THE FELLOWSHIP: SHUHEI YOSHIDA

Sony executive and passionate gamer shuhei yoshida adds BAFTA’s highest honour to his remarkable list of gamechanging achievements.

BAFTA Fellow Shuhei Yoshida

Supplied by SIE

How would Shuhei Yoshida like to be remembered? “A passionate and infectious gamer executive with some humour,” he says, with a measure of his trademark humility.

Anyone who’s had the pleasure of meeting Yoshida, affectionately dubbed Shu by his many fans, has only positive things to say about the renowned games executive, developer and producer. A Sony veteran of 37 years, Yoshida is recognised as one of the driving forces behind the success of PlayStation. This evening he receives the BAFTA Fellowship for his outstanding services to the industry.

Sending a message to BAFTA's Young Game Designers in 2020

BAFTA

Yoshida began working for Sony in April 1986, and eventually joined Ken Kutaragi’s team as they were developing the original PlayStation in February 1993. As lead account manager, Yoshida headed up the platform’s third party licensing programme, signing studios up to have their games published on the console. “We were a small venture company within Sony,” he recalls. “Though we were a new entrant to the games industry, we believed in the innovation we were bringing. Our initial goal was ‘To sell through 1m units in Japan’, and when we achieved that within a few months, we still had no idea PlayStation would become such a long-standing global business.”

In late 2019, Yoshida stepped down as president to become head of PlayStation’s new Global Indies initiative. A project close to his heart, it seeks to spotlight and support the best of the best indie games on the platform as well as the indie community as a whole.

“BAFTA’s other Fellows are incredibly talented people.”

He then moved from account management into production, working on such PlayStation classics as Crash Bandicoot (1996), Ape Escape, The Legend of Dragoon (both 1999) and Ico (2001), among others. In 2008, Yoshida was appointed president of SIE’s Worldwide Studios, and under his leadership the division went from strength to strength, publishing world-class blockbusters and BAFTA winners, including God of War (2005-), Uncharted (2007-2017), The Last of Us (2013), Bloodborne (2015), Horizon Zero Dawn (2017), Marvel’s SpiderMan (2018), Ghost of Tsushima (2020) and Journey (2012) – one of Yoshida’s personal favourites.

The Sony crew attend the BAFTA Games Awards in 2022

Anthony Harvey/BAFTA/Shutterstock

Although he has left an indelible mark on the industry as a developer and producer, Yoshida is perhaps best known and loved by the players as a top executive who genuinely loves and celebrates games. Go to any Twitter thread or video comments section where Yoshida is the subject, and you’re guaranteed to find nothing but respect and admiration for the man who players see as an ambassador for the industry.

Yet for all his achievements and decades of experience, Yoshida remains resolutely modest. “BAFTA’s other Fellows are incredibly talented people. I hope I did something worthy for the industry to be included in such an amazing group.”

WORDS: AOIFE WILSON

Read the full interview: bafta.org/about/awards-brochures