Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Shuhei Yoshida's First Interview After PlayStation - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

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What's up everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, January 15th, 2025. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside the unemployed Shue Hey Yoshita. Hey, Shue, how are you? Yeah, yeah, I'm unemployed. You're wearing a great kind of funny shirt, great kind of funny shirt. I'm very free. Yeah, so I'm so happy and... Enjoying freedom, free. It is, you've had one day off.

So you finish PlayStation, you had one day off, and now it is 9 a.m. in Japan, and you are nice enough to throw on a kind of funny shirt and come join us for the games cast. Thank you so much. Good morning. Hi. So, I mean, first things, first, I got a million things, I got a million questions, all PlayStation stuff, but like, do you feel like a giant weight has been lifted? I mean, 31 years at PlayStation, now you don't have a job. Well, I didn't realize how much, you know.

the last five years I was in one-person department doing indie things and working with all different department people so I didn't have a organization to manage your staff to manage your budget you know nothing right yeah so I was so relaxed I felt and enjoying the in-o-work life however the last couple of months you know after especially after I we made the announcement I didn't realize how much pressure I was putting myself on. And I was so really, people told me how relaxed I look now and how happy, you know, I look. Yeah. I tend to look happy, but people who know me for years told me, you know, I look different.

Well, even, even, I mean, right now, of course, yes, 9 a.m., you know, your bright eye and bushytail there. But even when we went to dinner when you were in San Francisco, 9. too long ago in December. Like I said that to you at the bar. I was like, dang, you, you like,

there is definitely a weight off of you, the fact that you're like, okay, cool, I'm doing this. And what, you said it felt you, you graduated, right? Everybody's being so nice to you,

you kept saying. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. Amazing. Last six weeks after the announcement, the overwhelming volume of messages is all these great things people said to me. And the things they, talked about the things they did with me

many, many years ago, you know, photos we took. Yeah. Unbelievable days that I spent for the last six weeks. I, you know, I was excited to have this. It's your first podcast outside of PlayStation. It was a big deal. I thought we'd be the big news. But then, lo and behold, today you go and tweet.

You're not unemployed. You're a voice actor now. You put out the game trailer for a promise mascot agency. Yeah, yeah. Legendary Japanese voice actor. and then a gaming legend, Shue Yashita, is in this game as well. How does that feel? Congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, I don't know if, you know, they plan that way right after, you know, my leaving company. And it was great timing that they announced. So it was at Tokyo Game Show last year. Yeah. And I had a chance to show the game, you know, on stage as one of the upcoming, you know, great, you know, PlayStation indie games.

And as I was doing the stage show, we are playing live. So, you know, because the game had a conversation and they didn't have voiceover as yet. And I and the other, you know, host, she and I are taking roles to talk about, play as game characters. And I was playing the Michi, the lead character on that stage. but while we are doing, the developer was like, oh, we should get shoe on the game. I like this, yeah, yeah, yeah, I like this. And they timed it out very well to ride your freedom here

to be able to say, hey, this is it. Well, that was my first ever, really, you know, serious voice acting. Yeah. And they are professional voice actors, voicing the other characters. So it was huge pressure. And I realized how hard.

it is, you know, to act. Oh, yeah. And I was just reading script, but, you know, to become the character and try to convey the, like, emotions and personality, it was so difficult and fun. Well, Troy Baker, look out. Oh, you did it as well, right, for my game. Shoe, I've done it for many games, okay? I'm a seasoned voice actor, yes, of course.

I was in Solitaire Conspiracy. I've been in Lego Marvel. I've been in DC Universe Online. And this isn't about me. All right. This is about giving you your flowers because this is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday, we run you through the biggest topics in video games, whether they be reviews, previews or interviews. If you like that, pick up a kind of funny membership.

Of course, you can get all of our shows. That's more than 20 a week ad free. The ability to watch the afternoon podcast, lives you record them, and your daily dose of me, trending gamer, Greg Miller, and a show we call Greg Way. Of course, if you have no bucks to toss our way, no big deal, you can like, subscribe, share, follow on YouTube. dot com slash kind of funny games, uh, podcast services like Spotify and Apple. And of course, you can get that membership on Apple, Spotify, YouTube.com slash kind of funny and patreon.com slash kind of funny to support an 11 person small business. If you are watching live right now, you can ask shu-hay, your burning PlayStation questions

or video game landscape questions by YouTube super chatting on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. I already see so many people coming in all right. Ian C.J. I see you will get to you. Don't worry. housekeeping for you, like I said, Kind of Funny is an 11-person small business all about live talk shows. Today you've already got Kind of Funny Games Daily talking about

Ubisoft's murky future and the stream was more of that movie game everyone is obsessed with. If you're a member, like I said, supporting us, my Greg way today was about if you have to finish a game to put it on your game of the year list. Thank you to our Patreon producers,

Delaney Twining and Carl Jacobs. Today we're brought to you by BetterHelp, ExpressVPN, and me, Undies. We'll tell you about that later. For now, let's start the show with what is and forever will be topic of the show. Tats, Tats, Tats, Tad. Great job, Shue. You're a fan.

I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Shuhay, 31 years. It's done. You've left PlayStation. The first question has to be asked. Who do you hate at PlayStation?

Oh, that's, wow. Do I hate it at PlayStation? Was it Herman? Did you hate Herman? No, no. Okay. I don't think I ever hated Herman. even though he took my job.

Yeah, he took your job. He took your job. He took my job. You were his boss at one point when you were president of World Life Studios. You're telling me Herman never was like missed a deadline. Decided to make another kill zone and you were like, bro, come on. No, no, no, no. They did amazing Kielzone 2, right?

And Killson 3 was great. And Shadow Falls are the launch title. And I love the Vita game, Killson game. Yeah, of course. And of course, Horizon, Horizon was an amazing concept. And, you know, so it was, you know, we always did every year at E3. After E3, we gather the, you know, people from studios and they show their, what they are doing each other, like sharing ideas and tech.

And the Kilsom team, Guerrilla team, presented the concept, two concepts, actually, they are working on as a propyping. Yeah. and get all the studio people to vote for which project they should do next and one of which was horizon and that looks so amazing and yeah so when we and uh gdc a few years after uh was the day of the launch of the game yeah so we are we gather together you know during the gdc you know studio people we got you know, gather together. So twice a year we got together together as one of my studios teams and we celebrated the launch of Horizon together. We did the countdown at the midnight.

Anyway, so it's hard to hate him. Yeah, yeah. So who else? Nate Fox. Ken Kutaghi, Kutaghi, so difficult, hard to work with. But he made PlayStation, right? He gave us all to have chance to work in this amazing, in that amazing company. And in my case for, you know, long time and gave me do amazing career. So even though it was very hard to work for him. And we always talked about Ken after hours, you know, when we go to drinks. You know, there's already that person, right?

Oh, yeah. That person never exists in the party, but everybody talking about that person. So, he was one of those people, how harsh he was, or how difficult he changed mind all the time. Now, one of my favorite Shuehiyosita stories, of course, is that, you know, you came to life for us when we were making podcast beyond. You tweeted at me that you loved the show. There was a whole thing. It led to an interview. It led to this friendship, yada, yada, yada.

years into being your online friend. And then obviously you're in real life friend. I think it might have been. No, I was going to say Scott Rody, but it wasn't. It was another developer who we were out for drinks when they were showing their game. And I've mentioned how great you were and how much I loved you. And they stopped dead and they looked at me and they were like, do you understand how scary this man is?

Like he and me, like you think he's so nice. You think he's this teddy bear. You think he's so funny on Twitter. I've been in meetings where you present the game for 30 minutes. And he goes, what's fun about it? What is this? Why are you trying to? I heard you can say that Ken is tough.

Ken Kuduragi used to be a tough guy and you'd go talk about him. From what I understand, people used to go talk about you that way, Shu. Yeah, I kind of remember that. Do you think that is good thing? Good thing is the last five years, I have not like that. So the last five years I was working with young people in all different kinds, you know, parts of the company, you know, store people, TPR.

marketing social, they didn't know me like that. Yeah. So they're being all friendly and so fun. And they couldn't believe when someone said I was such a hard ass. Oh, yeah. So do you think that that comes from starting the way you did with PlayStation? Like you said, you know, you joined Ken's team. You joined the original PlayStation team in 90.

and correct me if I'm wrong you join and you're the first non-engineer to join right so like there must have been tremendous pressure put on that entire team let alone you then to justify your role in the whole thing so when I was managing a studio that's the time people

kind of knew me as a difficult boss because you know of course I was responsible for the final quality of the games right first body games but because the company is so created this environment for us to really you know they're saying the english that gives them enough rope right they'll hang themselves

yeah company really gave us chance to really do our best and gave us time and resource and understanding you always you know delay the game and exceeded budget and and we got complained, but in the end, they trusted us. In the end, we do great job with the game in terms of quality and delivery. So because we, I knew we are in that environment, if we don't do great job making games, it's all our fault, right? There's nothing else to blame. So that's the reason I was so like demanding.

Of course. Maybe the term. But with all respect, with all respect for these, you know, great people making games. Well, I mean, it worked, right? I was, again, doing my research beforehand. Not that I need any refreshers on Shuehiyushita. But I enjoyed the way when you became a BAFTA fellow. They put out this.

As president of SIE's Worldwide Studios from 2008 until 2019, Yoshina was among those responsible for producing several wildly popular franchises. such as Uncharted, God of War, The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, Ghost of Sushima, MLB the show, Journey, Bloodbourne, and Six Titles in the Ratchet and Clank franchise. I think being a hard ass paid off,

that's a pretty great run of PlayStation exclusive games, not even bringing in things like, you know, the last guy that you guys did and stuff. Well, the good thing is, you know, people don't remember bad games, right? People remember great games And people don't know how many games we cancel, right?

