Former PlayStation Boss Says His Dream Job is to Help Indie Game Developers

Shuhei Yoshida says in an interview that he loves working with younger, talented developers. He added that indie developers are always bringing something exciting to the industry and helping them is his dream job.

Shuhei Yoshida was the President of PlayStation from 2008 to 2019. After stepping down from his higher position, he took over as the Head of Independent Developer Initiative which is a position where he interacts with a lot of indie developers.

According to him, it’s very important for PlayStation to support indie games. They create the future and he wants to communicate that with the people in PlayStation. Additionally, he was communicating with indie developers and publishers to tell them that PlayStation is going to make things better for their games.

Yoshida mentioned that the main reason he got the job was because PlayStation was criticized by indie developers. Indie developers were saying that PlayStation doesn’t care about them and that their games sell three to five times better on the Nintendo Switch. However, that sentiment has changed due to Yoshida’s hard work.

How he got the job was another matter entirely. According to Yoshida, it was either he left PlayStation or he took the indie job. “Well, I had no choice. When Jim asked me to do the indie job, the choice was to do that or leave the company.”, however he added that he was really concerned about the state of PlayStation and indies.

He ended the interview by saying that what he did was a lot of fun. When asked whether he’s still going to work with indies, he said  “That’s my dream job, to be able to help them”. Shuhei Yoshida worked at PlayStation for 31 years and was president for 11 years. He’s launched the PlayStation 4 as well as the PS Vita. He left PlayStation on January 15, 2025.