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[Kenshin001]

I don't understand the distinction, then.

Could you bring up an example (doesn't have to be a real case that happened) that involves the various parties and what you expect the president to do?

For example:
Game X has been missing the last few monthly milestones and the regional vice-president gets concerned that they will not hit their projected release date. He then talks to Shu about what should be done and whether or not additional funds and time can be granted. Shu then decides that a delay will be granted or if they just take the critical reception hit of releasing an undercooked product.

Reading your sentence it seems like you want actual game design intervention at some earlier stage, but maybe I'm just reading that into what you write.

Yeah, game design intervention at an earlier stage. That is not micro management. For example Zipper presents their idea for SOCOM and the head of WWS says make it a 4 person co-op campaign since that is missing in our portfolio.

 

[LegendofDragoonLives]

My comments in bold:



On another note, I have to laugh at Sean's post giving credit for GoW and R&C to Phil Harrison, even though Shu had more to do with those franchises than Phil ever did (Senior VP of Product Development at SCEA before SCEWWS was created, so I'm pretty sure he greenlit God of War 1). Meanwhile, MAG is apparently a Shu game, even though it was greenlit while Phil Harrison was running WWS (Modnation Racers might have been as well, I'm not sure).

I predict that at this time next year, a lot of people will be singing a different tune. It's been an unlucky down year for Sony but I've no doubt they'll bounce back.

Shu did greenlight GOW. There is an article of this woman that works for SSM, I forget her name, that stated Shu told her that she would be fired if GOW was not a success due to the risk of making it.

They used to have the same job. Phil seemed to have sucked at it if the last 4-5 years of the Xbox 360 was anything to go by, or are we blaming Mattrick for that as well?

Mattrick is the reason everything bad has ever happened to MS in the gaming division, don't you know?

 

[Kenshin001]

Shu did greenlight GOW. There is an article of this woman that works for SSM, I forget her name, that stated Shu told her that she would be fired if GOW was not a success due to the risk of making it.


Mattrick is the reason everything bad has ever happened to MS in the gaming division, don't you know?

Yoshida almost shot down GoW and Jaffe had to beg to have the game made.

Jaffe told the story almost all frustrated developers wanted to hear. God of War was almost shot down before it got started. Jaffe proposed the game to Yoshida, who simply said, "There's nothing innovative here." After pleading with him to the game a chance, Yoshida bent, and the project continued.

 

[tusken77]

Cool guy! He liked the portrait that I had drawn of him (and Cerny & House) for my developer series.

Wow, that's awesome. Very Drew Struzan-esque.

 

[TheBanditKing]

Great guy, solid leadership choices, and passionate about his job.

 

[Fallout-with-swords]

I have a basic understanding of what his job is but I have no idea where it starts and where it ends, so it's hard to evaluate his performance based solely on game output.

 

[DustyVonEric]

Some comments in thread are infuriating and embarrassing to read. And has the potential to make Gaf look like big a-holes.

What ability do we have to evaluate Shu? We can evaluate Sony's output, but how much do we really know was directly impacted by Shu positively or negatively? We don't. Not unless Shu tells us himself, like admitting to the mistake with Demon's Souls. He expressed regret, and that he could have even pushed back when he saw Dark Souls' similarities with DeSouls, but decided against it because Sony and From are on great terms and Shu obviously seems to value them as a business partner. That decision could have helped maintain the good relationship with From that brought about Bloodborne. We just don't know how many other situations like that occurred, and we won't unless Sony begins to print Employee Baseball cards with Shu's stats printed on the back.

But I will say, speaking of the importance of maintaining good relationships, when ps4 was first revealed and launching, there was a lot of talk of The Three Musketeers making ps4 possible. Shu's right in the middle of PS4's success, along with House and Cerny. And we know for a fact - not speculation - what a success ps4 has been. And even before PS4, it was Yoshida that had Cerny form the f'n ICE team. Guess who Cerny went to when he wanted to head up PS4 development and who got him approval. But Shu's not good at his job?

