Shuhei Yoshida evaluation thread

No must have titles yet for the PS4 after a year and the lineup looks somewhat weak in the near future except for Bloodborne. I'm not saying they aren't trying but PS4 still lacks a must have title.

Sony betting too much on Destiny this year was another mistake.

There are no must have titles on either console.
 
No must have titles yet for the PS4 after a year and the lineup looks somewhat weak in the near future except for Bloodborne. I'm not saying they aren't trying but PS4 still lacks a must have title.

Sony betting too much on Destiny this year was another mistake.

It was a mistake to bet on a game that allowed them to get the second highest September sales? Or do you mean in terms of quality?

Edit: My opinion, as this thread is filled with them, is that he's done a fine job. I've enjoyed the PS4 line up so far, especially on the indie front.
 
No must have titles yet for the PS4 after a year and the lineup looks somewhat weak in the near future except for Bloodborne. I'm not saying they aren't trying but PS4 still lacks a must have title.

Sony betting too much on Destiny this year was another mistake.

Same could be said for every console besides WiiU, which is in year two and has crap third party support so it's still a handful of great exclusives.

All a matter of perspective. And Destiny was certainly a must-play experience for me. I put on over 150 hours lol...

Very subjective thing we are arguing about here. I bought Ps4 early because of Sony's track record, but definitely haven't been disappointed with it,.
 
With the exception of TLOU, none of those other 2013 games sold anywhere near
enough to confidently claim that last gen console owners were wanting them. Their
existence on the PS3 was not warranted whatsoever, and if anything it comes off
as a sneaky ploy to sell Remastered editions, where we already have TLoU on PS4
and Beyond is rumored to be in the works as well.

The AAA games from their WWS have been mediocre to the point of ridiculousness.
It's difficult to not look at their immediate competitors, especially MS, who have put
out fan-fucking-tastic titles along the lines of FH2 and SO.

TLoU has been the only bright spot from WWS these past 2 years, where even I:SS
didn't live up to the standards of the preceding inFamous games with regards to scope,
story and mission diversity.

TLG being MIA, SSM's PS4 game being cancelled and Evo's never ending ineptness
are all also under his watch.

Dude has got to go.
Is that you, phil harrison?
 
The AAA games from their WWS have been mediocre to the point of ridiculousness.
It's difficult to not look at their immediate competitors, especially MS, who have put
out fan-fucking-tastic titles along the lines of FH2 and SO.

TLG being MIA, SSM's PS4 game being cancelled and Evo's never ending ineptness
are all also under his watch.

Dude has got to go.

I don't get it. You have both releasing mediocre games and not releasing mediocre games as negatives. I guess he can't win.
 
Definitely got to give Shu a passing grade. he's likable and is doing a great job with the Playstation division.

But to be honest, I think Phil Spencer and Iwata are doing pretty good jobs too. Though Iwata seems to be missing in action lately.

Oh shiii... he's watching us.
 
He's great, in my opinion. Not only has he greenlit some great games, but his engagement with the community is commendable. Awesome personality.
 
No must have titles yet for the PS4 after a year and the lineup looks somewhat weak in the near future except for Bloodborne. I'm not saying they aren't trying but PS4 still lacks a must have title.

Sony betting too much on Destiny this year was another mistake.
Uncharted is the biggest PS4 title bloodborne is tiny compared to it.
 
I don't particularly care for his personality and I think Sony has more than their fair share of stinky first party studios. If he's responsible for things like Knack, Killzone and DriveClub, he's not doing a very good job with the PS4 so far. Also, the Vita.

I'm not saying he's less competent than the Xbox crew, although I do think Spencer comes across as a classier individual. But I'm not even sure if they both have the same job anymore.
 
Like any executive he's made good and bad decisions (and unless anyone here has access to internal KPIs and financial performance targets you can only offer an uninformed opinion based on your subjective taste in games, and limited knowledge of how studio accounts looked prior to closure/layoffs and so on).

