Former 31-year PlayStation veteran Shuhei Yoshida, who just left the company on January 15, sat down for an in-depth interview about his career. One of the most notable topics that came up was his thoughts on Sony’s semi-recent push into the live-service market, which has been filled with ups and downs thus far. He told Kinda Funny that he would have attempted to “resist” the push into live-service had he still been in charge before Hermen Hulst took over.
He said Sony gave PlayStation “a lot more resources” after Hulst took over, with the aim of funding both single-player games and new live-service projects.
“They said, ‘These games are great, keep doing that, and we’ll give you additional resources to work on these live-service games and try it,'” he said, noting that management understood the shift into live-service was “risky.” That’s in part because the chance of finding success in the highly competitive live-service market “would be small,” Yoshida said (via IGN).
“The company, knowing that risk, gave Hermen the resources and chance to try it. I think that’s the way they did it. In my mind, that’s great, and hopefully some games will become successful,” he said, adding that “nobody” expected Helldivers 2 to become the success it was.
“You can’t plan a success in this industry. That’s the most fun part of this business. I hope that this strategy will work in the end,” he said.
Finally, Yoshida said if he were still the boss of PlayStation Studios, he “would’ve tried to resist” the push into live-service. He went on to joke, “Maybe that’s one of the reasons they removed me from the first-party!”
Helldivers 2, with more than 12 million copies sold, is Sony’s biggest live-service success in recent times. While Sony has halved the number of live-service projects it’s making, there are still several notable upcoming releases, including Fairgame$ and supposedly a new Horizon multiplayer game.
Some of Sony’s live-service projects to be canceled in recent times included a God of War game and The Last of Us Online, among others.
Also during Yoshida’s chat with Kinda Funny, he discussed why there is no Bloodborne remaster and why the PlayStation Vita failed. He also said he was surprised at how poorly Horizon Forbidden West sold compared to the first game.