How many did you? We announced and canceled. So people know about these games. But, you know, we, so because we are a big fun of doing new IPs, right? And trying new IP is always risky, right? So we start new game and evaluate the prototype. And if it doesn't look good, we gave more time or we just cancel it, right? stop early.

That's very important. So people don't know how many cancellations we have done. So I want to stop you there because again this is, you know, 31 years of PlayStation. I'm expecting people to have known

your whole history to some degree and yet, yet, yet. I want to get into it. But right here, this is a question, like I think that speaks so much to blind spots for me,

sure, as press, but me as a fan as well. When you're working on a game or you're either working on a game, like when you were producer or when you're ahead of Sony World Wide Studios and you have all these developers showing games. How

do you know when it is well let's put our head down and push for another year to try to find the fun in this or it is no we're stopping right here and we're canceling this project. You know you have to rely on your instinct

right? Sure. Well of course how the game, well what the team is trying to do and and what's the foundation they are able to develop, to build the game a form, and their experience of polishing and finishing the game in the past. And, of course, the, like, a commercial kind of thinking,

you know, how much more money we have to spend and what's the revenue and profit we can brought in and compare that. But, you know, forecasting sales is a black magic. You know, no one can. No one can. You know, after so many years in making games and in the industry, I don't trust any marketers who say that they can forecast game sales, right? Yeah.

Who would have predicted, Hell Divers 2 would sell more than Spider-Man too, right? Not me? So that's the nature of the business. So, you know, of course, we look at the commercial side of things. but in the end you know you have to trust your guts so the biggest you know at that time like a P3 generation it was a huge cancellation the biggest one I did was the project you know two projects after we spent 25 million dollars that was a huge cancellation at that time but these days the size of the

games is even bigger so you know we see and hear about bigger cancellations, but, you know, $25 million we have spent so many years teamwork on. Do we stop that now? So that was really a difficult decision. We had to rely on. So no one knows, right? There's no A and B comparison. If we had continued these games, we might have had another game of the year. Who knows? Right. Yeah, so who was making the games you canceled? who was 25 million dollars I wouldn't say but great studios so that's another thing

so what I always said and thought about is great team talented team brilliant people and spending so many years in the project they worked so hard

getting that project cancelled is so harsh right so god crushing In order to make it a little bit more acceptable, I always said that I don't want you people, great people, to spend another three years on this. Rather, I want you to start something totally fresh and new. So that's the better way of spending your talent. That's how I try to explain. And they were like, screw you, I quit.

I'm not working for you another three years. Yeah, some of them. Yeah, some of them did. So I appreciate so much that, yeah, obviously we're not going to talk about the specifics of these games that were canceled. That's fine. So stick with me this. Let's do a positive take on the line of question we're on. For you, as Worldwide Studios boss, what do you think was the most unexpected surprise?

You brought up Hell Divers 2, which of course is after the fact that's more recent. You were already over on Indies. But when you were there, what was a game that you're like, oh, this is cool? and it's going to do fine, and instead it went to the moon. Went to the moon. That's a good way. That's a positive. Oh, yeah, that's up.

Yeah, through the roof. Through the moon. Well, I have to say Grand Tourismo, right? Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the team, it was one of the first game I produced, co-produced with Kazanori Yamage, and they had done two Motatoon Grand Prix games, like a cart racing games.

on PS1. That was great game, you know, great car field. Yeah. But the next game was the Grand Tourismo. And of course the game had amazing visuals and a great, you know, car physics system. But yeah, so when the game was launching, I was hoping that, oh yeah, if this could do, you know, million, maybe two million units or, you know, like that. Yeah. There's like 10 millions and tens of millions. So yeah, yeah, I have to, I have to say

Gran Turismo was the first huge surprise in a good way that I experienced. This will sound negative, but it's not. Because obviously the game got through and you made it and blah blah. Is there a game you think of like, I can't believe that didn't do more?

Is there a game you're like, this is going to be a huge hit? This is going to, you know, I know it's black magic to guess numbers but you were like, this is going to be something amazing in terms of sales and it just didn't find that audience?

Well, yeah, sometimes, you know, when a new IP launches and get a great, great reception, you know, the people want the sequel, right? Yeah. They want more of that. So the team makes sequel and, you know, many, oftentimes, the second game do better, because they are always, you know, already millions of funds. And but sometimes, you know, the one I was a bit surprised, you know, in terms of the number

of units did was the second Horizon game. I loved Horizon game and the game did well and I was hoping that the sequel would do even better in terms of sales. The game was bigger and great. Of course. But I don't think the second one did as many units

as the first one. For sure. So then for somebody who's just joining us, 31 years of PlayStation Shoe, talk to me about that. How does that start for you? Because, of course, you can go through and you can read your Wikipedia page and we see you doing stuff with Sony. But how do you go into, hey, I'm going to go work on this PlayStation project?

How does that start for you? Yeah. So I joined Sony Corporation, the electronics company in 1986. And I was right out of college. You know, I joined Sony. For one, I wanted to work outside Japan. and Sony's 90% 80 plus percent of business was outside Japan so I was hoping that

but at the same time you know it's unbelievable but I believe Sony in the future will do video game because Sony is doing like a consumer you know low end personal you know PCs yeah you know like a hobby PCs and because in the game gaming system is you know computer so I was hoping the Sony would get into the video game business.

And I was hoping to join that team. I want to hard stop you right there. Were you hoping because you were already playing games, you were already enjoying games, you wanted to be. I was a huge game fun. Yeah, from the arcade, early arcade days. You know, when I was a kid, you know, the new arcade came, you know, tabletop, you know,

Pac-Man or, you know, what's a shooting game? Asteroys. Space invaders. Space invaders. Yeah. Yeah. So I have a huge video game fun and I wanted to work on video game if Sony, you know, when Sony get into. And I was talking about that.

So maybe that's the secret. You know, when you want to do something, talk about it to whoever who would listen. Because when I joined Sony, I joined in the headquarter function. And the boss at that time, Terry Toknaka, was managing the helping the new business. And one of the new business was Ken Kutaghi's team making audio chip for Nintendo, Super Nintendo system. So Super Nintendo system had the auto chip that Ken Kutaragis team designed. That's the reason Super Nintendo games sounded so good, right? Yep.

And they're working on the CD-ROM system for Super Nintendo. Oh, I remember. And the original PlayStation that didn't come out. So the Terry Toknaka's team, my team, another person was assigned to help Ken's team. But that person was not, you know, knowledgeable about video game industry. So I was giving lots of advice to that person, my colleague, that, you know, if Ken's, you know, working on 3D graphics, you know, work with Namco or something like that. Sure.

And so Terry remembered me talking about video game and huge video game fun. And when I was working in the PC personal computer department in Sony, he called me and asked me to meet this person, Ken Kutaghi. And it turned out to be an interview. So I joined Kent team. And two weeks after, Terry came as the boss of the department, also of Ken Kutari. So Terry was, you know, of course he was coming, you know, to join Ken, and he started gathering

people he knew that he thought he might be able to use. So that's how I got into Ken's team. So when you come in there, how do you transition from, I know game stuff, but I'm working on this chip or whatever, to then being the guy who's like producing titles, who's, you know, giving feedback to developers. How does all that happen? Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

So when I started in Ken's team, it was, Ken's team was designing, working on the very first PlayStation, and everyone else was an engineer, right? You know, like 30 people or so. And I was the first non-technical person, and I was assigned to do the, like, outreaching in the industry, Japanese video game industry. And because Ken's team was getting ready to talk about PlayStation,

and evangelize and trying to get the Japanese publishers to make games on PlayStation. So that was my first assignment. And so I made phone call to companies from the Hokkaido to Kyushu and brought together the team of leaders from Ken's team and presented and talked about, you know, this is great 3D graphics, real time 3D,

and can you make games on play? station, but most of people, companies, especially large companies, that are in a 3D graphics, you know, really doesn't help, you know, video game, you know. It may work for racing games or shooter, but, you know, not other games. Well, like that, but anyway, so that's how I got into the, what we now call third party relations department. Sure. I was one of the lead, lead account manager, I was helping Namco Konami and these Japanese publishers. Of course. So I did it for four years, I think, with a group of account manager and me.

And so because I was not, because working on through the work that we did, I did, I got to see how the new game is planned and presented and see, you know, my as I talked to and visit Namco and Konami and these companies, they showed me what they've been working on. So I kind of got the sense of the process of how video game are being developed. So maybe that helped me to give some perspective. And also, you know, I was working with marketing and sales department from these publishers. So I learned the thing, you know, from these people about. marketing video games.

But I didn't think at the time I would be able to join the game production team because I cannot program or I cannot create art or nothing, right? Yeah, I feel like that would be the biggest thing of like listening to your story and now you're getting these skills. It starts to make more sense to me because I would feel like I would feel even now. I can tell you what I like or don't like about a game, but to sit there and it's like gray box or it's in Maya or it's just a pitch,

I would feel so like, well, I've never made a game. So me criticizing what you're doing at this stage, I wouldn't feel like I would know, I have a leg to stand down to the argument. But obviously, if you're seeing it already and going,

that makes more sense. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, working with large company like Namco, you know, I learned, you know, people, great people from these companies.

And also at the same time, we wanted to find a new, exciting games from new developers, right? At the third party department, that's another thing. We always wanted to find out new teams, new talent. So lots of submissions like, you know, game pitches and like that. So we are able to see many different examples of how games are pitched, how games are developed. So that might also have helped me to look at what makes great games and what kind of teams and people make great games. Sure. So I was always thinking about and also as a game fun,

when I played game, I already thought that why I'm enjoying this game? What about this game I'm so happy about playing? So, you know, kind of analytical kind of thinking while I'm playing and I so for the last 30 plus years, I think I never didn't do that. I always did that to think about games. I played. If I liked, why I like this. Or, you know, games are popular. I try that game and try to understand why people enjoy this game. Sure. And also, read interviews, listen to watch interviews, and try to find out the people who made great games, how they did it. Yeah, so that's for the last 30 years, I think I always, always try to, because it's so magical. Of course, yeah.

