Former Sony executive Shuhei Yoshida recently gave a talk at South Korea’s Console Game Developer Conference 2025 (CGDC), held on November 6 and 7. As reported by ThisIsGame, the long-time PlayStation veteran offered insights into what he thinks game developers should be paying attention to in the ever-changing game industry, especially if they want to achieve success among global audiences. Although his advice was addressed to developers in Korea, it seems to reflect Yoshida’s overall views on the current state and future direction of the console game market.
Yoshida placed a strong emphasis on the role of indie games going forward (which is not surprising given his track record as a former PlayStation Indies boss). While games continue to grow as an industry, this growth has its limits. To push the medium forward, Yoshida says (based on machine translation) that creators must keep offering new and original experiences – and according to him, indie creators are best positioned to do that.
Additionally, Yoshida addressed the limitations of pursuing fidelity, commenting that the “era of relying on graphical improvements” is over. Given that visual upgrades alone no longer surprise players, and the costs of achieving them have become prohibitively high, he thinks it’s now necessary for developers to focus on creating new forms of gameplay. As an aside, Bayonetta creator Hideki Kamiya recently expressed similar sentiments, albeit his statement referred specifically to the action game genre.
Interestingly, Yoshida Shuhei tells Korean developers that the best way to meet the expectations of the global market (set by domestic hits like Stellar Blade, Dave the Diver and Lies of P) is to keep doing their own thing. “Find what you excel at, take pride in your culture, leverage it, and do things that other developers can’t or won’t imitate. That’s how you’ll stand out.” He notes that even if a game belongs to a niche field, “displaying deep expertise in that area can connect you with global players.” These statements seem to be Yoshida’s way of telling local developers not to attempt to imitate what other global hits are doing in pursuit of success, which links back into his point about offering new and original experiences.
On a related note, Yoshida has previously praised Yoko Taro’s NieR: Automata as the game that “revived Japan’s game industry” amidst a drawn out identity crisis, inspiring Japanese developers to stop imitating the West and embrace their own culture. “I think that the Japanese game industry came back to life after Nier, so much so that you could talk about pre-Nier and post-Nier eras. Simply put, I think that was the title that made everyone want to pursue Japanese-style games.”
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