In the conversation, Yoshida mentioned that, historically, gaming has been an incredibly affordable hobby since the industry has largely avoided raising prices due to inflation. He also pointed to some games having more expensive versions available through deluxe edition releases that can cost up to $100 or beyond. While he noted that they are expensive, he also mentioned that “some people see the benefit, so they spend that $100… so it’s up to you if you see the value or not.”

When it comes to games like Mario Kart World, however, Yoshida said that the game justifies its $80 price tag by just having loads of content that would keep players busy for several hours. He also brought up a comparison to the previous game in the franchise – Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – which was one of the best-selling titles for the original Switch since its release.

“When you look at the value that the amount of entertainment a good video game provides, like Mario Kart 8, so many people played hours and hours and hours right with just one purchase, or maybe you know some people paid for additional tracks.” said Yoshida. “So it’s really up to the game and people have to [judge] which game provides the entertainment that you want and see if it makes sense to pay the price on day one, or some games, you know, many games [the] price comes down when you wait as well.”

Ever since Nintendo officially unveiled Mario Kart World and its price tag, the company has been on the defensive because of criticism from fans of the franchise about it being too expensive thanks to its $80 price. Shortly after unveiling the game back in April, Nintendo of America’s VP of product and player experience, Bill Trinen, spoke about how the value offered by Mario Kart World justified its price.

“But honestly,” Trinen explained, “this is a game that is so big and vast, and you will find so many little things in it to discover. And there’s still some other secrets remaining that I think as people end up buying and playing the game, they’re going to find this to be probably the richest Mario Kart experience they’ve ever had.”

When it came to the price tag for other Switch 2 titles, like the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrades for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom coming in at $70 and $80 respectively, Trinen spoke about how Nintendo looks at the value offered by each game individually.

“Well, again, what I would say, is that we just look at each game, and we look at the content and the value of that game, and then we say, ‘What is the right price for the value of this entertainment?’” he said.

For more details, check out our review of Mario Kart World, as well as our review of the Switch 2 console.

“I think it was going to happen sooner or later, maybe not from Nintendo, but it was going to happen eventually,” said Yoshida. “We live in contrasting times, where inflation is real and significant, but people expect games that are ever more ambitious and therefore expensive to develop to cost the same. It’s an impossible equation.”

Yoshida also spoke about how more advancements in game development when it comes to aspects like visual fidelity has also led to rising costs of development. He brought up remasters and remakes as an example, where they are often released in order to help bolster operating budgets in order to develop new AAA games. The same is also seemingly true about PC ports.

“Everything in video games today is more advanced and more technologically demanding than ever before, and therefore requires more resources,” explained Yoshida. “Each publisher or manufacturer sets the price of its games, of course, but in the end the heart of the matter lies in production costs. And that’s why industry actors are so keen to diversify their revenues, in order to continue producing the AAA games that the public buys before anything else.”

Yoshida had spoken about the use of PC ports to generate more income for game development in the past. Back in February, Yoshida mentioned how it also helps the game reach a new audience, as well as allowing the market to expand in general thanks to PC gaming being more readily available in certain parts of the world.

“Releasing on PC does many things: it reaches a new audience who do not own consoles – especially in regions where consoles are not as popular,” said Yoshida. “The idea is that those people may become fans of a particular franchise, and when a new game in that series comes out, they may be convinced to purchase a PlayStation.”

When it comes to generating more income, according to Yoshida, porting a game to PC generally tends to be cheaper than developing an entirely new game from scratch. He likened this to being almost like “printing money,” with the additional revenue then being used to fund future projects. “And that helps us to invest in new titles now that the cost of games has increased,” said Yoshida.

According to Yoshida, PC ports also help games hit markets like China, where gamers are more likely to play games on PC than they are on consoles. “China is a huge PC game market,” he explained. “And China is a growing but very small console market. To reach the audience in countries like China, it’s crucial to release on PC. So, I believe PC versions really reach a new audience.”

