SIE veteran Shuhei Yoshida wants to keep supporting indie developers even after his retirement 

After working at Sony and building the PlayStation brand for more than 30 years, former Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida formally announced his retirement in a PlayStation Blog. While Yoshida’s final day at Sony will be January 15, 2025, the gaming industry veteran told Dengeki Online that he wants to continue to help the indie gaming scene grow. 

Yoshida formally stepped down as SIE Worldwide Studios’ president in 2019 after holding the position for 11 years. He then moved to head the company’s Indies Initiative – a division focused on supporting indie game publishers. While Yoshida was already an advocate for indie gaming when he was the SIE Worldwide Studios president, being put into a smaller team allowed him to focus his efforts on the indie gaming scene. 

“Indie creator support is important in this business. Recently, AAA titles have been the drivers of business, but because they have become so large in scale, it can be difficult to try new things. It is the indie community that creates new genres and gives birth to innovation. That’s why it’s really important for PlayStation, one of the major players in the industry, to support indie games.” 

Yoshida strived to feature indie games whenever he could. He promoted existing indie games by featuring them on PlayStation’s social media channels. Once players were interested, he worked on improving the PlayStation Store to feature more indie titles. Lastly, Yoshida actively went to game events all over the world to find new and innovative titles that needed that extra push.  

Yoshida takes pride in being able to talk to indie game developers, ask about their creation process, and promote their games online. In the interview, he reveals that he went to 21 worldwide game events in 2023 and 20 events in 2024, with him going to a different country twice a month. Yoshida sees it as his duty to go to these events, as many indie game developers don’t have the money or means to promote their games. He also likes meeting indie publishers regularly to see their proposed lineups and discover upcoming titles. 

When asked about his potential successor, Yoshida says that the Indies Initiative team he worked with for the past few years is already more knowledgeable than he is about the industry. They understand and appreciate indie titles and have strong connections with people in the industry. While Yoshida initially served as a mentor to his younger teammates, he feels as though they have already surpassed him and will continue his work long after his retirement. 

While Yoshida is retiring from Sony, he says that he doesn’t intend to leave the industry.  

“I haven’t really decided what I’m going to do next, but I love indie games, and I’ve gotten to know and become friends with so many different developers over the past five years, so I’d like to do something to help those people in some way.”