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

[Yurinka]

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

Please notice XDEV is for 2nd party games (games published by Sony/SIE and developed by 3rd part/not owned by Sony studios).

Shu handles PlayStation Indies, which is a part of their 3rd party relations SIE team. Meaning, Shu/PlayStation Indies sign deals and support 3rd party games, so aren't related to XDEV.

Regarding the XDev JP team, we know thanks to their boss Hermen Hulst that after the restructuring where they branched out from Japan Studio to become their own studio and to start reporting to the global XDEV team instead to the local internal gamedev studio (same as European and American XDEV teams did before the Japanese/Asian team), the XDEV JP team start to grow.

The other part of Japan Studio, their internal development team got restructured changing their leadership and merging their different development teams into one of them: Team Asobi and rebranded the studio.

 

[LightBolt]

Please notice XDEV is for 2nd party games (games published by Sony/SIE and developed by 3rd part/not owned by Sony studios).

Shu handles PlayStation Indies, which is a part of their 3rd party relations SIE team. Meaning, Shu/PlayStation Indies sign deals and support 3rd party games, so aren't related to XDEV.

Regarding the XDev JP team, we know thanks to their boss Hermen Hulst that after the restructuring where they branched out from Japan Studio to become their own studio and to start reporting to the global XDEV team instead to the local internal gamedev studio (same as European and American XDEV teams did before the Japanese/Asian team), the XDEV JP team start to grow.

The other part of Japan Studio, their internal development team got restructured changing their leadership and merging their different development teams into one of them: Team Asobi and rebranded the studio.

I just want more Japanese 1P man

 

[Yurinka]

I just want more Japanese 1P man

In addition to XDEV Japan, Team Asobi and Polyphony Digital under SIE (all three growing in headcount), under Sony Music they have Lasengle (in consoles they did Melty Blood: Type Lumina) or Aniplex (in consoles they have things like Demon Slayer: The Hinokami Chronicles. They published and Japan, Sega published in the west). For mobile under Sony Music they have thinkgs like Fate Grand Order from Lasengle+Aniplex and as I remember Forwardworks making mostly Japan only mobile games.

Jimbo said while ago they were 'strenghtening bonds' with external Japanese developers, but these things take time. I think part of that was Rise of The Ronin with Team Ninja, or making the 3 ways deal with Kadokawa and CyGames where Sony got 2% of Kadokawa for helping bring their games to a global audience, plus Sony buying a part of From Software. Or well, at least all the exclusivity deals with companies like Square Enix, ARC System Works or with Capcom (remember SF6 and RE4 won't release on Xbox One and that RE4R and REVillage will get exclusive VR support) to name a few.

Sony also said they will continue acquiring studios (so maybe some of them can be Japanese as rumored in the case of Square Enix, the former Eidos boss said Sony was interested on it) but these things also take time and the other part may not want to sell.

We have to be patient, wait and see. They are working on it.

 

[LightBolt]

In addition to XDEV Japan, Team Asobi and Polyphony Digital under SIE (all three growing in headcount), under Sony Music they have Lasengle (in consoles they did Melty Blood: Type Lumina) or Aniplex (in consoles they have things like Demon Slayer: The Hinokami Chronicles. They published and Japan, Sega published in the west). For mobile under Sony Music they have thinkgs like Fate Grand Order from Lasengle+Aniplex and as I remember Forwardworks making mostly Japan only mobile games.

Jimbo said while ago they were 'strenghtening bonds' with external Japanese developers, but these things take time. I think part of that was Rise of The Ronin with Team Ninja, or making the 3 ways deal with Kadokawa and CyGames where Sony got 2% of Kadokawa for helping bring their games to a global audience, plus Sony buying a part of From Software. Or well, at least all the exclusivity deals with companies like Square Enix, ARC System Works or with Capcom (remember SF6 and RE4 won't release on Xbox One and that RE4R and REVillage will get exclusive VR support) to name a few.

Sony also said they will continue acquiring studios (so maybe some of them can be Japanese as rumored in the case of Square Enix, the former Eidos boss said Sony was interested on it) but these things also take time and the other part may not want to sell.

