Former PlayStation Exec Shuhei Yoshida Was Fired After Refusing to do “Ridiculous Things”
Shuhei Yoshida was fired due to his disagreements with Jim Ryan, according to the PlayStation veteran.
Yoshida was the president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios for over a decade before he was suddenly replaced in 2019 by Guerrilla Games studio head Hermen Hulst. And in 2025, the icon decided to retire from the company.
Since his sudden replacement and retirement, the veteran hasn’t shied away from speaking up about the incident, saying his stepping down wasn’t his decision. Now, Yoshida is here to shed some light on the situation, saying at the ALT: GAMES event in Australia that after 11 years leading Worldwide Studios, he was “fired from the role.”
While listing off his achievements as Worldwide Studios president, he claimed he was fired. “I helped Santa Monica to make God of War, Naughty Dog to make Uncharted and The Last of Us, and Sucker Punch to make the beautiful Ghost of Tsushima,” Yoshida said. “Ghost of Tsushima was one of the last games that I worked on as the president of Worldwide Studios.”
“But in 2019, after 11 years leading the first-party development, I was fired from the role. Jim Ryan wanted to remove me from first-party because I didn’t listen to him,” he said. “He asked to do some ridiculous things, and I said, ‘No.'”
Unfortunately, Yoshida didn’t elaborate on the “ridiculous” things that Jim Ryan wanted him to do. However, Ryan’s time as the CEO at PlayStation has led to some disappointments, including pursuing big acquisitions and large investments in live-service games that have been cancelled or failed at launch. Along with that, purchased studios have seen several studios closing down or facing layoffs.
After being forced out of the role, Yoshida was forced to take the lead on indie games or leave the company. “Moving from first-party to indies? Well, I had no choice,” Yoshida explained back in 2025. “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.”
Now, Yoshida runs his own indie game consultancy firm. “I’m free to show up in an any podcast,” he said, according to IGN. “Now I can talk about Nintendo, Xbox, Steam. And I get to see how Nintendo and Xbox support indies. So it’s very, very cool.”
