Shuhei Yoshida Fireside chat with Gameindustry.biz on Playstation indies, State of Plays, and PS Plus

[Remember_Spinal]

Only part of this was posted in the other thread but the entire discussion is worth checking out.

It was jim Ryan who asked the 3rd party relation team to come up with a plan to reinvigorate the indie side and Shuhei was recruited to lead it
- When greg rice lost his job at double fine after being acquired by MS, he approached Shuhei and he recommended that he be hired
- Indie devs used to submit their games to all 3 PS headquarters (US, JP and EU) and each had slightly different rules which made it harder for indie devs to publish
- They have worked on globalizing their tools as well on PS5 making it easier for indie to work with it, and made analytics tool available to all devs to improve their insight into their games with training sessions/videos to understand these tools
- They have noticed that announcing multiple indie games together on PS blog which they have done a few times in the last year have managed to get more views and coverage than usual
- Their monthly picks on the PS store have been really popular with consumers as well
- They are trying to get more 3rd party to put their games on PS+ as a way of breathing life into them again after their sales starts to die down


"The new PS Plus has tiers and essentially it’s like the old PS Plus, we still release two or three new games every month and a new tier, Extra, has a catalogue of hundreds of games for people to play. For Extra, our approach [is] we like to help the publishers [with] lifecycle management. I was managing first-party [at PlayStation] so I know that it’s like in the movies — a movie comes out at the theatre first, then goes to pay per view, or a subscription service, or free TV, every time generating new revenue and reaching out to a broader audience."

 

[Bryank75]

Fantastic, just saw a clip of this so far. Will watch the whole thing soon.

Shu is so personable.

 

[Gamernyc78]

My favorite gaming exec and a true gamer. Not like these other bozos that put on a gaming shirt as directed to and act like they are gamers.

 

[Loy310]

My favorite gaming exec and a true gamer. Not like these other bozos that out on a gaming shirt as directed to and act like they are gamers.

Who dis?

 

[Gamernyc78]

Who dis?

Never who dat

 

[Airbus]

Who dis?

Jimbo

 

[Yurinka]

They are doing a good job with PlayStation Indies and looking at what he says they are working on the main things that indies have been asking for. They still have a lot of work to do but they are in the good path.

I knew that Yoshida loved indies and that he wanted to support them, I but didn't know that Jimbo asked to support indies again, that Yoshida submited them a plan to do it and hiring Greg Rice, and they suggested Yoshida to lead the implementation of the plan. Sounds great.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

They are doing a good job with PlayStation Indies and looking at what he says they are working on the main things that indies have been asking for. They still have a lot of work to do but they are in the good path.

I knew that Yoshida loved indies and that he wanted to support them, I but didn't know that Jimbo asked to support indies again, that Yoshida submited them a plan to do it and hiring Greg Rice, and they suggested Yoshida to lead the implementation of the plan. Sounds great.

Greg Rice and that crew was such a good get from microsoft basically gutting doublefine.

 

[BigMclargeHuge]

The gaf version of this thread is an absolute shit show. It's nothing but the usual suspects frothing at the mouth defending gamepass.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Shu is doing a great job. For now, I want two more things from this program:

1. Shu expands his team and they identify more cool indie games to support and help develop. They missed a few games that were extremely obvious: Silksong, Hades, etc.
2. I hope they create dedicated State of Play episodes for indie games. That'll bring even more attention to those games.

 

[mansoor1980]

a genuinely honest and cool dude,a nice change from CERTAIN CEOs with their fake smiles

 

[Yurinka]

Shu is doing a great job. For now, I want two more things from this program:

1. Shu expands his team and they identify more cool indie games to support and help develop. They missed a few games that were extremely obvious: Silksong, Hades, etc.
2. I hope they create dedicated State of Play episodes for indie games. That'll bring even more attention to those games.

They are working in both:

1. He mentioned to be growing his team to work in more stuff and to support and highlight more indies, both handpicked curated ones and using automated ways. Hades was featured by PS Indies, it's on their website. Silksong signed their announcement with Nintendo and being day one on GP, so not a good idea to highlight it with PS Indies.
2. They include PS Indies on the normal State of Play and make the indie highlights on the PS Blog and a youtube playlist on their YT channel and they are considering indie specific state of plays. I'd make a State of PlayStation Indies every quarter mixing some announcements with highlights of indies to be released in PS during the next quarter, separated with the State of Plays, that I'd focus more in AAA games.

 

[Airbus]

All these talk and yet bloodborne 2 still nowhere to be seen

We are waiting

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

The gaf version of this thread is an absolute shit show. It's nothing but the usual suspects frothing at the mouth defending gamepass.

Sure you're not talking about ResetERA? They've really been stepping up their GamePass cheerleading this year, let alone now demonizing groups like the CMA for doing their job when it comes to acquisition investigations.

At least I can have fun with it on GAF and actually debate stuff. Good luck with any real debates or difference of opinions on Reset when it involves being critical of GamePass, Xbox, or even the ABK acquisition.