Yeah. In those 30 years of analytically thinking about games, but more importantly, maybe for this question, creators, what have you found? Like, when you meet a developer and you listen to them, talk about their game, what are you looking for, only from the game, but from them as a person, them as a creator. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes, you know, you meet a creator who does not say, this game is like, you know, source like in the space or, yeah, but sometimes, you know, developer says, you know, this game, I want, you know, people to feel this way and that way, you know, you know, when you do this, this is so fun. You know, I want to create the feeling.

of doing these things in this game. Or having the very, very deep thinking or what kind of experience that the creators trying to deliver to the player. So there are a few people in the industry who does that. And that's the kind of people I really respect. And oftentimes, great games come from these creators. Yeah, usually not saying you're copying something.

It means you're onto something original, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, it's kind of common, right? You know, especially trying to find funding, right? So people who are not in the industry who have money, you know, it's easy to explain your game associate with other successful games. Yes, that's why everything is trying to be Fortnite, right? You have all these investors and they're saying,

how do we make money like Fortnite? You say, oh, my games is a lot like Fortnite. I have a battle pass. Okay, let's go. And then six years later, it never comes out. Before we get too far into the present and the future, these first days of PlayStation, you start on this new team. It's exciting.

It's what you'd been, you kind of willed into existence since 86. Is there also a, is there any fear? Is there a trepidation you're starting off and launch? Is PlayStation ever going to see the light of day? Is PlayStation or as Sony going to cancel it or not want to do it? Do you worry about that at all? So, because I love video games and I really wanted to, well, in video game at Sony.

So the goal, my personal goal as I joined Ken's team, was to help, you know, somehow contribute to make PlayStation be successful so that I can keep working on this project, working on video game. So that was the most important goal, I think, for me. So I was always thinking about the overall in how PlayStation is doing, not just the thing I was directly responsible for, but I was already thinking what's lacking with PlayStation, what needs to be done from, you know, game to platform to marketing to, you know, whatever.

So that's how I was always thinking the most difficult time during PlayStation, other than the launch of P. That was hard. But during PS1 days, we launched in Japan in 1994, the next Christmas, Christmas 2019-5, we didn't have a big title for the Christmas. At the time in the industry, Christmas season was so important. 100%. But we didn't have.

We had Konami's dating game, TokeyMetion Memorial. That was great game, but that was the only game. And at that time, we are competing with Sega Saturn. And Sega had Virtual Fighter 2. It's an amazing, amazing game, hugely popular in the arcade. So the Christmas, the second, first Christmas was great. You know, we had rich racers, they had virtual fighters. So we sold out hardware.

So both our companies did great. But the second Christmas, Sega Saturn was doing better. So that was the most difficult time that I felt as part of PlayStation. When you say it's the most difficult time, what does that mean? Is it the morale? Is it pressure from the boss's boss's boss? What does that look like? Yeah, because I have one of the leaders in the world.

the third party relations team the responsibility is to bring great games from third party companies and we are not able to deliver that Christmas. So that was really, you know, tough. Of course. I want to talk about your

Ascension to me, but you bring up the PS3. Talk to me about that, how hard of a launch that was. Like what, again, is that like, I, you know, is this before Slack? So you're in the office, you're talking about this, you're looking at numbers, like when something like that happens when the PlayStation 3

comes out and doesn't do like where when do you remember being like oh we're in trouble on this one yeah so before the launch of three because we

you know we get the pro type hardware right yeah to welcome you know first party and the team start working on and the

month, it took months, multiple months to get the team to have something on screen to see. The PS3 CPU was such an advanced kind of architecture. The cell processor, never forget. Yeah, cell processor has multiple processors inside the processor, and the programmer has to divide the program into these different chunks to simultaneously use these processing power to draw the potential power of the hardware. And great people makes it amazing performance.

The peak performance of cell processor was huge. It was even banned from exporting to certain countries, you know, because it was considered super computing might be used for some military usage or something. Yeah, however, it is so hard to program that I learned from our, you know, studio teams. That was scary, right? And the another thing was cost of goods. That, you know, we never announced and, but it was so, because the company built a factory to manufacture, you know, cell processor.

And the development of self-processor was a huge project, you know, with IBM and Toshiba was it, you know, like multiple companies, lots of people involved. So the development cost was huge and manufacturing investment was huge. And when I was talking with Ken and I explained the business model of sales processor was, so he was thinking beyond video game, right? He had a huge, beyond, huge vision that, yeah, people said he was competing with Intel at the time. So he said that we're going to build the, so, T.S3 would be huge.

And he said, we're going to build as big a new business, new business outside the video game based on self-processer. So that was his business plan. So when you hear that, what

would you think? Oh, okay. We have to build as big a new business out of this thing. Otherwise, we won't be able to recruit the investment. No big deal. That was scary.

Yeah. And of course that vision didn't happen, unfortunately. And then one of like the big parts of the PS4 was like, hey, it's not to sell. It's a PC. It'll work. Cerny out there trying to tell every developer to bring it. You know how to program. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. So the launch year and the second year after launch, the company made huge loss. Yeah, so I thought, you know, we would be over. We are over. But luckily, during these years, Sony's TV division had a huge hit with flat screen, big screen, CRT, not CRT, but called Vega series. Oh, yeah, we remember Vega. Yeah, yeah. So the Sony, parent company, made a lot of money to cover the loss from PS3.

so we survived. Was there ever a concern from you that you wouldn't, that PlayStation wouldn't survive that? Oh yeah, when I learned about the loss we are making, I was like, oh, we are finished. And so then, you know, PS3, I feel like Sony World Wide Studios, obviously in 2008, this is when you take over for the president role, but I feel like PS3 is really where that coalesces in,

becomes a thing where people really do think about what would become PlayStation Studios. We talk so much about first party and what people were making and all these different things. Like, was that because people now had to work so collaboratively because of the cell processor? You're saying it's so hard to make stuff for it. Were people having to share more stuff and did it feel like it was y'all against the world? So, Worldwide Studios formed in 2005. life. You know, that was Ken Kutaghi's creation, you know, Ken's vision.

Because the games are becoming larger in scope and we are divided, you know, three different companies within the company under Sony Computer Entertainment. Japan, US, and Europe have a totally different production teams and making games individually. And each of us, like a mid-sized, like a publisher. And he thought, Ken thought that it's about time to combine the all the resources together to create the global organization. So that was War I Studio. And luckily, because that happened and the PS3 was so challenging to work on, we leveraged the best of best, you know, technical expertise within the World War II. For example, like an engine program that NoddyDoc and Max Sunny created,

we provided, made that available for all the teams in VARWA studios to make games on PS3, to extract the performance necessary to make games on PS3. And eventually, because third party companies, publishers also struggled, we made these programs made available through our development portal to third-party companies as well. So under our studio, Phil Harrison, and I worked to make it so that the teams, let's, you know, collaborate, let's share the ideas and, you know, know, know, know, know, know how and even technologies tools together to learn from each other. So that's how I started the twice a year gathering of developers during GDC and the three time.

And Kaz Hirai succeeded Ken Kutaghi to be the head of PlayStation, and he wanted our studio teams to join the hardware development. So after Ken left, there are two new projects, PSVita and PS4. So I helped a hardware team to get MaxSafelma. I need to on board to become the chief architect of these hardware's, PSVita and PS4. And I moved to Japan, you know, Kaz asked me to move from the US to Japan because he wanted me to work closely with the hardware team. So while managing WARA Studio, a part of time I spend participating in hardware meetings like PSVita or PS4 meetings and every time the hardware team had a question, like there are lots of choices

they can make, you know, what kind of device or technology they should choose to include in the future platform hardware. They want to make the hardware best for the games. So they really appreciated me to connect the hardware team with the studios, like Santa Monica Studios, NordiDog, you know, Guerrilla Games, media molecule, whoever has a good idea on that particular technical topics that Hardware team had in question. So Hardware teams have created the prototype and provided to our studio teams and the VarroStudio teams created prototype games based on the prototype hardware and sent back to the hardware team. and we gather together and discussed.

And I invited the hardware team to join the, you know, studio gathering meeting during GDC and the E3 so that they can have one, you know, one, one, you know, face to face meeting to discuss these, you know, hardware specification discussions. And one great example, fruit of that effort is for PS4, you remember, Dual Shock 4 had the share button, right? Yeah, I've heard of it once in last.

Yeah. So the PS4 was the very first hardware, game hardware, too, that anyone can become a streamer. That idea came from Santa Monica Studios team. No way, really. They put together this presentation, Nathan Gary, who, you know, created Anapruna Interactive later and left Anapruna Interactive last year.

Yeah. So he put together a slide saying that now that YouTube, and Twitch are becoming popular. How about adding a dedicated button on controller so that anyone can just press the button and start streaming the games from PS4? So that the Hager team loved the idea and that became the chair button.

And it was a brilliant idea, right? I think it was one of those things that was ahead of its time. And now it's quaint because it's so easy to stream everything everywhere and everybody's doing it. But I remember like you think of what would go on to become kind of funny,

but me streaming on my personal personally YouTube, right, Game Over Gregi. And it was that idea of the hoops I had to jump through to make it work, but this was turnkey. Everybody could suddenly do it and try it and see if you liked it, right? Like, you could go live and get the two viewers you might get, but you'd know if it works and you'd be able to see if you enjoy doing it. Like, it was a brilliant maneuver.

And I think that comes from the collaboration you're talking about. And I'm glad it works so well for PlayStation 4, but I need to ask, why didn't it work for Vita? Shoo, where did we go wrong with PlayStation Vita? You and I love the Vita. You know we love it. What happened? Yeah. Well, yeah.