We have to be patient, wait and see. They are working on it.

Oh i agree dude, i just would like Japanese studios to join SIE. I do agree it will take time and having Urata at PS will help too.

 

[Yurinka]

I can't find the OT thread for the SIE games, so I'll bump this one.

Reminder that Shuhei Yoshida is the best: yesterday he visited a PlayStation branded (but not exactly actually run by PS) gamedev companies incubator in Madrid, where Shahid Kamal (of PS Vita fame) works:


And today he visited the indie games area at the BIG Conference (previously known as Fun & Serious) event in Bilbao, Spain:

I may be wrong but I think tomorrow he'll have a conference there, and will be streamed here:



P.S.: Tomorrow there will be also an alternative 'joke' indie awards event, the Burger Indie Awards where I assume he will obviously attend. In fact I think he appeared on a video from last year.

 

[ethomaz]

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

Shu is so personable.

Do you mean passionate? I agree

 

[Yurinka]

I've been watching the conferences of the BIG Conference, the Shuhei Yoshida one is in this video (02:17:23), in the intro they say that they awarded him with their honorary award:


He talks about his career at Sony since he joined it just after graduating in the university. He mentioned a point that made some headlines: when released the first PS, had a good first year and they were neck to neck versus Sega Saturn, but the second Christmas PS struggled in Japan because Saturn had Virtua Fighter 2 and some other big game while Sony didn't have a big release there, but had a good global Christmas because in USA and Euro they had important releases for the west.

At these early days of PS he was in charge of 3rd party relationships, and was around then when all things changed when both Square and Enix decided to release their main next entry of their main IPs on PlayStation, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. He mentions that back then these were maybe the most important IPs for Japan, the biggest RPGs, so they played a big role on turning PlayStation into a huge success in Japan, totally changing the fortune for them.

Regarding him moving from head of Worldwide Studios to head of PS Indies, says that during PS4 generation they did a great job in the first half promoting indies but in the 2nd half focused too much on promoting 1st party titles only. And when Jim Ryan became CEO thought that they had to improve how they helped indies and create a team to do it. Yoshida, big fan of indies, internally shared this concern so Jim offered him the PlayStation Indies role and he gladly accepted it.

 

[Heisenberg007]

I've been watching the conferences of the BIG Conference, the Shuhei Yoshida one is in this video (02:17:23), in the intro they say that they awarded him with their honorary award:


He talks about his career at Sony since he joined it just after graduating in the university. He mentioned a point that made some headlines: when released the first PS, had a good first year and they were neck to neck versus Sega Saturn, but the second Christmas PS struggled in Japan because Saturn had Virtua Fighter 2 and some other big game while Sony didn't have a big release there, but had a good global Christmas because in USA and Euro they had important releases for the west.

At these early days of PS he was in charge of 3rd party relationships, and was around then when all things changed when both Square and Enix decided to release their main next entry of their main IPs on PlayStation, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. He mentions that back then these were maybe the most important IPs for Japan, the biggest RPGs, so they played a big role on turning PlayStation into a huge success in Japan, totally changing the fortune for them.

Regarding him moving from head of Worldwide Studios to head of PS Indies, says that during PS4 generation they did a great job in the first half promoting indies but in the 2nd half focused too much on promoting 1st party titles only. And when Jim Ryan became CEO thought that they had to improve how they helped indies and create a team to do it. Yoshida, big fan of indies, internally shared this concern so Jim offered him the PlayStation Indies role and he gladly accepted it.

Thank you for the summary. Always love hearing Shu.

 

[riesgoyfortuna]

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.

in resetera some of the mods are ardent xbox fanboys and they have charte blanche to do whatever they want

 

[Vertigo]

Resetera is a cesspool hugbox. Take as little inspiration from there as possible.

 

[Old Gamer]

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

Don't waste your time on MS controlled shitholes like Resetera and NeoGAF.

 

[KiryuRealty]

Don't waste your time on MS controlled shitholes like Resetera and NeoGAF.

The worst part of GAF is that Evilore doesn't think PC platform warring is a thing, so many console threads there get shat up pronto, and nothing is done about it.