Like any executive he's had good and bad luck. Again, without knowing the internal management philosophy, structure and politics of WWS, we can only offer opinion on how a black hole like the SSM project was allowed to continue; how TLG went so awry; how DC launched the way it did.

The succession of delays can be blamed on bad management, but some people seem to be expecting Shu to be the worst kind of micro-manager and wading in over the PMs and local studio heads to give instruction and commands to the dev teams directly. It's IT, shit happens. MS skipped a whole version number with Windows and utterly fucked 2 out of the last 3 iterations of Windows, and had to completely withdraw support for XP to force migration to 7 or 8 (something which always makes me smile at the threads about server shutdowns for older games and how outrageous it is). All companies involved in software have delays, fuck-ups, abandoned monetary sinkholes. That's IT kids.

So I'd say he does a decent enough job on the business side, generally recognises a good idea when he sees it, and is a fun guy on Twitter.
 
Sony's first party studios are numerous but they tend to lack quality IMO. This is if you exclude naughty dog. The PS3 years would have been a miserable failure without naughty dog.
 
I don't dislike him, but that meme love feeling is gone. Only 'cause I'm a Vita fan and now I'm dead inside.

Sony unable to support 2 platform at a time. Need more studio or hire more second party.
I mean, just hire pyramid do another patapon, how hard is that?
 
Definitely got to give Shu a passing grade. he's likable and is doing a great job with the Playstation division.

But to be honest, I think Phil Spencer and Iwata are doing pretty good jobs too. Though Iwata seems to be missing in action lately.

Oh shiii... he's watching us.

Nintendo has many great games currently available and coming to 3DS and WiiU.

That's Iwata.
 
Sony's first party studios are numerous but they tend to lack quality IMO. This is if you exclude naughty dog. The PS3 years would have been a miserable failure without naughty dog.
First Resistance, Warhawk, Folklore, Motorstorm, R*C disagrees with you.

Why can't a console just have a slow year?

And why the comparisons, aren't there just like 2-3 more exclusives games MS is releasing than Sony towards the tail end of the year. While Sony's exclusives are early next year?

weird stuff is happening here...

Hey Yosh! I think you're doing great, just need a JRPG.
 
Yo, Yoshida-san, you're doing a great job. But I agree with the above poster. Bring JRPGs to the PS4 and make sure they come to America (with dual audio).

Thanks <3.
 
Sony's first party studios are numerous but they tend to lack quality IMO. This is if you exclude naughty dog. The PS3 years would have been a miserable failure without naughty dog.

No, PS3 would have been a miserable failure if countries other than US/UK didn't exist.
 
I think he has done a pretty poor job, for many of the reasons already stated in this thread. Seems like an unpopular opinion. Next year looks much better, however.

Some quick reasons:
-Killing Studio Liverpool. Talented studio that could have done something else.
-General poor quality of PS4 launch games.
-The Driveclub fiasco, including the delay, the PS+ delay, the online issues, and greenlighting Driveclub instead of a more interesting game that would be further away from GT6/GT7 and thus an IP that wouldn't compete in-house.
-General mediocre quality of many 1st party releases over the last 3 years.
-Unmarketability of many releases over the last three years - games like Tearaway or Puppeteer that were sent to die.
-Not getting GT6 and some late PS3 games on the PS4 where they were needed; generally allowing PD to fuck about.
-Failure to come up with a killer app or decent slate of first party games for Vita, even if in the end he made the right call to stop supporting it with 'AAA' games.
-The Last Guardian Saga
-Gravity Rush 2 disappearing.
-Greenlighting The Order. Yeah, it's not out yet, but come on. It's shit. We can see it a mile away, and smell it from even further.
-Infamous is a super-generic series at this point, Second Son was disappointing.

Obviously there are good things too:
-Naughty Dog's continued performance.
-MLB the show is the best exclusive sports game around, and he continues to let that team do their thing.
-His embrace of indies (if he's responsible for that).
-Getting Bloodborne on PS4

In general I think Sony WWS's games are far more underwhelming than they should be, and I often don't like them. Sony should be able to do better than the likes of the Killzone series, which is just mediocre trash - less than mediocre in the case of Shadow Fall. If you consider Shuhei responsible for all these first party games, then I'm not a huge fan, to be honest.