There are, you know, multiple reasons, right, why Vita didn't work. Well, you know, it worked in a way that people love playing games, especially, you know, indie games on PSVita, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was lovely hardware. You know, I loved it.

And people loved it. Geocosso loved it, you know, almost too much, right? Yeah, of course. to the chagrin when PlayStation wanted to stop talking about Vita Gio and you would not let them stop talking about Vita

Yeah absolutely I remember you and calling already doing trying to help Vita like a Vita island Right You even try to recycle people who stop playing PSVita you know send us

so that I can provide The Vita Relocation Program Never forget Yeah A video we tried to We tried to debut that During our We did a PSX panel

We did a beyond panel for PSX every year. And we tried to debut that video. Maybe it was PSI Love You even at this point. It might be PSI love you. It doesn't matter. We tried to debut the video at the relocation thing at PSX. And PlayStation PR called me the night before. And they're like, we're not going to, we're not going to, no, we're not showing this video where you're talking about the platform being dead and that people should send it into you to give it away.

I digress. Where did we go wrong? Was it the back touch? It was the touchscreen. So in a positive side, you know, when PSVita started, you know, Marks-Earney got brought on and our team started joining and the original idea for the SOC, the core processor, was a different one. And that was going to be a failure from our team's standpoint and Mark Sarni. So we are able to convince the team to change the main processor.

So that was a very fast contribution. And, you know, we did a lot of, you know, conversations discussions and the making prototype and the several technical choices we as a company made didn't really was a good one the you know one of which was the like a dedicated memory card right yeah proprietary yeah proprietary yeah proprietary yeah, pro-priety memory card. That was a mistake. You know, people had to spend more money to get the memory card.

Yeah. And the, you know, back touch was not necessary. Right? It was, you know, sometimes the teams made amazing prototype. That feels so good. And that misled everyone involved

that, oh, this would be great, but the back touch was not. It added additional cost to the hardware. I think Allend was okay. It was such a beautiful screen. It was such an amazing, but the cost was higher.

So I'm talking about the cost. And the one feature, the hardware team had it, you know, in the development hardware, like a dev kit for VETA, you know, the same kind of unit, but it had a video out so that, you know, developer can connect to screen, like, you know, monitors and develop games on. And somehow, you know, a hundred team decided to take the feature out from the consumer, I mean. Who would want a handheld that you could also play on the TV?

It just doesn't make sense, you. It just really wants that. Really bad idea, right? So, hardware team removed that feature. just to save a few cents of cost from the hardier. So that was not. But I think the biggest reason, in my mind, it's not a popular kind of thinking. But I think the biggest reason for Vita didn't do as well as we had hoped

was we had to split all our efforts, resources into two different platforms. And company didn't, we didn't have that resource. So, you know, PS3 and PSVita or PS4 and PSVita, you know, Studio had to decide which team to work on which. And we didn't have that big talent pool to be able to support two different platforms. And of course, you know, console is the biggest platform. we had to support PS3 and the launch of PS4, really we had to stop many projects from Vida because we didn't have a team to make PS4 games.

So otherwise, so I think that's the biggest reason. And I think, you know, this is another personal thinking. One of the reasons of the big success of Nintendo Switch is they stopped, you know, working on two different platforms. They always have, you know, console and the handheld, right? And it's like

an opposite of us. Nintendo did very well on handheld, but not so well on the console. So it was different from our side, but Nintendo Switch, all first party just worked on just one hardware, right?

So that, I think, really helped. Oh, 100% right. Yeah, I think. So I think that's the biggest reason. Was there, and when you see the Switch and you understand what they're doing with, and this is obviously a debut I'm talking about, had there

ever been even an inkling of a conversation on PlayStation's side of like, what if we did that? Or was it, I mean, it was just, oh, well, we'll make the Vita, we make the console. We make a handheld, we make a console. Like, was there ever even a conversation in a, you know, brainstorm of like, what if we just did one? Um,

when I saw Nintendo Stitch, I thought, oh, this is, PSVita 2. And it is. And now the Steam Dexter 3. How great to play indie games on, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's an amazing system for indie games.

But in terms of if a company thought about making a system like that, I don't think so. Because PlayStation, we legacy was to provide the cutting-edge great hardware, performance hardware, at a very affordable, you know, price and make the never seem before amazing, you know, especially graphics games on console.

So that is, you know, a legacy. So moving from PS3 generation to PS4 generation, actually, PS4 was designed alongside the PSBDA. So, yeah, so PS4 is already in the making. So after PS4, again, you know, this was so successful. It's just natural to create a new hardware that's backward compatible with PS4, right? That's the extension or in expansion of PS4. So that was PS5.

So then, before we move out of our handheld dreams here, and we talk of all this stuff, talk to me about then, and you're at this point, obviously, over in the indie role, but you're still at PlayStation, were they shocked to find out we all wanted a PlayStation portal? Like, when that drops, I know there's been, you know, it outsold, it did more than what people thought it was going to do. Were you like, see, this is what I'm talking about?

People want to hold their games. Maybe Nishino's son would say that. When I learned about the PS portal, I was like, who'd want this hardware, you know, just doing remote play, right? Yeah, so I remember saying to, the hardware team, the only way the PS portal would be successful would be if we sell this at $199. That's the only, only way. And they did it, not because I said that, but probably they had the same kind of thinking. At the launch, you know, the, we, you know, how they didn't have the

streaming capability, even though it was like a technically possible, but they are not able to have it ready for the launch. So the only function that PSPorto had was to play your games on your, you know, PS5, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's just a peripheral. So I didn't think people would spend more than, you know, $200 for a device like that. But, you know, luckily the company put that price and the people found out how nice it is.

to play games. It's a huge 8-8-8-8-8-screen. It's kind of light, right? Because it doesn't have, you know, big CPU or anything. And it has the real, real-sense features in it. So, yeah, yeah. So we are all surprised how well it was received and how well it sold.

So now that you're out, you have all this industry knowledge. Obviously, this industry history, you understand it. Now that you're out, Do you think we ever see PlayStation enter again the handheld market, like in terms of like the successive portal, the learnings of Vita, seeing Steam Deck, seeing Switch, hearing about Xbox and they're rumored handheld? Yeah, yeah. So personally, you know, for the last three or four years, the hardware gadget category

I've been mostly excited with, I might have talked to you about this, is the portable gaming PC category. That's, you know, so I purchased like NPD GPD is a great company from China. They make amazing portable gaming PC. How they are GPD

Max, Wing Max 2. GPD Wing Convention. No, no, you're right. The naming conventions. Yeah, the cramshell version of GPD Wing too is so good.

and also AIA is another company who create a beautiful hardware and the latest that I enjoy using the Aiono Pocket S. It's not PC, but it's an Android device with two, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the GPD win to, you know. If you're an audio listener, this is a laptop. It's a laptop that has dual sticks to the top and a deep ad.

Yeah. And then the Aionio Pocket S is an Android device with two analog sticks and all the gaming buttons. And that played beautifully these, you know, recent mobile games. Some games are real action games, right? Yeah. And yeah, so this Android device plays game, games so well. So that's the, you know, the category I buy, you know, one or two new hardware every year these days. So of course, I'm so excited if a PlayStation in the future makes something like this.

However, personally, you know, because I said company, you know, even now PlayStation is much bigger than, you know, P.F3 days, but I don't think it's a good idea to try to manage two different platforms, like PS4. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I think. learned their lesson on that and saw the success now of Switch and that's where they want to go. Shue Hey, I have so many more questions for you. I have so many super chats for you, but I feel like it's about time to say, hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this show, what, what? What did you say, Shoe?

Oh, no, no, no. I thought you're saying we are going to be finished. Oh, hell no. I'm not letting you out of here. I told Jen, I'm going to be home late. We're going to go longer. I'm just going to go to the ads here. Everybody, if you like what you're seeing here, remember, we're a small 11-person business,

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And we're back still here with unemployed Shuhay Yoshida out free 31 years gone. We're pivoting off of handhelds. We're talking about, you know, the future of PlayStation, the future of video games, all these different things. Now that you're out and can talk freely,

what's your take on Xbox? Especially right now with everything's an Xbox, your screen's an Xbox, those headphones are on Xbox. It's very different than what you all had been doing at PlayStation. What do you think of it? well I have to be very careful right because ex-bust fans are so passionate

right there's so few of them though really it's just snowbike Mike and Ryan McCaffrey I think you're going to be okay no I'm kidding well yeah well with all respect you know they in my mind Xbox teams have done you know many times like some pioneering things something you know ahead of everyone so that's always great. And it's, you know, for any industry, having a competition is always healthy. You know, because we have to work harder, right? So having, you know, yeah, Nintendo does something

different, right? Yes. So it's great to have Nintendo for different reasons. You know, they train young children how to use controllers and play games and become video game fans and send fans over to us. Like, you know, PlayStation or X. That's the minor leagues, you guys. You guys, the major leagues of PlayStation. No, no, no, no, no. The generation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, Xbox and PlayStation was always head to head, right? So they did so well is Xbox 360 and, you know, we did well on other, you know, generations. So it's always great to have competition and because of Xbox, you know, we have to be a honest and humble and be always alerted and sometimes get inspiration from what we do. So yeah, yeah. So I think it's great, great, great rival to have.

Do you like this idea? As PlayStation consoles, this is the whole thing. We believe in generations. Do you see their play right now of being everywhere, being a box, being an app, being this, being on a phone, being the cloud. Like, do you look at that and go, I believe that'll work?

Or do you think that that's a thing to take, but the safe spot is doing consoles? Well, yeah. Well, in my mind, clearly, that's what they've been saying, right? They've been saying for years. Of course. And this new campaign is a different way

of them saying the same thing. Because Microsoft is a software company and now, you know, server-based. service company. I think it's natural for their like a DNA to think about providing services, you know, through cloud or, you know, to any hardware or platform. Like they made the Microsoft office available on Macintosh, right? Or the mobile or, you know, I think that's, personally, I think that's the kind of same kind of thinking.