As for more modern games and how they have been priced, one of the launch titles for the Nintendo Switch 2 when it comes out on June 5 will be Mario Kart World, which will be priced at $80. This would be the highest the base version of a game has cost since Sony raised the price for its first-party AAA releases back in 2020 with the launch of the PS5.

“I think it’s a win for PlayStation owners, they didn’t have access [to those games] before.”

Yoshida discussed how focused PlayStation was on ensuring it didn’t lose ground to Xbox. He referred to Sony’s console becoming the “minority platform” as his nightmare. This would be because the best developers from first-party PlayStation studios would likely leave to work on games with a larger player base.

“I explained in one interview that it was always my nightmare when I was a managing first-party, I’m lucky it didn’t happen, that if PlayStation became the minority platform, it would be impossible to maintain the first-party development because the best creators would leave,” explained Yoshida. “They are not just creatives. They are business people as well. They want their games to reach the biggest audience as well.”

“It’s very natural if a platform is the minority, and if I was able to release a game on the minority platform only, it’s unsustainable,” he continued. “That was the nightmare.”

“Looking at the install base of Xbox hardware, it’s kind of natural to understand what they are doing, and it’s pretty straightforward.”

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer also spoke about the move to bring its console-exclusive titles to PlayStation being a great move, since that meant more revenue that could in turn fund even more games. While some were focused on Xbox losing out on the 30 percent of the money from games sold due to platform fees, Spencer instead focused on the 70 percent made by having its games reach a wider audience.

“And I don’t want to then look at that and say, well, there’s no way that we should be able to build a business there, find fans of our franchises there,” said Spencer. “I’m not trying to move them all over to Xbox anymore. People were all so invested in where our games are.

“Let’s allow more people to play, and yes, the 70% that we make on games on other platforms is helpful to us being able to build great portfolios like we showed at the Dev Direct, and I hope this will continue to show through the rest of the year.”

Xbox has recently been proactive in releasing its first-party titles on more platforms than just PC and its own consoles. Sea of Thieves, for instance, was released on PS5 last year, and has been quite successful for Microsoft. The next major AAA Xbox title coming to the PS5 will be Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. The game was released on Xbox Series X/S and PC in December to positive critical and commercial reception.

For more details about Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, check out our review.

He does also mention, however, that it was a role he took because he felt strongly about PlayStation as a company and its status in the console market.

“Moving from first-party to indies? Well, I had no choice,” said Yoshida. “When Jim asked me to do the indie job, the choice was to do that or leave the company. But I felt very strongly about the state of PlayStation and indies. I really wanted to do this. I believed I could do something unique for that purpose.”

Yoshida also noted that moving from working with first-party developers to indie developers felt like a bigger change in his life than leaving the company altogether since January. He also spoke about his work with indie developers, becoming an advisor of sorts to smaller studios.

“That was the bigger change for me personally – moving from first-party to indies – than leaving the company this year,” explained Yoshida. “I’m very lucky that the indie community, the publishers and developers I work closely with, they believed that they could use my help.”

“I became an advisor for some of these companies. I’m continuing to work with some of the indie publishers and developers I respect. The transition out of Sony to becoming an independent advisor is less of a change than moving out of first-party.”

Ultimately, Yoshida took on his role in a way where he would improve relationships between Sony and its independent development partners to such an extent that his role would no longer be necessary. His decision to leave was marked by a number of factors, including the fact that former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan was also leaving the company.

“My personal goal, when I started the indie job, was to make my position obsolete,” said Yoshida. “The company would be doing so well that there was no need for someone like me to tell everyone that this was important. I feel like we’ve achieved that pretty well.”

“There’s still a lot we can do, but people are working on it. You had the combination of Jim leaving and Nishino and Hermen stepping up, and I felt good about the state of our support for indies. I decided to leave.”

Yoshida is currently working as an independent advisor for game developers. He had spoken about his time with PlayStation back when his departure from the company was first announced. January 15, 2025 marked the end of his 31 years-long tenure with the company.

He had previously also spoken about Sony’s focus on live-service games, and how he was trying to push back against the initiative at the time, since he believed that PlayStation would be better served with more single-player titles. He also spoke about the risk with the release of Helldivers 2, and its eventual success.

A lot of VR and Xbox fans were disappointed yesterday when Xbox boss Phil Spencer confirmed categorically that there were no plans to have the upcoming Xbox Scarlett support VR (we have come a long way from the days when VR was used as one of the selling points in the unveil of the then-still-called Scorpio).

Spencer’s justification appears to be sound: that there isn’t much market demand for something like VR, and that as an isolating experience, it’s antithetical to what Microsoft goes for with its games. Put simply, VR is not a focus for Microsoft right now (though that could change) because customers are apparently not asking for it.

It was that last bit that Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida, now leading their indie outreach program, seemingly responded to on Twitter, out of the blue. While he didn’t tag Spencer or Xbox – that would have been really something, if he had – he just randomly tweeted, with no provocation, that “sometimes we work hard to make things no customers are asking for.”

Of course, Sony has a vested interest in the future of the VR market, given the PlayStation VR, with almost 5 million units sold, is actually the market leader right now of that admittedly negligible segment. So it makes sense for Yoshida to make that remark.

I just don’t expect it to change Spencer’s mind.

（´-`）.｡oO（we oftentimes work hard to make things that no customers are asking for them）

— Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) November 26, 2019

You don’t need anyone to tell that SIE Santa Monica’s God of War is a well-made game. From the initial reveal trailers to the demonstrations, the game managed to reinvent the franchise for a contemporary generation while maintaining its core identity. However, game development is never easy, especially for a project this large. Speaking at Devcom (via GamesIndustry.biz), creative director Cory Barlog laid out the many challenges that the team faced.

One of those challenges was combat, the core gameplay loop of which was taking “forever to get done.” “[In previous games] it felt good. We got that feeling good early and we built on that,” said Barlog. “But we didn’t have anything feeling good. The core loop didn’t feel good, but the combat team was super confident and I trusted them. They got it, but I needed them to get it way earlier, so I was really trying to force it.”

As a result, a demo was requested before PlayStation Experience 2017. This meant that Shuhei Yoshida, President of Sony’s Worldwide Studios for Sony Interactive Entertainment, would be going hands-on with the game.

“He [Yoshida] comes in once in a while, but we don’t let him play,” Barlog said. “We don’t let anybody play. If the game is ready to be played by somebody we give them the controller, but very rarely do we do that.”

Suffice to say, it didn’t go very well. “I mean, the framerate was terrible, everything just felt bad… He’s playing, he’s got scrunched up shoulders, head shaking a little bit. I definitely get the feeling while he’s playing that he’s not having the greatest of times – which is great. I mean, it bums me out a little bit, but that’s what I brought him in here for.”

Talking about how Yoshida left afterwards to catch a flight, Barlog notes that, “He kinda just shook his head and walked out the door. He never told me how he felt. In fact, he only told one of my friends, who he saw at a party. He [Yoshida] said, ‘Oh, you’re working on God of War? I just gotta say, I played the game the other day. I was horrified.'”

As a result, Barlog and his team needed to “nail that core loop down, and get the framerate back up” to impress Yoshida. “Everyone had to rally together; not just the combat team, but the engine team, the rendering team. In the end, it worked. He played it again, and you can see the two different poses of Shu. Horrified is much more rigid. The second time, he was not horrified. It was super good. Very exciting.” Given that the development team achieved this with the game only six months away from release is only more remarkable.

Barlog noted, “The lesson I had to keep learning was to put the difficult thing in front of us, and not get comfortable. We need to force ourselves sometimes to be very uncomfortable.”

It certainly paid off – the PS4 exclusive sold 5 million copies in a month and “significantly exceeded” Sony’s expectations. You can check out our review of God of War here, and if you’re keen on revisiting the game, it will receive New Game Plus mode on August 20th.

Sony currently rules the roost in the console gaming world, with the PlayStation 4 holding strong in its fifth year on the market, and with its game lineup continuing to swell by the day. However, not that long ago, the company was in trouble- the PS3 launch was a disaster on various levels, and threatened to bankrupt the entire company.

Speaking at at Develop in Brighton (transcription via Eurogamer), Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida spoke about Sony’s journey as a console vendor, from the original PlayStation through to now with the PlayStation 4. Yoshida discussed how Sony managed console transitions in the past, noting that the PlayStation 2 was their first time doing something like that (and they ended up flubbing it more than they would have liked), while the PlayStation 3 was a disaster for the first few years after launch.

Sony finally managed to get a console transition right with the PS4- but how can they ensure that they don’t repeat some of the mistakes that have haunted them in the past as the PS5 approaches on the horizon?

“It’s human nature,” said Yoshida. “People make mistakes. I don’t know why. We’re all human – we’re not perfect. PS4 is doing so well, but we don’t forget why we’re here now.”

In a lot of ways, Sony does understand what is important and what has made it successful- it focuses on the few things that hold the largest cachet with the mass market, including, of course, a world class lineup of games. I just hope that Sony doesn’t forget, going into the next generation, that its consumer friendliness was a major reason for its early triumphs over the Xbox One early in this generation- maybe then, we can see a PS5 that allows backward compatibility, refunds, cross platform play, and more.

Much has been said about the trend of triple-A development in the industry, how budgets for blockbusters are surging with each year and the inevitable crash this could cause. However, triple-A titles continue to be made and are arguably more successful than ever. Look no further than Far Cry 5, one of the best-selling titles of the year, or God of War, the fastest selling PS4 exclusive till date.

If there’s one company that’s investing big in triple-A titles, it’s Sony Interactive Entertainment. It showcased big-name exclusives like Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding and Insomniac’s Spider-Man along with first party games like The Last of Us: Part 2 and Ghost of Tsushima. What does Shuhei Yoshida, the President of Sony’s Worldwide Studios for Sony Interactive Entertainment, have to say about the current state of the industry from a development perspective?

Speaking to MCVUK, Yoshida said, “On one hand, in the triple-A space, the scale and the tech of game development has grown so much that I feel like we are making a huge bet every time we start a new project. The end results are, when successfully executed, an amazing fusion of art and tech, providing hours and hours of highly engaging interactive entertainment in a big, often open, world to explore with lifelike characters and imaginative creatures.

“Because of the size of the investment, each title feels too big to fail. It creates an enormous pressure to manage these triple-A projects. These games are the drivers of the industry to become more and more mainstream entertainment. We need to keep pushing the art of making triple-A games.”

That being said, Yoshida feels that this is a great time for indie developers in terms of tools and global exposure. “On the other hand, it is a golden age of indie developers; tools like Unity and Unreal Engine offer talented individuals and small teams from around the world the opportunity to create great games that can be published to a global audience.

“With the number of triple-A titles becoming smaller and the type of these triple-A games becoming somewhat similar to avoid taking risks, there’s a vast, open field of types of games for the indie devs to explore and succeed. I’m a huge fan of indie games as I always enjoy fresh game experiences and artistic expressions. Indie titles drive innovation and experimentation in the industry and it’s important for the gaming landscape that we continue to support this flourishing market.”

He’s not wrong. Games like Hollow Knight, Celeste, Cuphead, A Way Out and so on have garnered strong critical and commercial success while driving different aesthetics and gameplay mechanics. We’re even seeing vaunted industry professionals like Amy Hennig venture into the indie development space. Whether this balance of loveable indies and high-profile blockbusters can continue remains to be seen but it’s good to see professionals like Yoshida recognize the former’s importance.

NOMINEES

PHIL SPENCER: 

Xbox had a bit of a rough year, but it managed to end on a strong note, thanks to the incredible bit of hardware engineering that is the Xbox One X, and the success that it has achieved, by all early accounts and indications. With Spencer having now addressed the Xbox’s deficiencies in services and hardware, he is claiming to look into addressing the problem with Microsoft’s first party lineup going forward—and if he does it as effectively as he resolved the hardware problem with the Xbox One X this year, then Xbox fans are in for some great times ahead.