People mention studio closings? Do we even have more than a sliver of info if any at all to know what happened with them? It sucks, but studios close, projects get cancelled, resources run out (they ain't MS) or get reallocated, sometimes things just don't fall into place no matter the planning and effort to make it fit. People applaud Sony's number of studios, but really don't understand that some might fail not due to incompetence but because making games is seriously risky business and any number of things can go "wrong"? And to lay it at the feet of one man? We don't know how many times Shu gave projects more time to come together and it worked out or conversely had to step in to stop the bleeding and let it end, because that stuff doesn't get talked about much, and Shu doesn't seem the type to beat his chest over it. It's just another game release, cancellation, or "rumor" that didn't pan out.

Shu could get a zillion things wrong or right behind the scenes that we will never know, unless it comes out in an interview and we feel fit to judge him? Again wtf?

 

[Cole Slaw]

You're telling me that not only did this guy turn down Demon's Soul, but also that David Jaffe had to beg him to make the only franchise that even kept me in the PS3 camp while franchises like Gears of War were determining how much X360's RAM would be upgraded to?

Sony is so lucky that they have the multiplatform advantage this generation, or else I would be trading in my PS4 for an XB1 immediately, post haste.

No wonder David Jaffe didn't stay around for this shit. All of a sudden I'm so glad that XB1 exists, hardware specs be damned.

 

[Nightengale]

Yoshida almost shot down GoW and Jaffe had to beg to have the game made.

Almost shot down =/= shot down.

And while it's easy to look back and think that it would've been a stupid decision, we don't know how it was pitched, and the game had its share of troubled development.

He then talked about how the game was almost canceled countless times, with a buggy build of God of War being presented alongside well-polished versions of Naughty Dog's Jak & Daxter and Insomniac's Ratchet & Clank.

"We would show our little game [at marketing meetings], and it would crash, it would look like crap, and [the game's hero] Kratos was this very Rasta-looking guy with dreadlocks, and it looked just terrible. I was expecting my boss to tell me, 'You know, it's time for a new Twisted Metal.' But they kept it going," he recalled.

He then passed on his lesson learned to the aspiring developers in the audience. "Just because it's not working now doesn't mean that it won't eventually work. There's a real magical art to knowing when to pull the plug and when to keep it on life support."

Lorne turned the spotlight to Yoshida, and asked why he kept the project going when he was unsure of its success.

"When the concept was first presented, I was skeptical," said Yoshida, from his seat in the third row. "Then I saw the camera control, and I thought this team might have something." He forgot about the game for a few months, and the next time he saw it, the combo system was in place and the character control was tweaked. It was then that he felt comfortable.

So, while Jaffe was expecting Shu to take the axe down on him, Shu became more and more convinced even though the game was apparently in terrible shape throughout the entire development phase.

And GoW even exceeded its budget.

And there was reason for Studstill to be relieved, primarily because she had asked Sony's President of Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, for more money to finish the still-untested project that previous spring

I basically said to him, you know, we've got all the pieces out on the table on this game. It's not together yet, but we see it. It's very clear where we're going to be because we'd had that E3 demo, we executed on it and it was hard, but we found some gold there and what we needed to do."

"He basically said 'OK, I'll give you the money, but your career is on the line,'" Studstill said. "So that was an eye opening moment, but I had faith in the team. I had faith in the technology and of course Dave [Jaffe] had proven himself multiple times and I had a lot of faith in his vision."

If anything, having faith at a pitch is probably the easiest thing to do. But it's hard to keep having faith in the team, product if the game continued to be in troubled development for the longest time, and only coming together at the end of the project.

If anything, the GoW story paints Shu is a better light. It showed him as a executive that has faith in the team to deliver the final product, even though the team :

- failed to deliver solid builds for events
- exceeded its budget
- etc

And yet Shu didn't cancel the project, but let the team continue and finish the project.

 

[Hahs]

Other than the obvious physical traits, and public demeanor, I don't think many people have a clue on his actual stats - let alone enough viable info to base it on. It's all about the numbers - that's all big corporations care about. Just correlate the divisions of Sony that he oversees with their fiscal projections and year end results, and go from there - it's all public information.


EDIT: A company doesn't care how nice you are. If you're not producing (or not even coming close) to producing certain numbers you're gone. Obviously he is, otherwise Sony's Board.O.D would've demoted or gotten rid of him. With that said, I believe Yoshida-san is in the clear.

 

[Nightengale]

You're telling me that not only did this guy turn down Demon's Soul, but also that David Jaffe had to beg him to make the only franchise that even kept me in the PS3 camp while franchises like Gears of War were determining how much X360's RAM would be upgraded to?

Sony is so lucky that they have the multiplatform advantage this generation, or else I would be trading in my PS4 for an XB1 immediately, post haste.

No wonder David Jaffe didn't stay around for this shit. All of a sudden I'm so glad that XB1 exists, hardware specs be damned.

How about you read up on the development story of God of War before jumping into conclusions?

Also, this guy did not turn down Demon's Souls, HE FUNDED THAT DAMN GAME. What he failed at, was having faith in Demon's Souls as a global IP. He was content with letting Demon's Souls be a Japan-only game, because he didn't push for it to be part of their forefront titles. Basically, he treated Demon's Souls like how he treated Wild Arms sequels. They were Sony first-party games that was localised by 3rd-party publishers because SCEA/SCEE didn't want to spend the money to do it themselves, thinking that they would not be profitable ventures for them.

The only thing Atlus did, was localise the game. However, the game's (DS) only existed because Shu funded it. He just didn't think it was a good game at the time.

 

[MastaKilla]

The only gripe I have with Shu and anybody of the the other people at Sony is their completely fucked up handling of the socom franchise. They had one of the most popular console shooters with an extremely loyal fan base and then they ruined it all by trying to chase the battlefield and COD crowd. To this day there's a huge hole in what Sony has to offer me that used to be filled perfectly with Socom.

Other than the handling of Socom, I love what WWS gave us under Shu last gen. Way toooo early to really make any judgments on ps4. Sure it's been extremely disappointing so far but it's less than a year. Lots of great stuff coming.

 

[benny_a]

The only thing Atlus did, was localise the game. However, the game's (DS) only existed because Shu funded it. He just didn't think it was a good game at the time.

A sentiment shared by many that saw the game in an unfinished version at trade-shows, as well.

 

[Cole Slaw]

Alright, Nightengale, that's some pretty good information you shared. I was wrong. I guess Yoshida operates on the philosophy of giving these devs enough rope to hang themselves with, which I can dig because it's a good way of separating studios like Naughty Dog from studios like 3D Realms.

Shuhei, if you're reading this, I was wrong, and please don't change. Now put Evolution Studios down for disappointing you and for disappointing us.

 

[Kenshin001]

Almost shot down =/= shot down.

And while it's easy to look back and think that it would've been a stupid decision, we don't know how it was pitched, and the game had its share of troubled development.



So, while Jaffe was expecting Shu to take the axe down on him, Shu became more and more convinced even though the game was apparently in terrible shape throughout the entire development phase.

And GoW even exceeded its budget.

If anything, having faith at a pitch is probably the easiest thing to do. But it's hard to keep having faith in the team, product if the game continued to be in troubled development for the longest time, and only coming together at the end of the project.

If anything, the GoW story paints Shu is a better light. It showed him as a executive that has faith in the team to deliver the final product, even though the team :

- failed to deliver solid builds for events
- exceeded its budget
- etc

And yet Shu didn't cancel the project, but let the team continue and finish the project.