Okay, okay. And you're okay with it. You like it. Do you like it or not like it? Do you like it or not like it? Well, if I like it or not, you know, I like what they are doing. Okay, okay, that's fair. I stop there.

Okay. And I respect that. I respect that. Thank you, putting an end to the question right there. I appreciate that a lot. In the other sense of like now that you're out, and especially after I think you switched over to the indie side, right, leaving RollaS Studios and going to do the indie side of all of this.

When you look at the industry as a whole right now, where are you? I think there's so much conversation this year and last year about layoffs, studio closures. There's been so much conversations about this race to find the next fortnight. Everything has to be a games as a service. Obviously Concord this year. Are you bullish on where we're going? Do you think in general the industry's lost its way and needs to get back to it? Where are you with that conversation that you've heard?

me and Blessing and Tim talk so much about on Games Daily. Well, yeah. So, you know, it's great to do challenge on something that's really difficult, right? Yeah. You know, go for, you know, go for big, you know, go big or go home kind of thing. When I was managing first party, you know, I was managing, you know, of course, like business. So, you know, we spend this much money. We have to deliver this, you know, this many, you know, this many much revenue, et cetera. Sure. In my mind, as you remember,

after we worked so hard on PS2 days and PS3 days, like a SORCOM or kill zone or the distance, you know, you know, these shooters, you know, there came Coral Duty and huge successful franchises. And in my mind, you know, working on, you know, these service games is a winner takes it all kind of, you know, like a network effect kind of thing, right? And working on only one platform to try to compete in that is, you know, putting ourselves already on this advantage, whoever who tried to do that. And also, you know,

this game called Judy was available on PlayStation. Yeah. So I didn't think, I think it's wise for me to allocate resources to try to compete in that genre. So, you know, yeah, so we stopped making these online service games. Which always made so much, to pause you, always made so much sense to me. And granted, you know, like you and your reign as the president of Rural Live Studios, it lines up so perfectly with me entering IGN, taking over the PlayStation team beyond PSI Love You, etc. like I never understood somebody who loved Killzone 2 and played so much

online like I knew it was a small community compared to Call of Duty and the fact that that juggernaut just kept rolling and rolling and rolling I always thought it was smart that PlayStation and I know that pisses off the resistance fans and the Killzone fans but I always thought it was smart that they backed off you guys backed

off and said you know third party can run that they can go do that we don't need to make our own shooter we don't need make our own thing which is why I was like so perplexed when this time around there was the Jim Ryan were doing more than a dozen live services. And I'm like, well, they can't all be shooters, but then it was fair games and Concord and Marathon and the Hell Divers, but shout out to Hell Divers.

You know what's up with that. Like, it's just been an interesting pivot. And I wonder, yeah, for you, with your eyes on the entire industry, did it make sense to you? Oh, yeah. So for me, like I was saying, I was managing this budget, right, on your budget. And I was responsible to allocate resources to, you know, money to. what kind of games to make. If, you know, the company was considering that way,

probably didn't, wouldn't have made sense to stop making great, you know, like another God of War or whatever, like a single player game and put all the money into these service games. However, what they did after I moved on and Harmon took over is company and Sony gave, added a lot more resources.

They are like a day. I don't think they told, they said to Harmon that stop making this single player game. They said, oh, yeah, these games are great. Just continue doing that. And we give you additional resource to work on these, you know, service games and try it. Right? Yeah. And I'm sure they knew it's risky. It's not the chance of a game successful in that, in this hugely competitive genre would be small. However, you know, company knowing that risk, gave power one resource and chance and, you know, try it. I think that's the way they did it.

So in my mind, oh, wow, that's great. And hopefully, you know, some games will become successful. And luckily, you know, Hell divers did so well. Sure did it. No one have expected, right? Yeah, of course. So you cannot plan a success in this industry. That's the most fun part.

That's the fun part. That's the fun part. That's the most fun part of this business, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I, you know, I hope, you know, this strategy would work in the end. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah. How jealous were you, though? That Herman takes control. Herman takes control. They give them all this resource and money to go make this second thing. You're in there. You're trying to make the VTA happen, but you got to split teams.

They're not giving you more studios to make Vita games. I digress. I thought if I was in the position of the Harmon, probably I would try to resist that in direction. So probably maybe that's one of the reasons they removed me from the first party. She was going to be a problem. She was going to be a problem for a life service place. She won't want to do it.

Get them out. Move it over there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk to me about that. What was the conversation? What was your reaction when it was? you've done, you've been Sony Worldwide Studios present for this many years, right? 2008 to 2019?

Yeah, 11 years. Yeah. And now we don't want you to do that anymore. Was that a shock to you? Were you upset? I, well, on one hand, I was enjoying what I was doing. Sure. You know, yeah, we had such a great talent in the organization.

We have so many great games and IPs to work on. I totally enjoyed working on first-party game development. And in my mind, I didn't have any interest to work in the company other than game development after so many years. Sure. But when Jim offered me this idea to do something on Indies, like he was like, at that time, we as a company was criticized not supporting Indies, enough like launch of p s four days adam boys days you know we are helping and promoting indigames

so well and people loved it and the industry loved it and i i love what adam's team was doing geocose and you know nick satna and all these people uh john drake and you know shon benson we don't compliment john drake we don't compliment john drake yeah well john was an interesting But anyway. Stop. What does that mean? What does that mean? Java's an interesting person.

What does that mean? I wouldn't say a particular title, but when we launched the first 30-year-game, the game didn't get the good poor. He came to my office and said, sure, you should, you know, you should shut down this studio. That's what he said. Cold-blooded. Cold-blooded. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he, I always teased him.

team saying that he for him anyone he he's always the smartest person in the in the room yeah so he it's very hard for him to not to kind of shut down other people gotcha got yeah yeah well yeah yeah I love working with John so you know sorry John to share that episode I'm sure Anyway, what we are talking about, I thought about indie. Yeah, yeah, so when Jim offered me, so because the company was criticized, and I was very worried about the trend as well, how we are being seen. So when Jim said, you know, you know, sure, you know, we've been criticized, you know, we are not doing enough for Indies.

And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, Jim, you should do something about it. And Jim said that, no, no, no, I want you to do something about it. Me? And he said, oh, and, you know, I get Herman to manage the first party. And I'm like, oh, okay. Like, okay, demotion. Great. Cool.

I didn't think it was demotion. Yeah. I thought, you know, it's, it's something I cared about. And I thought I could uniquely do something about. Like, yeah. So after 11 years managing World Wide Studios, even though I enjoyed and I was proud of what we have accomplished, you know, leading the group with by the same person for such a long time might not be a great thing. Like, you know, talking about service games, you know. Because I had one way of thinking and looking at games, certain things, I don't interest.

I wouldn't even try. I totally was not interested in movies being made based on our game IP. So, you know, film industry, you know, looked down on us, and they didn't respect the, you know, creative aspect of the video games. And they would make, you know, very bad movies if they try. So I had no interest. But after I left, look at all these great, you know, movies and TV shows, made.

Right? Yeah. So with, you know, energy and passion, because I got the present at World War II studio job in early 40s,

like the same age as like Herman got. So I thought it's great to bring in new person with renewed energy and passion and different

way of thinking. For sure. And guts to challenge something even seem difficult. So, you know,

even though I was sad to move on from first party, you know, part of me are thinking maybe it's a good thing for the company. You know, because if company let me, because I have continued, right? Yeah, yeah, he just kept going. Yeah, so it has to be, you know,

made like that for me to move on. And Jim created really exciting. and a role for me to work on. So then when you come into this indie role, what do you bring to the table? I think people see you so much publicly as, okay, you're changing your Twitter banner, you're tweeting about this indie you saw, it's cool.

What is the actual job look like? Like, what were you doing day to day? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was at the time, you know, end of 2019 and 2020, you know, COVID happened, right? I didn't remember. Yeah, yeah. Plan was, of course, to visit, you know, developers, publishers and visit events

and the checkout games. And now that was possible, right? And COVID. So my focus, initial focus was more on working internally to find out what's going on. You know, what the leaders of different departments. Because I was one person department reporting to Jim Ryan, I was able to work with any, you know, all department, like very flatly.

For them, you know, it's very easy for them to work with me as well. I was additional resource and to find out, you know, what's going on. And of course, you know, I talked to publishers and friendly developers as well, you know, what their views on us. And our third party department did the same. You know, they were working, already working on what internally we call the Indy 2.0 initiative before I got assigned. Maybe, you know, they asked Jim Ryan to add me to that project, you know, from TPR, third party department teams because they're working on Indy 2.0 internally and maybe Jim Ryan saw the opportunity

to add me to their efforts. So quickly, I started working closely on with the third party department teams who were working on in the 2.0 initiative. And luckily, I got the message from Greg Rice. They just saw their company double-fying to Microsoft. And as Greg was managing publishing business for double-fying Microsoft has decided to shut down the business, he kind of lost, you know, his, his role, half of his responsibility. He was the producer as well, but he asked me, you know, there's a role,

you know, being open at PlayStation about this leading in the account management team. Can you say something good about me? So I sent an email internally to the management people in third-party the reaction that you should hire this guy, Greg Rice. So Greg joined about the same time as I got this new role. And the same time, Christian Benson came over from, you know, he, I've known him for a long time. He was head of Capcombe US and he had his own, you know, developing, developer business, joined us as well in the TPR side. So I had two great partners to work on this initiative.

