually works.
 

BbMajor7th

Member
You're not saying anything new. We already know about the corporate set-up; Hideaki Nishino (Platform Experience Group, the most important global division of SIE) and Lin Tao (Corporate Strategy) came from Japan, Jim Ryan (previous global CEO) and Hermen Hulst (PlayStation Studios) came from SIE Europe, while Eric Lempel (Sales and marketing), Phil Rosenberg (Partners relations) and Jennifer Clark (Communications) came from SIE America.
I seriously want to know where the ""huge power transfer to the US"".
You're quite determined, even though you've had to issue multiple climb-downs already.

If you honestly think that globalization has meant a broader swing toward European and Japanese markets/consumer interests and not North American, I don't know what to tell you.

If you think that M&A spree of 2019-2022 was not weirdly weighted towards North American studios (Bluepoint, Bungie, Insomniac, Haven, Firewalk, Valkyrie) in a portfolio that was already heavily populated by US studios (SSM, San Diego, Bend, Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch), then again, I'm not sure what to tell you.

If you think that blowing god knows how much money on a Super Bowl half-time advert stuffed with Hollywood A-listers and NBA stars suggests a company hasn't got an overall focus on a single market, again, what can be said?
 
Last edited:

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Yeah called it since day one

It is still a mystery how the fuck this Hermen still in with a good post. Even tho he got downgraded bit recently. I'd like to think it's just that Totoki didn't find anyone worthy to replace Hulst with atm

Why do yall keep blaming Herman for the things Jim Ryan clearly did?
 

nial

Member
In ten years, If none of them have been remastered or re-released, which of the three games mentioned would have the most call for a release at that current time?

Exactly.

Stop talking bollocks.
"B-BUT IN 10 YEARS" is not a real argument.
You're quite determined, even though you've had to issue multiple climb-downs already.

If you honestly think that globalization has meant a broader swing toward European and Japanese markets/consumer interests and not North American, I don't know what to tell you.

If you think that M&A spree of 2019-2022 was not weirdly weighted towards North American studios (Bluepoint, Bungie, Insomniac, Haven, Firewalk, Valkyrie) in a portfolio that was already heavily populated by US studios (SSM, San Diego, Bend, Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch), then again, I'm not sure what to tell you.
SIE America's output being the bulk of that of WWS (or even pre-WWS first-party) is something that definitely didn't start under Jim Ryan. Acquiring Naughty Dog, Eidetic, Sucker Punch, Zipper Interactive, Incognito, and also establishing internal studios like San Diego, Santa Monica and Pixelopus. "But they also acquired European studios during this time!", they recently did as well? Are we now forgetting Housemarque, Firesprite and Neon Koi?
SIE Japan has *never* acquired any studio in its three decades history. Ironically, the closest it's been to it is the acquisition of 14% of From Software.
If you think that blowing god knows how much money on a Super Bowl half-time advert stuffed with Hollywood A-listers and NBA stars suggests a company hasn't got an overall focus on a single market, again, what can be said?
The Super Bowl LVII halftime show was sponsored by Apple, all the PlayStation references were exclusively on the creative side of the event, and had absolutely nothing to do with SIE.
You are in luck and with no sacrifices required!

I appreciate it, but it's so different and I, frankly, hate the art style. This is not Boku no Natsuyasumi to me.
 

Fabieter

Member
Yeah called it since day one

It is still a mystery how the fuck this Hermen still in with a good post. Even tho he got downgraded bit recently. I'd like to think it's just that Totoki didn't find anyone worthy to replace Hulst with atm

I hope they will downgrade him back to GG. He doesn't deserve to manage the whole studio group.
 

yurinka

Member
So as always this is manufactured drama?
Yes, Yoshida explained multiple times before why and how he moved from managing 1st party to PlayStation Indies, and nothing he said in this article contradicts it. He was tired of 1st party because there was a huge pressure (remember the PS3 dramas he mentions) and wanted to support indies in many ways, his 'dream job'.

And now that he left (wasn't fired) Sony, he wants continue supporting indies from the outside. Not managing production of AAA games. Jim Ryan allowed him to do what he wanted, instead of forcing him to do so.

Yeah called it since day one

It is still a mystery how the fuck this Hermen still in with a good post. Even tho he got downgraded bit recently. I'd like to think it's just that Totoki didn't find anyone worthy to replace Hulst with atm
I hope they will downgrade him back to GG. He doesn't deserve to manage the whole studio group.
They won't, they promoted him to be CEO of that half of SIE (and didn't demote him) because he's the most successful 1st party head Sony always had.
 
Last edited:
Oh how many laughing emojis I got from screeching fanboys when I said Jim Ryan and co sucked when it was clear already after the ps4 dreamteam. And here we are, some of the worst years of playstation (xbox sucks too, don’t rage)
 

BbMajor7th

Member
"B-BUT IN 10 YEARS" is not a real argument.

SIE America's output being the bulk of that of WWS (or even pre-WWS first-party) is something that definitely didn't start under Jim Ryan. Acquiring Naughty Dog, Eidetic, Sucker Punch, Zipper Interactive, Incognito, and also establishing internal studios like San Diego, Santa Monica and Pixelopus. "But they also acquired European studios during this time!", they recently did as well? Are we now forgetting Housemarque, Firesprite and Neon Koi?
SIE Japan has *never* acquired any studio in its three decades history. Ironically, the closest it's been to it is the acquisition of 14% of From Software.

The Super Bowl LVII halftime show was sponsored by Apple, all the PlayStation references were exclusively on the creative side of the event, and had absolutely nothing to do with SIE.
As I say, you're determined, but you don't know what you don't know, and that's okay :)
 

Astray

Member
The details of Colin Moriarty's interview with Shuhei are beginning to trickle out (episode is out for Patrons apparently).

Apparently it was Shuhei that approved the Firewalk/Concord deal? If it's true then so many narratives are gonna collapse.

EDIT: Here is the link (patrons only for now) + the show's bullet points
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom