Former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida says he "had no choice" but to take a job overseeing indie games

Former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida has said he took the job overseeing indie games for PlayStation because he “had no choice” – and now they’re selling better than ever on the console.

In an interview with Venturebeat, Yoshida discussed his 30+ year career at PlayStation, including his move in 2019 from president of SIE Worldwide Studios to overseeing a new initiative focused on independent developers.

“Well, I had no choice,” said Yoshida about the move. “When Jim [Ryan] asked me to do the indie job, the choice was to do that or leave the company.”

He continued: “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 explained PlayStation had been criticised by indie developers, that “PlayStation doesn’t care about indies”. That’s now changed, he believes, with indie games on PlayStation selling better than PC in some instances.

“You don’t hear that kind of criticism anymore,” said Yoshida. “Last year we had lots of anecdotes from our indie partners that their new games were selling better on PlayStation than any other platform. Thats amazing. Some games sold better on PlayStation than on PC. When I started that work five years ago, our indie partners would say that when they released their games multiplatform, the Switch version would sell three to five times more than PlayStation. Bit by bit, that gap has narrowed down. We have a strong team inside the company supporting indies.”