And the TPR team had a great network of publishers and developers. They were talking throughout the year. So I was able to join them in the meeting and got direct feedback from these partners over us. So internally, trying to find out what we had to do. we had to do, we need to do what the developers and publishers are struggling with working on PlayStation and try to change it, you know, create a plan and get the management of these departments to be able to support the initiative and give priority to create tools and some systems and policies change to help indie games become more successful on PlayStation. So the first two years during

COVID. My focus was more on the internal evangelism. Sure, sure, sure, sure. And after COVID, you know, it's all about traveling. I visited the 21 game event last year. How many? 21 game event. Yeah, yeah. So almost two per month.

So I counted because I have to do for tax return. I was outside Japan 120 days last year. Yeah, so for the last three years, I was traveling in visiting game events and meeting with publishers and developers to find out great new games and promote games on social channel and my channel. And attend events and do presentations and do panels. of developers. I really love doing these things at GDC. I think it's a GDC last year. I have four young developers in my channel and that was one of the sponsors sessions in GDC in a huge, in a large

room, a full of people attending. I had two developers in their twenties and all of them working on very, very creative, great games, so they had great stories to tell. So we did, you know, I did that panel. And after the GDC, they send us, like, report card scores after a few months. And our session, my session was second most popular session on the game design track.

Very good. Who was number one? Yeah, very proud. I don't know. Yeah, we don't know. They don't get their own interview here. They don't matter. It doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so I've been doing that kind of thing. You're on the road that much. What's the family think? You got twin daughters at home. Are they, are they, where you at, Dad? Are they happy to see you gone? My wife is very happy. It's one less thing to worry about, you know,

she has, you know, we have two daughters, you know, twin daughters. And my daughters, because they've been seeing me, side out of, you know, Japan for so long, you know, for them, it's kind of natural thing. Sure, sure. It's going to be weirder now that you're, you don't have a job in your home more. I don't know if they understand what it means.

I got, Dad's here and he's doing a podcast in the other room. Why does he keep saying beyond so much? I don't like that one, but so you go to this role, you start making these inroads for Indies, you're changing all the stuff. Why is now the time to step away? Like, why leave PlayStation now? Yeah, so after five years, we have made good progress on this indie side. You know, there are so much more we can do and we are working on. All the departments are going on.

But we hear less and less, you know, problems from partners, developers and publishers. Of course, you know, there are so many games being made. The discoverability is the biggest challenge for any. you know, indie developers or publishers to get their games being known or seen. So, you know, we are working on, you know, how best to, like a show the kind of games that for each person player, the kind of game that each player would find it most attractive, even though they don't know nothing about these games. Yeah. So, so there, a lot more we can do and we are working on.

But the progress we have made for the last five years, I'm pretty happy and proud and the team that we have in the company, you know, Sean Benson and these people, John Vega, and, you know, great people working on indie staff across the company. And, you know, Jim Ryan was leaving. And he was the very last of our generation, The very first generation with PlayStation, he's been with the company. He had been with the company from PS1 days as well.

So, you know, Ken Kutaragi, Kazirai, Andrew House, you know, Tim Ryan, all these people while managing the company, leading the company, is now, you know, handing buttons to the next generation of management, Nicod San and Harmon. And Nicholson is in his 40s. And Harmon is, you know, early 50s. Really, really young from our standpoint. So it's a great timing. And I, you know, after Jim Ryan announced his departure,

I was, you know, we are all talking about internally who would be the next leader. We sold the T-shirt, we were behind you. We sold the T-shirt with your name on it. Thank you, thank you. I got the T-shirts. But my choice would have been, you know, these people, if they're two leaders.

So I am so happy. And I have so much confidence in them leading the company. So I thought, yeah, it's about time for me to be free. So then what does that mean? Are you retiring from games? Are you just hanging it all up and going fishing? What are you going to do? In my mind, the last five years, even though I did things,

I was kind of you know the leading first party was a very tough job right it was really fun and I enjoyed it but it was so much pressure and responsibility but the last five years so

so easy for me comparatively no one to manage no one to manage no budget or nothing right no meeting i have to attend or you know jim ryan just let me do whatever i i thought i should be doing so i didn't have to report anything so easy that the um um in my mind moving from um warrwai studio to indie role it may sound sound strange but feels bigger change than me leaving the company and whatever I do going forward.

Because I want to continue to, in some way or other, help in the developers or in the publishers. And there are so many friendly people that I respect in the industry. I hope they would want me to do something for them. Yeah, I'll be free, so let me know what I can do for you. So I'll be waiting for them to send me email that, hey, shoot, can you do this for us? Okay, okay. And if that's successful,

probably what I'll be doing going forward wouldn't be so much different from the last five years in my mind. Sure. That may sound strange. No, it makes sense. Illusionary, right? I'm just happy you're saying in games.

I wanted to make sure you weren't hanging it all up. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have, I still have lots of energy. Okay, good. I have time. And lucky, company paid me so well for the last so many years that I don't really have to work for money. Wow. Yeah.

Shoo, if you don't want to work for money, I got a company for you called Kind of Funny. Come do shoe streams. Come hang out with us. Because we don't pay nothing. Let me know what I can do for you. We'll talk off air. We'll get you a show. We'll get you streaming.

Well, you can be the late night crew when we're going away. You're streaming for us. Shoes picks. Here's the Indies games he thinks you should be playing. Yeah, yeah. Well, I do only things I find it fun. So, yeah. That kind of things.

That kind of things. Good. I'm glad. Shue, like I said earlier, you have been getting tons and tons of super chats here over on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. I want to start wading into them. Pepper in some of my own questions.

But the one I've seen in chat a lot from a lot of different people. And then the one I see over here speaks to something I know you love. saneu.com says will we ever see Bloodbourne again? Oh, yeah. You'd won, right? We'd want it. So Bloodbone is one of the most popular

us on my Twitter X channel. People write, you know, other popular things in Lucky is one of my games. You know, if they stay where's a sequel or Legend of Dragoon, you know, where's remake or something. But Bradbone has always been

the most asked thing. And the people wonder why we haven't really done anything. Like even like update Yeah. Yeah.

Or remaster. Yeah. Or remaster. Yeah, it should be easy, right? Yeah, super easy. Hit the button. Known for doing so many remasters, right? Some people get

frustrated. Screw. Well, you know, I have only my personal theory to that situation. I, you know, I left first party, so I don't know what's going on. No, my theory, my theory is, you know, because I remember, you know,

Miyazaki-san really, really loved bloodbom, you know, what he created. And so I think he is interested, but he's so successful and he's so busy. So he doesn't want, he cannot do himself, but he doesn't want, he cannot do himself, but he doesn't want anyone else to touch it. So that's my theory. Okay. And the PlayStation team respect his wish.

So that's my guess, right, theory. I'm not revealing any secret information. To be clear. Hopefully, Jordan Midler will still make an article about it, but I understand you're not revealing anything. To take that in a different direction and pull a thread you just put out there, you talk about PlayStation respecting the creator,

enough not just to go make someone else make it or stuff like that. How much is respect in the conversation when PlayStation is making games? Because I think all the time of like, I feel like even when you were in charge, it would have been your prerogative to tell Noddy Dog, don't worry about the last of us. Keep making uncharted. Or don't worry about going back to Uncharted. Keep making last of us. Like where, because you worry about the business point because you are a business.

It is a business to make video games. but then there is the art. Like, how do you find a balance between that? How much of that exists where it is? Okay, we're not, and I know there's so many people who want to be negative in comments, I'm sure. We're not just money grubbing here. We are trying to make the right choices for our creators.

How does that all play out in your mind? Well, I think I'm one of these people in the industry who are so naive to believe that, you know, Develop a creator has to really, really believe in something they are making and has to be so passionate about something they are making to make something great. Because making games so hard and there's no clear way of saying this is good or this is good in us. There's no like a service level agreement that you have to, the game has to satisfy these functions to be able to be accepted. or anything. It's all subjective

judgment, right? How good is good. How good is good enough. So teams go well beyond their limit to make something special

if they truly believing what they are making and doing and passionate about. So So oftentimes, you know, we had, we management had to make the studio stop making the game because the game is, you know, in our mind, great enough, not just good enough, great, great enough. But every time great game, like a game of the year, receiving game was in development. The developers, you know, game directors and these people would say, there are so many.

issues in the game. They wish they can fix them or improve them, right? So we have to remove them from doing it. So at the very very end, we always had to do it. But during

the development, you know, I always believe in the thing that I said that the, you know, best results, best game would be like I was thinking all the way how the great games are being made and how you know people make great games and i want the answer should be you know because

the uh developer is so so much you know into the uh project uh they they do amazing things so i love that i want to pepper in one of my own here uh you of course have been a kind of funny beyond IGN listener for quite some time. As long as I've known you, it's how he became friends. You listen and can you listen to every games daily. You tell me, that's what you told me, right? You listen to games daily regularly every day? Well, yeah, when I commute.

Yeah. Oh, so now you're done. Now it's over. You're canceled on your Patreon. Yeah, yeah. Maybe I stop listening. No, no, no. My question is from our side, if you want to call it,

press, critics, enthusiasts, whatever, what's the biggest misconception you hear us say over and over again? What do you hear us say or go back to and be like, oh, that's just not how it works. They don't understand games that way. That's a great question because I do feel occasionally like that. But the particular example, that just doesn't come up. I have to think about.

Think about it. We got three hours of show left. You can think about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had asked that question. Because I wonder to toss it in the hopper for you to think about as it kicks around. Fans as well. Like I know there's a difference between the people to talk about in the games and then the people consuming it.

But like you interact so much with Twitter and what you see on social media. And like even when there was, even when there was PSX and there should be PSX again, you interacted. I wonder what you think fans get wrong as well that they just don't understand about making games. Oh, like, you know, I talked about, you know, I just. joked about Harmon sometimes criticize of making too many too many

remasters. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think the people who complain about that are maybe thinking that Harma is doing it

instead of doing something new or something great. Right. Yeah, but those resources are going to a remaster instead of the next IP from Sony Ben,

or whatever. Yeah, but I'm sure this remake is made you know, by a dedicated different team or some, you know, some porting teams on, especially PC version. For sure. He's a PC porting expert.