EDIT: If you're asking me if I like the guy, then I think he's a AAA bloke.
 
Vita needs a lot, a lot more first party support. Also, Sony needs to pay more attention when it comes to the quality of the PS4 exclusives being released (DriveClub server debacle should have never happened. Knack was disappointing),

Other than that, Shu is doing a great job. The PS3 first party output was exceptional, so I only expect great games for the PS4!
 
Yoshi is doing a great job. Just seems like some people are getting ahead of themselves with Sunset Overdrive and MS "strong" first party fall. Stop it. Both Sony and MS are in year one. This is why u don't buy consoles when they come out. Nintendo is king this fall and they r in year 2, but then again, Far Cry 4 and AC are not on their platform. Don't forget to show indies love as well. Hotline Miami 2 is coming out soon.
 
Great guy. Likable personality. Passionate about his job. No complaints.

I agree with the above except for the last comment.

Shu doesn't strike me as aggressive as say Phil Spencer over on the Xbox team.

I mean aside from the great launch and pre hypre of the PS4, the system hasn't done a whole lot to win me over.

1. The Last Guardian - still nowhere to be seen. Shocking mis management of a marquee title.

2. Driveclub debacle - I was very reasonable in the driveclub thread and I still am and I don't think this is wholly on Shu, but lets face it the online isn't working 100% and its close to 4 weeks now. I'm a single player player mostly so it doesn't bother me so much, but a game that highlights its social aspects in the title of its game and that's pretty much where it precisely falls flat on its face is kinda embarrassing. The game itself is fun though.

3. Killzone, Knack - I can't say for Knack cause I haven't played it, but Killzone was all sorts of bad.

I'm still keeping my PS4 for Bloodborne, Uncharted 4 and Persona 5 but I feel like the PS4 has been disappointing so far.

If you look at Phil Spencer's performance, he's been pretty active since he got there. He's stood by his word.

1. Price cut
2. Kinectless Xbox
3. Parity with PS4 even if he had to do dodgy deals
4. Games for Gold

You can't blame the guy for an underpowered console, he's doing his best to make sure it doesn't suck.
 
Yoshi is doing a great job. Just seems like some people are getting ahead of themselves with Sunset Overdrive and MS "strong" first party fall. Stop it. Both Sony and MS are in year one. This is why u don't buy consoles when they come out. Nintendo is king this fall and they r in year 2, but then again, Far Cry 4 and AC are not on their platform. Don't forget to show indies love as well. Hotline Miami 2 is coming out soon.

PS4 and XB1 are in year one. MS and Sony are not, Playstation and Xbox are not, and Shuhei Yoshida is not.
 
Some quick reasons:
-Killing Studio Liverpool. Talented studio that could have done something else.
-General poor quality of PS4 launch games.
-The Driveclub fiasco, including the delay, the PS+ delay, the online issues, and greenlighting Driveclub instead of a more interesting game that would be further away from GT6/GT7 and thus an IP that wouldn't compete in-house.
-General mediocre quality of many 1st party releases over the last 3 years.
-Unmarketability of many releases over the last three years - games like Tearaway or Puppeteer that were sent to die.
-Not getting GT6 and some late PS3 games on the PS4 where they were needed; generally allowing PD to fuck about.
-Failure to come up with a killer app or decent slate of first party games for Vita, even if in the end he made the right call to stop supporting it with 'AAA' games.
-The Last Guardian Saga
-Gravity Rush 2 disappearing.
-Greenlighting The Order. Yeah, it's not out yet, but come on. It's shit. We can see it a mile away, and smell it from even further.
-Infamous is a super-generic series at this point, Second Son was disappointing.

Obviously there are good things too:
-Naughty Dog's continued performance.
-MLB the show is the best exclusive sports game around, and he continues to let that team do their thing.
-His embrace of indies (if he's responsible for that).
-Getting Bloodborne on PS4

I like this summary.

Personally, indies have indeed been the PS4's saving grace to an extent.

