Shuhei Yoshida is leaving PlayStation in January after three decades

As of January 15, 2025, PlayStation’s Shuhei Yoshida will leave Sony but not retire from the industry entirely. Yoshida made the announcement while on the PlayStation Podcast Tuesday (a condensed transcription of the interview appears on the official PlayStation blog.) He hasn’t provided a reason why he’s leaving.

Many know Yoshida as Sony Interactive’s Head of Indies Initiative, a position he got in 2019. In other words, he’s in charge of getting indie games onto PlayStation consoles by networking with indie developers and promoting the games they made. Before this, he was part of the original team behind the first PlayStation console, meaning he’s been working on these consoles since the very beginning. We interviewed him back in 2013 to talk about Sony’s commitment to (and his particular affinity for) indie developers.

Yoshida believes that since PlayStation has been in good hands and has been thriving since its release, it’s time he moved on. His love for the console series remains, and he’s still highly optimistic about its future.

You may have seen his ">powerful roast of Microsoft’s previous plan to prevent Xbox One owners from easily sharing physical games back in 2013. It only took Yoshida 21 seconds to make his point that the PS4 wouldn’t have such restrictions and how bad of an idea Microsoft dreamed up. His horror when playtesting an early build of 2018’s God of War is also somewhat known.

As noted by Kotaku, Yoshida’s announcement is almost a week away from the PlayStation’s 30th anniversary, December 3.

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