So, so he's, I don't think he's sacrificing anything by doing it. But by doing remake or remaster, it's much cheaper to produce and create additional revenue and create new users to the, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, uh, create additional revenue and create new users to the, um, um, IP, especially when you port the game to PC. Sure. So that bringing revenues enough to keep investing in big title, like a big single player games now cost so much. So, you know, they need additional income by doing remasters and porting to PC to be able to do that.

So for them, if they like first body's output, like a big single player game they should support Harmon doing these voting and remasters so that he can keep investing in these great new games

that's a great point you bring up the PC ports now that you're out now that you can say whatever you think do you think we ever see a future in the near future whatever of PlayStation just being a publisher

not having boxes just putting things on the PC? I think PlayStation makes great hardware. So, you know, one thing, I really, really enjoyed, you know, working with the hardware team when I moved back to Japan in 2008, and ever since I worked closely with the hardware team, and I enjoyed so much because, you know, our studios, many of them, I shouldn't say many,

of them, all of them, hopefully, are such talented in great teams, studios that they only try to make the best game in the industry, right? They really aim high, and the PlayStation the hardware team is the same. They only think about the best hardware in the industry they want to make something innovative, something that's never been done. You know, something like the trigger on the DIRSense. Sure. Adaptive Trigger. That's amazing, isn't it? Yeah.

You know, when you feel it for the first time, that was very difficult to produce. But actually, the other team tried to make it for Dior Shock 4, and they are not able to do it. So it's their second trial for Dior. sense. And yeah, so working with teams like that, only thinking about creating something innovative, something never been done or some best in the industry is so much fun. You know, so for me, working with hardware team and working with the studios, Fathberti Studios, the same, because we are in such a blessed environment that the company let us aim for the best. That's great. This is a nice question from Ian who superchats on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. It piggybacks on this conversation.

What's your favorite memory throughout your years working with PlayStation? Yeah, that's a great question. And people ask me that. And I always answer the biggest, you know, memory for me is when we launched the very first PlayStation in Japan. Yeah. The December 3rd, you know, 1994. because it was our first entry into the business and it was, you know, Ken Kudaragi's team made amazing hardware, 3D graphics and the ridge racer looked so good. But we didn't know how it will be received.

And so we, at the launch of the new hardware, we always go to Shinjuku or Akihabara or Shibuya or Shibuya, big you know electronic store to watch people lining up right long line of people waiting for the store to open so that they can purchase the hardware on lunch day so we stood there for hours just watching people one by one purchase and a couple games together and they look so happy we wanted to talk to them everyone but we refrain ourselves from doing it Yeah, so every time new hardware around, it was really fun. But especially the very first one, because it was our child, right? Yeah.

We worked so hard. We are like a small team. When we started the company, we had only 80 plus people. I was like employee number 32. So it was such a special moment, special day for us all at that, you know, at that time. the PlayStation. Have you thought about if you're going to be able to deal with when there is a PlayStation 6 or whatever they call it and you're on the outside, like you're not, you know, you're not

at the store, you're not, or if you are, it's not yours anymore, right? Have you thought about that? Are you okay with that? Well, I'm not okay if there's no PlayStation new hardware. Yeah, you know, so company is so nice. you know, they or people there were so nice to set up multiple events for the last couple of months to talk to people in the company, not just in Japan or the US and Europe as well. So for the last two or three months, I had the opportunity three or four times to talk to employees in a gathering,

one which was like two days ago, the last day of my, you know, my departure, last day of my company. company, in the late afternoon, they had inside company gathering and asked me anything kind of sessions. And so I did that. And after that, we had a party in the office and it was really fun. So one of the things, you know, I said to, I asked them is, I, you know, in 20 years, hopefully I would have grandchildren and when I was dying

I could say to my grandchildren that the yeah yeah that was the amazing cake amazing cake thank you thank you yeah I could say that to my grandchildren

that you know the PlayStation that everybody plays and enjoy I was involved in the making that you know the very first one so I want to brag about when I'm dying.

So, ask what an aspiration. To keep working out, do PlayStation great. So that I'll be happy. CJ splits on Superchats and says, what's your favorite project you were a part of at PlayStation? Favorite project.

Because CJ tosses out Legend of Dragoon. Personally, the one I most enjoyed, working on was Apescape. Legend of Dragoon was a huge project. We had over 100 people working internally on PS1.

That was really hard. But Apescape was much smaller team, you know, 20 or 30, 25 people. And I was so involved in the game design side as well. Every creative decisions I was also

part of. And we are making a game dedicated for the Dioraz shock. The controller had two analog sticks. And so we are trying to make something that's only possible with two analog sticks. And I remember, you know, U.S. marketing lead asking me that,

well, you know, this game requires Diels shock. So can you make it compatible with the controller? I was so mad that, you know, no, no, no, this is not the point. Anyway, So Apescape was a project. I was personally on fans on and most enjoy it.

And people will continue to ask for the rest of time when they're getting another one or when they're getting the remaster or whatever. That's amazing, isn't it? The game was part of launching PlayStation Classics in the PS Plus premium a couple of years ago. And somehow the company decided, the team decided to promote the new feature with Episcape. After so many years, you know,

I found my game being used to promote a new service and finding new players to try Episcope for the first time. The Uncharted Wolf Superchast and says,

I have so much respect for your many years of hard work at PlayStation Shue. Have you ever met a game developer who inspired you to do bigger things? Any developer who inspired me

to do better? To be better? bigger things. I think, yeah, like, maybe, you know, make a bigger version. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so. I was so lucky that first projects, two projects I worked on was for Crash Bandico and Grand Tourismo, right? Yeah. And the people like Marksani, Noddy Dog, Kassonori, Yamage, they, they're amazing.

People, they have such a creative ideas and experience and vision. I was so inspired working with these people, and they are very demanding because they knew they were making great games, so they wanted everyone who touched their games, from production to marketing to service to, you know. So it was really hard, but that really helped me to grow as a producer. You talked about crash, Kabab Superchats, and says, as a huge crash and ratchet fan,

I'd be remiss not to ask you to ask how you helped and influenced to those games. Love you, Shue, you're such a bright star in gaming. Thank you, thank you. Crash Bandico, because the game, the first game

was pretty difficult one. You remember, right? It was very challenging. Oh, yeah. Action platformer. So when I got involved as a producer for Japanese market, I felt the game was too hard.

And the game didn't explain enough to the onboarding wasn't good enough for the Japanese audience. It was okay, no problem for the probably Western audience to, they are happy to find out, you know, how to play games. However, Japanese games and Japanese game players are so used to being, like, you know, hand-holded to start games. So I talked to Mark and the Noddy Dog, and they didn't have time to implement these features for the U.S. and European launch, but they gave their time and resource to do something special for the Japanese version. because the game came out in September for the US, and Japan lunch was planned for December, because December was the most important month for Japanese market.

So they had three months to do things that I asked them to do. So when you pick up Aqak Max, right, the mark created the system that for the Japanese version only, you know, when you pick up the mac-ac-ac-ac-ac-ac-ac-ac has a, you know, has a window to talk about how to play games every time, you know. That's one example, and they also allowed me to do the playtest with users and find the difficult point in the game, and many people would have stopped playing. they gave us two to add like a continue box so only Japanese version had additional continue box

and Mark and Nodidog also had a system to look how the players are doing and dynamically change the difficulty of the game if you are struggling struggling too much and try not to be obvious that the game is doing it. So they customized the game so much for the Japanese version, and the game became a hit in Japan, that marketing activity in Japan was also great as well.

So they first, they let us do that. They customized their game for the Japanese audience, and they took all the improvement that they made into their future titles. Sure. For example, second game, Japanese marketing team created TV commercial with the Crash Bandico dancing, you know, Crash Dance.

Yeah. And if you remember the Crash 3 at the opening, Crash Start Dancing, right? Yeah. They took the dance that Crash did only for the TV commercial in the marketing and put that into the game. So that was really fun collaboration.

between the Japan team and the Norilo and Marksani. That's incredible. CJ splits on back with a different one and says, what did you originally dislike about God of War 2018? Remember this? That video, right? A classic story where Corey Barlog talks about how you said you were horrified to someone after you play. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was horrified because the game was huge, right?

And we have so much expectation as a company as well. And when I visited San Monica Studios, you know, Corey presented the game and let me play the game. And I, and at that time, the game was coming out the October of that year or so. And so I was like thinking about how many more months the team has and the state of the game. And I was like, this is, this is bad, you know, in terms of situation. You know, this game would never be finishing good state if we kept the schedule. So, but Corey was so passionate and he's such a nice guy. I couldn't tell him, even though my face was saying something.

So I walked back into Shannon Statsy's, you know, studio director's office and said to Shannon, Shannon, we have a problem. And but so, so, you know, so I explained the things to Shannon. And but that the, I had a chance to talk to Corey the other later and I said, you know, I was horrified, you know, playing the game. But in the end, we are able to move, give the project additional maybe six months or so.

The game came out in April or June. the year after to make the game that was World War 2018. So like a game of the year quality. For sure. So I was so happy that, you know, team

pushed to keep working on to polish the game. Yeah, yeah. So what does the problem? The game had some, you know, frame rate issues and also the camera issues and the AI enemies shooting at me from outside the view

or, you know, yeah, the gameplay wasn't, you know, really hope not. So that was the problem. Okay. Horrifying. Horrifying. Omega Buster says, when you were looking at potential new games, how do you know if a new idea is the right fit for PlayStation? What makes something a PlayStation Studios game? In my days, right?

