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Shuhei Yoshida Saw the Dreadful Live-Service Ending that Sony is Only Now Realizing

After 3 decades of bringing great games to life, Shuhei Yoshida is finally ready to move on. The Japanese businessman is renowned for his contributions to the PlayStation brand and the gaming industry in general. As a free agent, Yoshida revealed the one thing that may have permanently burned his bridges at Sony Interactive Entertainment in a recent interview.

Shuhei Yoshida Isn’t a Fan of PlayStation Taking the Live Service Route

Shuhei Yoshida isn't a fan of live-service games.
Sony could have saved itself from embarrassment if Shuhei Yoshida had called the shots. Image Credit: Firewalk Studios

After the surge of success live-service games like Fortnite have been experiencing in the past few years, Sony Interactive Entertainment has been working hard to get its slice of the pie. Shuhei Yoshida looked beyond the bigger picture and realized it was a race not worth competing in. During an interview at Kinda Funny Games with Greg Miller, the former Sony boss believed there was no merit in deviating from the working formula.

At around 1:08:50, Miller shifted the discussion toward the current state of the game industry as a whole. While Yoshida is game for any challenge, he was wise enough to realize that the live-service structure is not sustainable regardless of which first-party IP is at the forefront. Yoshida realized early on that the live-service domain was hard to penetrate, especially with the raging success of Call of Duty during the early days of online multiplayer games.

Yoshida is a businessman who has not lost his touch on how the gaming community thinks and reacts. Sony Interactive Entertainment struck gold with its pantheon of great single-player games like God of War, Uncharted, The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, and more; however, the company wanted to be more than that and gave Hermen Hulst, Yoshida’s successor, additional budget to continue to develop single-player titles and create new live-service games. After 31 years in the industry, Yoshida preferred to focus on areas where the company could thrive and not play catch up.

Since this interview, it seems Sony is realizing that Yoshida may have been right, with a spate of live-service cancellations reportedly occurring, including the Horizon MMO, a God of War live-service game and more, and that’s without forgetting Concord, one of the most expensive experiments the gaming industry has ever seen.

Does this represent a change in strategy for PlayStation and Sony? Only time will tell, but Yoshida knew it years before everyone else.

For more Thumb Wars Gaming coverage, check out the latest Marvel Rivals skin inspired by Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, or how The Last of Us Part 3 could benefit from the HBO adaptation.

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