 

[Bryank75]

Sure you're not talking about ResetERA? They've really been stepping up their GamePass cheerleading this year, let alone now demonizing groups like the CMA for doing their job when it comes to acquisition investigations.

At least I can have fun with it on GAF and actually debate stuff. Good luck with any real debates or difference of opinions on Reset when it involves being critical of GamePass, Xbox, or even the ABK acquisition.

Both seem pretty bad... I see in the thread on Era they are very very pro Gamepass and pro acquisition.
Gaf usually has the front page full of PC or Xbox threads but in the thread there are...as you say more people with balanced perspectives and opposing points.

At any rate, they do not really reflect reality and how much more popular and how regular people feel on the issues. Neither does twitter though.
Social media is so manipulated, it just seems hilariously counter to what you'd expect.

 

[Bryank75]

Greg Rice and that crew was such a good get from microsoft basically gutting doublefine.

Oh shiiiit...didn't realize this. How many from DF did they get?

 

[LightBolt]

Now grow XDev JP team Jimbo/Shu! Work with more japanese studios and do partnerships.

Ronin is a good start with XDev.

 

[BigMclargeHuge]

Sure you're not talking about ResetERA? They've really been stepping up their GamePass cheerleading this year, let alone now demonizing groups like the CMA for doing their job when it comes to acquisition investigations.

At least I can have fun with it on GAF and actually debate stuff. Good luck with any real debates or difference of opinions on Reset when it involves being critical of GamePass, Xbox, or even the ABK acquisition.

Yeah, for a site that has a lot of members bitching about capitalism, they sure do cheer on Microsoft.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Both seem pretty bad... I see in the thread on Era they are very very pro Gamepass and pro acquisition.
Gaf usually has the front page full of PC or Xbox threads but in the thread there are...as you say more people with balanced perspectives and opposing points.

At any rate, they do not really reflect reality and how much more popular and how regular people feel on the issues. Neither does twitter though.
Social media is so manipulated, it just seems hilariously counter to what you'd expect.

This is true; honestly all the forums and console Twitter basically just represent the enthusiasts, more or less. Unfortunately echo chambers have only gotten stronger over time, not weaker. I think E3 being gone (in terms of being the bedrock bringing the whole industry together) hurts online discussion, not to mention we don't get any of the hype bomb moments like in years past where certain sides get super embarrassed or clowned on. Which, ultimately, helped them to be humbled and to do better.

Social media in general is trash, but I've felt that way about it for a long time. There was a really good documentary that went into why modern forms of social media like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok etc. are potentially objectively more damaging than anything like forums for example, would like to find that doc again and watch again some day.

Now grow XDev JP team Jimbo/Shu! Work with more japanese studios and do partnerships.

Ronin is a good start with XDev.

I think they've been growing XDev quietly, it's just that they don't big splashy announcements for every single new hire or whatnot, and Sony doesn't have a cottage industry of insiders who blow the horn for every little thing they do WRT growing branches or studios.

More stuff in the vein of Ronin and Stellar Blade though (altho that's a South Korean game, fwiw) is great.

Yeah, for a site that has a lot of members bitching about capitalism, they sure do cheer on Microsoft.

Especially a handful in particular. Those ones are so bad, I can call up their names pretty easily or just about, and when you see them in a thread, you just know what stance they're going to take if it involves anything Microsoft .

But the mods there let them do whatever in those topics, so it proliferates.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Being a playstation fan these days is living with constant FUD. Its bad mostly because the media gets so much clicks from bad playstation PR and good microsoft PR these days. Its an industry that thrives on narratives, and right now sony is the “bad guy” and microsoft is the good guy/underdog. Its completely ridiculous that people personify companies this way but its generates money for people that basically write video game gossip rags.

VGC might as well just be TMZ at this point. It’s the same way of doing 24/7 non-stop news, low quality journalism based on sensationalism. Its what media is today everywhere.

Theres a post on resetera right now about sony not having enough exclusives. It’s like, only the sole next gen console actually releasing games gets criticism about not having a enough games lol

You can also see thats its not just jim ryan that makes people angry its playstation in general. Shu is getting dragged for pretty much saying they aren’t gonna put their games on a service day one again. Its such a simple, harmless thing, its literally the basic distribution model of video games right now, nintendo does it, take two does it, steam does it. But sony is arrogant for calling their games “premium” which is basic industry terms of a full price game.

No matter what they say at playstation people will pick something out context, blow it up, and then constantly be angry about it and repeat it ad nauseam even if it wasn’t true. They could say, “we put a lot of work into making sure the dualsense felt next generation, its like nothing we’ve ever done”

And people would be like, “wow jim ryan just said the xbox elite isn’t next gen. Typical sony, they think charging 150 dollars for a pro controller makes it better lol they finally believe in generations llooooool as if the dualsense isn’t a complete gimmick, I know i barely noticed it outside astrobot lol fuck jimmy ryan”

And soon god of war no matter how it is will be next on the chopping block. Its like the most extreme case of “bitch eating crackers” I’ve ever seen