Shuhei Yoshida

Shūhei Yoshida at E3 2013

Shūhei "Shu" Yoshida ( Japanese 吉田 修 平 Yoshida Shūhei ; * in Tokyo Prefecture ) is a Japanese manager and past president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios , the umbrella organization for all of Sony Interactive Entertainment's game development studios . Yoshida was part of the team that launched the first PlayStation and was a driving force behind building the in-house development teams . During this time he also worked as a games producer and oversaw numerous titles for the various PlayStation consoles. At the executive level, he contributed to the further development of the console family and the internal structures of the games and console manufacturer. With the beginning of the marketing of the PlayStation 4 , Yoshida increasingly became the spokesperson and representative of the console manufacturer in the public eye.

Life

Early years and introduction of the PlayStation

Yoshida earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Kyoto University and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of California , Los Angeles.

In 1986 Yoshida joined Sony Corporation, where he was part of the Corporate Strategy Group and coordinated the PC division. In February 1993 he was one of the first employees of the PlayStation project, for which he was in charge of the licensing program for independent third-party developers as lead account executive at Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. In search of an alternative to the flopped 3DO game console, the American game developer Mark Cerny traveled to Sony headquarters in Tokyo in the same year to ask Crystal Dynamics for the provision of a developer kit for the upcoming console on behalf of his employer . At this point in time, however, these were only given to Japanese developers. a. because the license agreement was only available in Japanese. Since the former Sega employee Cerny spoke the language, he was able to sign the license agreement. Mainly thanks to Yoshida's support, the developer kit was finally approved, contrary to internal rules. Crystal Dynamics became the first approved, non-Japanese third party developer for the PlayStation. Only afterwards did Yoshida learn that Cerny was actually not authorized to sign.

The professional contact with Cerny remained a constant in Yoshida's further career. When Cerny became vice-president of Universal Pictures' newly formed games division, Universal Interactive Studio, in 1994, Yoshida was the producer responsible for the work of Cerny's Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games development teams , namely the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon series . Crash Bandicoot , in particular , became one of the new console's greatest hits. PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi personally selected Yoshida to be the producer . Yoshida's second supervised game became Gran Turismo , the cornerstone of yet another major PlayStation franchise. Other titles produced were Ape Escape and The Legend of Dragoon . In the final phase of the development of the PlayStation 2 , Yoshida also made it possible for Cerny to become the first American to have exclusive access to a development version of the PlayStation 2 at the company's headquarters in Tokyo, thus giving Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games the opportunity to develop launch titles for the market launch of the PS2.

Change to the USA

In 2000, the year the PlayStation 2 was launched , Yoshida received an offer from Kazuo Hirai , then head of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), to continue his work for Sony's US subsidiary. In April Yoshida joined SCEA as Vice-President of Product Development. As a result, Yoshida devoted itself more and more to western-style game development. After a five-year collaboration, Sony took over the crash bandicoot developer Naughty Dog , supervised by Yoshida, in 2001 . Yoshida's area of ​​responsibility included the development of Sony's first online game that allows headset conversations, SOCOM: US Navy SEALs , the Jak and Daxter series by Naughty Dog, Twisted Metal: Black and ATV Offroad Fury . During this time, Yoshida was also responsible for setting up the so-called ICE team, I nitiative for a C ommon E ngine, which was initially created within Naughty Dog and had the goal of creating a common technology base and development tools for all development studios for the upcoming PlayStation 3 prepare. The in-house studios, which were previously operating independently of one another, were to be supported and rising development costs reduced, as the team sizes had already tripled on average compared to the first PlayStation and a further increase was expected when switching to the next generation of consoles. Yoshida also succeeded in softening the previously strict demarcation between the hardware development team and the software developers. Yoshida managed to embed the ICE team, again including Mark Cerny, within the hardware department in Tokyo. From the company's point of view, the market launch of the PlayStation 3 at the end of 2006 turned out to be less successful than hoped, which ultimately led to the disempowerment of the PlayStation boss Kutaragi, who is considered to be uncommunicative. One of the reasons for the failure was the meager game lineup due to the difficult software programming for the console's unusual hardware architecture. The involvement of the ICE team promoted by Yoshida and the resulting development tools were in turn considered to be important forward-looking measures that saved the company from major problems. In February 2007, Yoshida became Vice-President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios (SCE WWS), responsible for the US studios.

