is a Japanese businessman and gaming industry veteran. He was the President of

SIE Worldwide Studios PlayStation Studios (formerly SCE Worldwide Studios and SIE Worldwide Studios) is a division of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) that oversees the video game development at the studios owned by SIE. The division was established as SCE Worl ...

for Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) from 2008 to 2019, and was the head of PlayStation Indies from 2019 until his retirement from the company in 2025. Yoshida has been a key member of the

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

brand since its original concept, having been part of the company since 1993. In 2023, he received the

BAFTA Fellowship The BAFTA Fellowship, or the Academy Fellowship, is a lifetime achievement award presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in recognition of "outstanding achievement in the art forms of the moving image". The award is t ...

at the 19th British Academy Games Awards for his work in the gaming industry.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the Faculty of Economics at

Kyoto University , or , is a National university, national research university in Kyoto, Japan. Founded in 1897, it is one of the former Imperial Universities and the second oldest university in Japan. The university has ten undergraduate faculties, eighteen gra ...

, where he was involved in the corporate strategy group, as well as coordinating the PC business. Yoshida joined Sony Corporation in April 1986. He later earned his

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

degree at

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

(UCLA) in 1993. Yoshida joined Sony in 1986 as part of the corporate strategy group, with a role coordinating their PC business. He was one of the initial members of the

project in February 1993, and the first non-engineer team member. He acted as the lead account executive at Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s third party licensing program. From the mid 1990s until 2000, Yoshida worked primarily as a producer on PlayStation titles, including '' Gran Turismo'', ''

Ape Escape ''Ape Escape'' is a series of video games developed primarily by Japan Studio and published and owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The series incorporates ape-related humour, unique gameplay, and a wide variety of popular culture, pop cult ...

'', and '' The Legend of Dragoon'' among others. In April 2000, he became the Vice President at Sony Computer Entertainment America. In February 2007, he became Senior Vice President at SCE Worldwide Studios USA, and one year later in May 2008, he would be elevated to President of SCE Worldwide Studios. Shuhei Yoshida from acrofan

In November 2013 Yoshida appeared in the official

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...

unboxing video. On November 7, 2019, Sony announced that Yoshida had stepped down as President of

amid a company reshuffle to become head of a newly formed initiative that will focus on nurturing external independent creators. The new initiative, which would later become PlayStation Indies focused on supporting external developers that are creating 'new and unexpected' experiences for the gaming industry. He was replaced by Hermen Hulst, the former studio head of

Guerrilla Games Guerrilla B.V. (trade name: Guerrilla Games) is a Dutch First-party developer, first-party video game developer based in Amsterdam and part of PlayStation Studios. The company was founded as Lost Boys Games in January 2000 through the merger of ...

. Yoshida retired from SIE on January 15, 2025, after spending more than thirty years with the company. He would reveal in an interview later that year that Jim Ryan, then CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, gave him a choice in 2019 to work with indie games or leave Sony. In his time at Sony, Yoshida was active on

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

, particularly in promoting Indie games. Yoshida appears as a playable character in Super Time Force Ultra, able to fire tweets and heart emoticons from his in-game smartphone.

Selected ludography

References

External links

SIE Worldwide Studios homepage
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yoshida, Shuhei 1964 births Corporate executives Japanese video game businesspeople Kyoto University alumni Living people Businesspeople from Tokyo UCLA Anderson School of Management alumni Sony Interactive Entertainment people BAFTA fellows