Yeah, you're back in the days. Yeah, we always wanted these. Yeah, so we are big fans of new IPs and new ideas. So we always wanted to find something new. For example, when European team, Phil Heisen acquired the title, signed up with a medium molecule about Little Big Planet, that was amazing, you know, new concept. At that time, I don't think we are talking about UGC, you know,

before Little Big Planet. Yeah. So something like that, you know, that has never been done before kind of thing. That's the thing excited me the most. For sure. Okay. That makes sense. I like this one.

I don't know if you'll have an answer, but I'll read it anyway. Joshua Superchats and says, congrats. End of an era indeed. Regarding UMDs, why were they clear on the bottom? At my old job, we frequently had parents demanding refunds after they had opened them. For the PSP, the UMDs. Why was the bottom clear people were cracking open the case thinking it was a CD to put in? There are people doing it?

Apparently. Oh, no. Wow. Yeah, it's, yeah, sorry. Sorry about it. You have my apologies. I didn't think people would do that. I don't know they would crack it.

Yeah, yeah. We didn't think, you know, we thought it's, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's, uh, easier to handle smaller disc than CD with a case. Yeah, Kabab says my mom did that. Dang, I didn't hear about people cracking them open. I didn't know that was the thing that was going on out there.

And then final, there's a whole bunch of people who wrote in just saying how much they love you, respect you. I think I'm going to give it to guitar hero here who to summed all that. Congrats on this new chapter to the best smile in the business. Thank you for helping shape PlayStation into the amazing experience it is today. Thank you.

And then final question from the chat. Team Ramrod says, Shue, can you rescue Gravity Rush from PlayStation now, like Freedom Wars was just rescued? We love you, Shue. Oh, wow. Yeah, the Freedom Wars came out.

And the original developer did remake. That's amazing. Yeah, right. These days, because original creators, you know, left the company, right, in most cases for these old IPs. Yeah, it's the developers, you know, outside the company who have knowledge and more passion about. So I think, you know, again, after I left, you know, the company first party is more open to license IPs.

Like, you know, you remember when we launched PSVR2, there's a Fanta Vision, right? Fantavision in VR. That was actually created by the original creator of FantaVision. He is now an indie developer and he asked for the license and did. Yeah, so it was done with much love and care and knowledge. So the, yeah, you know, Gravity Rush, the team is now an independent developer called Boka Game Studio. They just released the Slitterhead in Toyama's team. So, you know, never say never, right?

Who knows? thought there'd be a Freedom Wars remastered, so don't worry about it. I was very shocked and happy to see that. You know how much other Freedom Wars. Shue, I want to close you. I get you a few things and get you on your way because you have a whole free day in Japan to do whatever it is you want since you have no job. We just, you know, right now declared our game of the year, gave it to Astroba. We've been doing our top 10 lists all week long.

For you, Shue Hey, Yoshita. Oh, you're welcome. Yes. We did it just because you're going to be honest. You can read the comments. Everybody understands. For you, what was Game of the Year 2024? What was your game of the year?

My game was a year 2024 was a game called Nine Souls. Ah, yes. Yeah, it's a game developed by Taiwanese developer Red Candle games. They used to make horror games, but this one is actually action platformer. I'd say Sekiro-like. It's the best Sekiro kind of game you can play on any platform, but in 2D. It's a beautiful game, cute character, but really scary kind of story. Very, very good.

It's amazing, amazing game. I finished the game on PC. The game came out on PC first, but I couldn't finish the game with the normal difficulty. You know, some of the both is so hard. So I had to drop the, you know, difficulty to finish it. Yeah. So I restarted the game, you know, when the game came out on PS5 in November. But I got stuck at the same boss, later boss.

So I have not able to finish the game on PS5 with normal difficulty. But still the game is so good. Yeah? You're making Barrett very happy. Of course, Nine Souls number eight on Kind of Funny's top 10 for 2020. Oh, really? Yeah, had a bunch of fans here. Thank you.

No problem. You are good. You know, we're doing our best out here, Shoe. We're trying our best out here. No thanks to Roger. My question for you, Shue, is then, 2025. What's your most anticipating game? Oh, it's so easy.

It's so easy. What is it? Oh, yeah, it's so easy, you know. You know, you know, how much I love, you know, ghost of Tsushima. Ah. Sector Punch, you know, I'm so excited for Ghost of Yote. Yeah, me too. Yeah.

Yeah, actually, uh, Every time I was in San Mate office, you know, in my last role of Indies, you know, the San Mateo studio was producing the game, working with the Saka Punch, and they always brought me into the office and let me play the game and they asked me to provide feedback. So I've been playing the game for the last few years. You suck, I hate you. Is that one of, I mean, I guess that's like picking your children, I guess. I was going to say one of your bright spots, but obviously when you were present in the Sunni World Wide Studios, you're working so closely with sucker punch on infamous, watching them make this franchise into superheroes.

What was, how did they pitch you ghost of sushi? But did they just walk in or did you have a conversation? Were there multiple things? Like there was an infamous, I guess, four technically, but you know what I mean? Well, you know, they, they, you know, they are sure. they are confident and as confident they'll make a great game but they are not sure

if they it's right idea for them to tackle on this Japan themed game from a studio in the US Yeah of course But I remember saying that So they didn't want to do it wrong In a long way right

They didn't want to upset people in Japan But I said Well I don't remember exactly what I said but I said that, you know, Japanese market is so small, don't worry. But the, but after that, you know, the, you know, SACAPA work closely with, you know, studio, Japan studio people to make sure that they treat the material correctly.

And I gave, you know, I personally gave, you know, some feedback, you know, you know, it's very easy to mix and match things from China or Southeast Asia with things in Japan, right? because it's all Asia, right, from Western people. So the Saccharacter early days had pushed, you know, put some things from different culture. And the team in Japan myself, no, no, no, remove this, remove this. And yeah, so gave enough feedback. They did research and treated the materials with respect.

So the game was not just great game, but also made people in Japan proud. Yeah. Good. All right. And then the final thing before I let you go live your life, I want to go through and do word association,

all right? I'm going to give you words. You tell me the first thing that pops into your mind about it, okay? Okay. PlayStation 1. Love. All right.

PlayStation 2? To US. I moved to US. Okay, okay, good. PSP. PSP. PSP was a host shots go. Yes.

Oh, my. my god it was open t never forget you uh and then of course you got to go be in the the one they put out in ps4 remember that when they made you they put you in that oh yeah yeah yeah yeah i love that one uh ps ps three ps three was hog deep car ps four yes four was uh mark sonny

okay uh vita Vita, Vita was Vita was Again, Vita was love Okay It also meant life But I'll accept love, it's fun Oh yeah

PSVR PSVR PSVR was the most fun I had Why? Personally Oh well, you know That's another one of Collaboration between the game team

And you know How do your team You know, it was San Monica Studios You know God War team in PS3 days, they customized DPS3 GodWor and they put

PSM move on to the video viewer and created a headset, you know, VR headset, unmade. And they put me that headset and I was a creator. I really amazed me. So it was the

idea, the PS4 generation, we can do proper VR. So that idea came from a studio side and the harder team loved as well and I was I was one of the internal lead

as an executive lead with the hardware head and myself leading the project internally and I got to announce the project at GDC yeah so I remember that I still talk about that all the time

whenever we talk about VR were you coming on the GDC show and talking about look this is a we are PlayStation one again we are starting from scratch yeah yeah yeah yeah back to the work so And I'm sorry I was wrong. You know, PSVR2 didn't become PS2.

So, yeah, you can, you can. What happened with PSVR2? What happened with PSVR2? What happened with PSVR2? Well, let's move on. The conversations. Spoilers, it's coming up in a second. I need a word for it.

PlayStation PlayStation PS5. PS5. What's your word association with PS5? PS5, to me. somehow, well, COVID. Yeah. COVID days. Yeah.

Yeah. That makes sense. PlayStation VR2. Weir 2. It's two games. I super super love. You know, synapse. Yep.

Synapse, yeah. And before your eyes. Oh, before your eyes. Two amazing, amazing game. Yeah. I want everyone to try if you have PSVR 2. 100%. Yeah.

I remember, you know, that, especially before your eyes. hit you as well, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, I was sobbing. Yeah, yeah, me too. You know, I had the tears in my eyes playing games only twice in my life. You know, the first time was Johnny and second time was before your eyes. Yeah, it's amazing, amazing story.

Totally, yeah, 100%. And then final word association, Beyond. Yeah. Beyond was happy days. Yeah. Shoe, you are amazing. Thank you for spending your day with me and coming to hang out and do this podcast with us.

You're incredible. I love you so much. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm so proud. The first thing after I left the company was to show up in this show. So thank you for having me. We got to figure out time zone to get you here regularly.

You know what I mean? Maybe we do every so often, once a month, we do a games daily at 4 p.m. Just so we can have Shue on to talk about it. I'd be happy to. too. I love that. I want you to take care. Everybody follow Yo SP to follow up with what shoes onto next. I'm sure it won't be long before he's in another game, before he's announcing another thing. But of course, whenever he does announce something, we'll talk about it here

on Kind of Funny because we're an 11-person business all about video games and live talk shows about those video games. You can catch us with Kind of Funny Games daily each and every weekday, followed by the Kind of Funny Games cast, followed by a stream, and then often all sorts of crazy stuff. Apparently the Switch 2 is going to be announced somewhat. Do you know anything about Switch 2? What do you know about the Switch 2? What are they announcing it? I'm happy. I'm so happy this show happened before they announced. One day they'll talk about that and we'll talk about

it as well. If you love the content we make here, remember, you can get it all live and for free on Twitch.tv.tv.tv.com slash of funny games and YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games and podcast services around the globe. However, if you want to go that extra mile, pick up a Kind of Funny membership on Patreon.com.com slash Kind of Funny YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. Spotify or Apple where of course $10 gets you all the shows ad-free. The ability to watch lives record the afternoon podcast

and a daily dose of me, Greg Miller, in a vlog slash podcast series. For now, Shoo, you're amazing. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you. Beyond! Beyond!