Return to Japan

Phil Harrison , the previous head of SCE WWS, left the company at the end of February 2008 . After initial considerations about dissolving this umbrella organization, Yoshida successfully applied for the vacant position at Kazuo Hirai, who is now managing director of the entire Sony Computer Entertainment group and thus Kutaragi's successor. In May 2008 he was appointed President of SCE WWS. Yoshida moved back to Japan, where from then on he oversaw all internal game developments for all platforms worldwide. In the same year, Cerny was hired as the lead system architect of the PlayStation 4, which was under development. The appointment of a primarily software specialist and non-Japanese to this important position was considered unusual, although Western executives had already been appointed, including the Wales-based CEO Howard Stringer . Cerny received support from Yoshida again. The starting point for the consideration was a personal experience of Yoshida in connection with the first public presentation of the PlayStation 3, when he received information about the integration of a motion control in the game controller for the first time two to three weeks before the event and a presentable prototype of a corresponding one in this short period of time Should prepare game. With the problematic start of sales of the PlayStation 3, Sony had lost its largely dominant market position in the PS2 era and needed a reorganization of its internal processes. With Cerny, the principle of strict separation of hardware and software departments was finally abolished and both the 16 internal and external development studios were included in the conception. Unlike the hard-to-program PlayStation 3, the new console has been optimized to meet the needs of software developers. The RAM was only doubled due to complaints from Randy Pitchford , head of the independent development studio Gearbox Software . Ultimately, Sony received positive approval from independent developers for its design decision. In addition to Cerny's involvement in the hardware architecture, Yoshida's work on an executive level is one of the reasons for success.

Launch of the PlayStation 4

In the course of the marketing campaigns for the presentation and market launch of the PlayStation 4, Yoshida increasingly came into focus in the public eye. Journalists consider Yoshida to be a pleasant, accommodating interviewee who, instead of referring back to the core issues, tries to answer if a question does not fall within his area of ​​work. Like Kazuo Hirai, who was appointed CEO in 2012, he is still considered to be westernized. His appearance is described as friendly and jovial, in 2014, for example, he spoke positively about the newly appointed Xbox boss Phil Spencer . As a frequent interviewee and through promotional activities, he became the most important representative of the PlayStation brand, succeeding Kazuo Hirai. When the competing console Xbox One was criticized for its restrictive measures in the fight against the used game trade, Yoshida announced in February 2013 that Sony would not take any action against used games. In June 2013, Yoshida satirized Microsoft's planned digital rights management together with Adam Boyes, SCEA's Vice-President of Publisher and Developer Relations, in an official promotional video for the PlayStation 4, titled as instructions for used games. In the first and only step of the instruction, Yoshida hands over it a game pack to Boyes. In November 2013, Yoshida played an initially unidentifiable gentleman burglar in another PlayStation 4 promotional video who, wearing gloves, gradually reveals the contents of the PS4 sales package until the video finally ends with a full view of Yoshida and the advertising slogan Greatness Awaits . Yoshida also gained popularity through his Twitter activities and responding to customer questions, which Yoshida described as follows: “ It's like I have a second job as the frontline customer service on Twitter, when people are excited or concerned about anything PlayStation. "(German:" It's like I have a second job as a customer service representative on the Twitter front when people are excited or concerned about anything related to PlayStation ")

Web links

• Shuhei Yoshida at MobyGames (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} PS4 and Mark Cerny: “All Part of Shuhei Yoshida's Master Plan” Who is the Real Father of the PS4?
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Exclusive: The American Who Designed the PlayStation 4 and Remade Sony
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Shuhei Yoshida and Mark Cerny talk about the history of the Playstation
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Yoshida named president of SCE worldwide studios
5. ^ Naughty Dog discusses being acquired by Sony
6. ↑ Ken Kutaragi Steps Down as Sony CEO
7. ^ Phil Harrison leaves Sony
8. ↑ Jason Dunning: "If You Go With 4GB of GDDR5" RAM on PS4, "You Are Done," Randy Pitchford Told Sony.
9. ↑ PS4: "Wise technical decisions" - id software boss praises PlayStation 4.
10. ↑ ^{a b} The big interview: Sony's Shuhei Yoshida on PS4
11. ↑ ^{a b} Eurogamer: Who's this mystery man unboxing PlayStation 4? Wearing leather murder gloves.
12. ↑ Sony's Shuhei Yoshida praises Microsoft's Phil Spencer
13. ↑ Sony's Shuhei Yoshida Reflects on Two Decades of PlayStation
14. ↑ Sony tells Eurogamer: PlayStation 4 will not block used games
15. ↑ Boyes on PS4 Used Games video: 'We're having fun' ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
16. ↑ Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video
17. ↑ The Official PS4 Unboxing Video - PlayStation 4