All my games have been indies through PS+. With the exception of I:SS, which
I bought heavily discounted through ebay.
 
I don't get why people are using ISS as a reason to attack shu it's metacritic is only two points lower then Sunset Overdrive's.
 
I think he has done a pretty poor job, for many of the reasons already stated in this thread. Seems like an unpopular opinion. Next year looks much better, however.

Some quick reasons:
-Killing Studio Liverpool. Talented studio that could have done something else.
-General poor quality of PS4 launch games.
-The Driveclub fiasco, including the delay, the PS+ delay, the online issues, and greenlighting Driveclub instead of a more interesting game that would be further away from GT6/GT7 and thus an IP that wouldn't compete in-house.
-General mediocre quality of many 1st party releases over the last 3 years.
-Unmarketability of many releases over the last three years - games like Tearaway or Puppeteer that were sent to die.
-Not getting GT6 and some late PS3 games on the PS4 where they were needed; generally allowing PD to fuck about.
-Failure to come up with a killer app or decent slate of first party games for Vita, even if in the end he made the right call to stop supporting it with 'AAA' games.
-The Last Guardian Saga
-Gravity Rush 2 disappearing.
-Greenlighting The Order. Yeah, it's not out yet, but come on. It's shit. We can see it a mile away, and smell it from even further.
-Infamous is a super-generic series at this point, Second Son was disappointing.

Obviously there are good things too:
-Naughty Dog's continued performance.
-MLB the show is the best exclusive sports game around, and he continues to let that team do their thing.
-His embrace of indies (if he's responsible for that).
-Getting Bloodborne on PS4

In general I think Sony WWS's games are far more underwhelming than they should be, and I often don't like them. Sony should be able to do better than the likes of the Killzone series, which is just mediocre trash - less than mediocre in the case of Shadow Fall. If you consider Shuhei responsible for all these first party games, then I'm not a huge fan, to be honest.

EDIT: If you're asking me if I like the guy, then I think he's a AAA bloke.

That sounds to me as though he doesn't really have much of an influence if there are more bad points than good. We know Naughty Dog are pretty much self sufficient and set high standards, that's nothing knew. I'm not expecting Shu to crack the whip there. But the bad points you mentioned I agree with. Like I said I don't see him as overly aggressive, I mean he has to be to some degree to get to where he is, but leaders in his position need to stand their ground on stuff and far too often there doesn't seem to be any quality control. I don't expect everyone to be as harsh as Steve Jobs but there's got to be times where you say go back and do a better job because right now the game is not fun.
 
I think he has done a pretty poor job, for many of the reasons already stated in this thread. Seems like an unpopular opinion. Next year looks much better, however.

Some quick reasons:
-Killing Studio Liverpool. Talented studio that could have done something else.
-General poor quality of PS4 launch games.
-The Driveclub fiasco, including the delay, the PS+ delay, the online issues, and greenlighting Driveclub instead of a more interesting game that would be further away from GT6/GT7 and thus an IP that wouldn't compete in-house.
-General mediocre quality of many 1st party releases over the last 3 years.
-Unmarketability of many releases over the last three years - games like Tearaway or Puppeteer that were sent to die.
-Not getting GT6 and some late PS3 games on the PS4 where they were needed; generally allowing PD to fuck about.
-Failure to come up with a killer app or decent slate of first party games for Vita, even if in the end he made the right call to stop supporting it with 'AAA' games.
-The Last Guardian Saga
-Gravity Rush 2 disappearing.
-Greenlighting The Order. Yeah, it's not out yet, but come on. It's shit. We can see it a mile away, and smell it from even further.
-Infamous is a super-generic series at this point, Second Son was disappointing.

Obviously there are good things too:
-Naughty Dog's continued performance.
-MLB the show is the best exclusive sports game around, and he continues to let that team do their thing.
-His embrace of indies (if he's responsible for that).
-Getting Bloodborne on PS4

In general I think Sony WWS's games are far more underwhelming than they should be, and I often don't like them. Sony should be able to do better than the likes of the Killzone series, which is just mediocre trash - less than mediocre in the case of Shadow Fall. If you consider Shuhei responsible for all these first party games, then I'm not a huge fan, to be honest.