Jaffe had to beg to have the game made because Yoshida felt it wasn't innovative and then Yoshida threatened to fire Studstill. That doesn't paint him in a good light at all.

 

[Nightengale]

That being said, Shu has his faults.

Wonderbook was a fuck-up and a terrible direction to go at. And his 2012 work with Twisted Metal, PS All Star, Starhawk, by working with mid-tier external studios clearly felt like the studio was biting off more than they can chew, or they weren't given the time and resources to do what they needed to do to achieve that level that they needed to be.

I think 2012 encapsulates pretty much Shu's worse. His product scheduling which leaves gaps and downtimes in some periods ( 2012 and 2014), and there are situations where it feels like he let certain projects be bigger than they need to be, (small/mid-tier size projects aiming for that AAA-feel) or bigger projects that deserve a little extra polish/time.

Let's see how things fare. Actually, in terms of the small projects, I've feeling like he's starting to get the hang of it. The bigger projects have some hit and miss, though we'll see how it fares next year with Bloodborne, Order and Ratchet in 1H 2015.

Jaffe had to beg to have the game made because Yoshida felt it wasn't innovative and then Yoshida threatened to fire Studstill. That doesn't paint him in a good light at all.

Yoshida 'felt' that way, but still let Jaffe make the game. Despite having a certain opinion of the pitch, he still allowed the project to go on.
Game development cost money and time, you know. Yoshida could've just said "no", but he allowed Jaffe the time and opportunity to prove him wrong.

And lol if you think that way regarding Studstill. I'm sorry, but that's how things work in corporations mostly.
If you're asking your boss to double-down on you even though you've already bitten off more than what you promised to chew, you're putting your career on the line, especially if it's a matter of millions of dollars.

I've seen many executives 'get put in their place' for fucking up huge business deals that they failed to deliver on. Making mistakes in organisations isn't uncommon, but when you're championing a project that cost millions, you sink and swim with it. That's business. Sometimes you get fired, sometimes you kill your career progression, sometimes entire teams get laid off.

 

[Nightengale]

Jaffe had to beg to have the game made because Yoshida felt it wasn't innovative and then Yoshida threatened to fire Studstill. That doesn't paint him in a good light at all.

Let me put it this way:

Yoshida feeling it wasn't innovative = shows him having a terrible opinion
Yoshida allowing the game to enter development despite that terrible opinion = shows that he can set aside his prejudice/opinion of something and have faith in a developer vision, especially when the dev desperately believed in the pitch.

As mentioned in the text above, the game continued to showcase poorly at events and was panned, somewhat. However, Yoshida became more convinced of the vision as the pitch became clearer, despite the technical mess that the game's state was actually in.

And regarding that 'threat,' you do realise that we're talking millions and millions of dollars to be added into what was already one of the most expensive games at that time?

I'm not in game development, but I've worked in multinational business deals and S&Ms. That's the reality of multi-million dollar business. When you ask for more money from your boss, (exceeding your budget), you put yourselves on the line. It's very rare that you get to have only your wrist slapped when you burn tens of millions down the drain.

 

[Canis lupus]

Shu did greenlight GOW. There is an article of this woman that works for SSM, I forget her name, that stated Shu told her that she would be fired if GOW was not a success due to the risk of making it.


Mattrick is the reason everything bad has ever happened to MS in the gaming division, don't you know?

Yoshida almost shot down GoW and Jaffe had to beg to have the game made.

Jaffe told the story almost all frustrated developers wanted to hear. God of War was almost shot down before it got started. Jaffe proposed the game to Yoshida, who simply said, "There's nothing innovative here." After pleading with him to the game a chance, Yoshida bent, and the project continued.

Damn I didn't know this story. GoW turned out to be one of the most successful franchises for Sony ever.

What he failed at, was having faith in Demon's Souls as a global IP. He was content with letting Demon's Souls be a Japan-only game, because he didn't push for it to be part of their forefront titles.