TATSUMI KIMISHIMA: 

The President of Nintendo who took over after the sad passing of Mr. Satoru Iwata in 2015 has been curiously low profile and quiet ever since—but it turns out he might be one to let his actions do the talking. Because is there any doubt that this year was the year of Nintendo? From the launch of the Nintendo Switch, to the stunning success it has received, to the third party support he has slowly built up after the Wii U’s troubles, to the launch of multiple acclaimed games in the same year, to announcements of next games in long dormant franchises, to even pushing out successful mobile games, Mr. Kimishima has commandeered Nintendo into a position of dominance after years of fading relevance- truly laudable and noteworthy.

BRENDAN GREENE: 

Brendan ‘PlayerUnknown’ Greene is the mastermind behind the biggest game of the year—PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. And while you can make the argument that PUBG is built on the shoulders of previous giants in the battle royale genre, such as H1Z1, the fact remains that it took Greene’s take on the concept, and his synthesis of old elements and new, for the idea to catch on. There are over 20 million copies of the game sold already, and Steam itself has been buoyed by its success—that is the kind of success that very few people can lay claim to singularly.

SHUHEI YOSHIDA: 

Mr. Yoshida is the head of Sony Worldwide Studios, and he is responsible for the output of first party games from Sony’s studios around the globe—which means, simply going by the sheer fantastic showing of exclusives, released and announced, that Sony has had this year, he deserves credit. Whether it is for Horizon: Zero Dawn, the stunning open world action RPG that took the world by storm, or Uncharted: Lost Legacy, a light hearted swashbuckling new Uncharted game that shows us where the future of the beloved franchise might lie, to even something like Gran Turismo Sport, which for all its flaws is a daring attempt at reinventing a tired franchise, to the great announcements by Sony, including Ghosts of Tsushima, Mr. Yoshida’s contributions in securing PS4’s place at the top of the console pile cannot be understated at all.

YOSHIAKI KOIZUMI:

Koizumi has a pedigree and history at Nintendo, but it is only recently that we’ve begun to see more of him. And it makes sense, too- Koizumi is the head of Nintendo EPD (which means all Nintendo games that are released go out from under him), and he was responsible for designing the Nintendo Switch hardware as well as Super Mario Odyssey- that’s a hell of a resume, especially in the span of one year. If you have played any Nintendo game this year, or bought a Switch, or even seen a Nintendo Direct, you basically enjoyed something that Koizumi created.

AND THE WINNER IS

Tatsumi Kimishima.

Just look at where Nintendo was one year ago—teetering on the brink of irrelevance, their games growing stale and passing the larger market by, their hardware thought to have no place in the modern industry, and having suffered multiple losses and a decline in prominence. One year later, Nintendo has the most exciting system on the market, has released two of the highest rated games of all time, has made the rest of the industry sit up and take notice, and had their most successful hardware launch yet. This isn’t even counting initiatives like mobile games and the SNES Classic Mini—the long and short of it is, 2017 is the year where we can amply establish that Nintendo is back—and Mr. Kimishima bears credit for that happening.

Note: GamingBolt’s Game of the Year categories, nominations and awards are selected via an internal nomination, voting and debate process. You can check the rest of categories and the respective winners here.

While Sony’s E3 press conference wasn’t “bad”, fans noted some studios distinctly missing from the line-up. One of those was Sucker Punch, who developed Infamous: Second Son for the PS4 and have reportedly been working on a new IP.

Shuhei Yoshida, Sony Worldwide Studios president for SIE, discussed this new IP about two years ago when speaking to Kinda Funny (via GameSpot). In a new interview at E3 2017 about Sony’s first party output and the status of Sucker Punch’s new game, Yoshida said that the game has been played many times since.

Interestingly enough, it would seem that a reveal will be coming soon, which lines up with Yoshida’s comments about withholding certain announcements from E3 2017 and offering more information later.

We’re excited to see what Sucker Punch has to showcase, especially since it’s apparently a completely new IP. What do you think it will be? Let us know in the comments below.