EDIT: If you're asking me if I like the guy, then I think he's a AAA bloke.

Yet the PS4 is selling millions and people are buying these "terrible" games you listed.

There's a bit of delusion in your assessment.
 
I feel like it’s important to at least contextualise what Shu does, at a top level, and how he works as a manager/business unit leader rather than latching everything to his responsibilities :

What we know:

Shu is pretty hands-off in terms of people management. He’s more of a macro-manager, and places a healthy faith in people like Rohde and Denny to handle the day-to-day management of WWS, while he focuses more on product portfolio.

Shu isn’t responsible for the marketing of first-party games. He has stated various times in interviews that he brings what his division does to the meeting tables, and craft plans together with SCE’s marketing division.

Shu isn’t directly responsible for localisation of first-party titles. He has a lot of influence, as seen by him accepting the fault/error of missing out Demon’s Souls, but he doesn’t have a blank cheque for deciding localisation of first-party games, and how each region (SCEA,SCEE,SCEJA) handles the release of said games, thus some places have retail releases of certain games and some don’t.

What we can make an educated assumption of:

Shu is presumably required to sign-off any product they fund. We’ve heard that The Order and Tomorrow Children had Shu in the pitch meetings, which means that when it comes to signing games, he has a final say.

Presumably, games being cancelled, games getting delayed, games getting re-engineered, games getting greenlit, etc, all are on him as the person responsible for overall portfolio and funding for said games.

Based on the above, I would contextualise his position and responsibilities in such accordance:

If you think Driveclub and The Order ‘existing’ as a game that’s Sony-funded is a complete waste of money and should had funded other games, then you can probably blame Shu on it because he greenlit the pitch that the devs came to them on.

However, blaming him for Driveclub’s server problems/launch is wrong, because he’s not the studio manager or micro-manages his teams to the extent that hes’ responsible for it. If anything, it’s on Denny and Evo, and less on him.

Blaming him for games not being localised, probably. As head of first-party, he needs to emphasis the importance of exclusive and internally developed games and make them globally available, regardless of cultural lack of suitability.

Blaming him on first-party games not being marketed is probably not right. All he does is fund games and broaden the portfolio, but ultimately, it’s the respective divisions that market the games according to the region. Thus Freedom Wars getting a lot of marketing in Japan, but absolutely fucking nothing in US/EU. This isn’t some Shu Yoshida decision, but rather the decision of the marketing departments at respective regions.
 
Yet the PS4 is selling millions and people are buying these "terrible" games you listed.

There's a bit of delusion in your assessment.

I'm one of those millions, and I've bought almost every 1st party game for PS4. I've been disappointed in Sony WWS output for some time now, and I also don't think people are buying PS4s for these games. I'm not sure what's delusional about my opinion, I'm certainly not saying that the PS4 itself is anything but a rousing success, one that I'm very happy about.

That sounds to me as though he doesn't really have much of an influence if there are more bad points than good. We know Naughty Dog are pretty much self sufficient and set high standards, that's nothing knew. I'm not expecting Shu to crack the whip there. But the bad points you mentioned I agree with. Like I said I don't see him as overly aggressive, I mean he has to be to some degree to get to where he is, but leaders in his position need to stand their ground on stuff and far too often there doesn't seem to be any quality control. I don't expect everyone to be as harsh as Steve Jobs but there's got to be times where you say go back and do a better job because right now the game is not fun.

The bolded is exactly the issue to me. I don't know if Shuhei is in charge of that or what, but someone in the chain of command needs to step in and say 'We can do better here'. Of course, they did that with Driveclub and The Last Guardian and look what's happened there. Sometimes you just can't win.
 
That's because he doesn't make as many of the calls for Playstation as Spencer does for Xbox.

I should note I meant Phil is more aggressive in his job than Shu is at his. You're right they are not the same position, but as the head of first party studios, the quality of the games haven't been there.
 
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