Yoshida thought the game was crap.

Shuhei Yoshida, Sony Computer Entertainment's head of product development, told Game Informer that he played two hours of the game as it was close to final, and walked away convinced it would be terrible

 

[Melchiah]

The only gripe I have with Shu and anybody of the the other people at Sony is their completely fucked up handling of the socom franchise. They had one of the most popular console shooters with an extremely loyal fan base and then they ruined it all by trying to chase the battlefield and COD crowd. To this day there's a huge hole in what Sony has to offer me that used to be filled perfectly with Socom.

Other than the handling of Socom, I love what WWS gave us under Shu last gen. Way toooo early to really make any judgments on ps4. Sure it's been extremely disappointing so far but it's less than a year. Lots of great stuff coming.

I think the lack of retail release for WipEout HD and Siren: Blood Curse did the games a great disservice. To my knowledge both were released on retail later on in Europe only, WipEout HD when Fury DLC was released. Anecdotally, in 2008 when they were released in the PSN store, many people I know didn't buy console games digitally at all. Dunno if that was common universally, but that's the impression I've got.

 

[Canis lupus]

I think the lack of retail release for WipEout HD and Siren: Blood Curse did the games a great disservice. To my knowledge both were released on retail later on in Europe only, WipEout HD when Fury DLC was released. Anecdotally, in 2008 when they were released in the PSN store, many people I know didn't buy console games digitally at all. Dunno if that was common universally, but that's the impression I've got.

Yup. It was especially bad to release a digital only game around 2008 because PSN cards didn't come to Europe until Fall 2009 and as a Siren and WipEout fan I had to wait until then or when it hit retail later to get those games.

 

[Melchiah]

Yup. It was especially bad to release a digital only game around 2008 because PSN cards didn't come to Europe until Fall 2009 and as a Siren and WipEout fan I had to wait until then or when it hit retail later to get those games.

WipEout HD was the first game I bought digitally, and it worked just fine with Visa Electron debit card in 2008. Although, I've heard that people couldn't make online purchases with the debit cards of other banks.

 

[De-mon]

Wow, that's awesome. Very Drew Struzan-esque.

 

[Gamer345]

Yoshida sees this evaluation thread and tweets this

https://twitter.com/yosp/status/527290831594471424/photo/1

lol

 

[Schrade]

Yoshida sees this evaluation thread and tweets this

https://twitter.com/yosp/status/527290831594471424/photo/1

lol

Haha That's awesome. Love Shu!

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Con:
-Very bad at nurturing franchise compare to MS's Halo gears or Nintendo's Mario Zelda.
-Overlook Demon souls ( Ok, redeeem himself with Bloodborne)
-Doesn't work to0 well with marketing? Send a lot of titles to die either no marketing of bad release date.

Just to comment on your points:
- Admittedly Sony doesn't have many franchises that are as consistently successful as Halo, Mario or Zelda. Nintendo are the undisputed champions of nurturing brands, but I'd argue outside of Halo, Sony's key franchises (LBP, Gran Turismo, Uncharted, GoW) are at least as strong as MS's.
- As you noted, there is a chance of Demon's Souls redemption with Bloodborne.
- I'm not sure marketing is down to Shu? He's boss of WWS, but I doubt he has any direct control of marketing budgets.

 

[Jimrpg]

Haha That's awesome. Love Shu!

was just going to post this.

bet he's having a laugh at all the speculation of what he did and didn't do.

and some of u guys are pinning everything and anything on the guy, careful what u say

 

[cpooi]

Should I blame him for PS Asia being crappy?

e.g. First party PSP games being missing from the PS store.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Should I blame him for PS Asia being crappy?

e.g. First party PSP games being missing from the PS store.

Why would the President of WWS be accountable for selling games digitally in specific territories? He manages the internal Sony Studios and probably commissions the games they make, but I doubt he has direct control over things like marketing or the PS Store.