Yoshida Shuhei Reveals Reason for Leaving: Fired by Former SIE CEO
Former Sony Global Studios (now PlayStation Studios) head Yoshida Shuhei recently revealed that he was "fired" by then-CEO Jim Ryan for "not listening to him."
During a speech at ALT: GAMES, the 2026 Australian Game Festival, Yoshida Shuhei, with 31 years of PlayStation experience, reflected on his career and how he transitioned from leading first-party studio operations to becoming head of PlayStation independent games and a key promoter of indie games.
“I helped Santa Monica create *God of War*, helped Naughty Dog launch *Uncharted* and *The Last of Us*, and also assisted Sucker Punch Productions in completing the excellent *Ghost of Tsushima*.
*Ghost of Tsushima* was one of the last games I participated in as president of Global Studios. But in 2019, after leading the first-party development team for 11 years, I was fired from that position. Jim Ryan wanted to move me away from first-party business because I didn’t listen to him.”
This statement elicited laughter from the audience.
He continued, “He asked me to do some ridiculous things, and I just said ‘no’.”
In 2019, when Hermen Hulst took over as head of Global Studios, Sony’s explanation of the personnel change was relatively vague, stating only that “Yoshida Shuhei will step down as president of Global Studios and move to lead a newly formed division focused on supporting external independent developers.”
Jim Ryan joined the predecessor company of SIE in 1994 and served as CEO of SIE from 2019-2024.
During his tenure, SIE pushed several important strategic directions, including the expansion of film and television adaptation business, the reorganization of Sony Worldwide Studios into PlayStation Studios, and the successive acquisition of several studios, including:
Insomniac Games
Housemarque
Nixxes Software
Bluepoint Games
Haven Studios
Bungie
In addition, he strongly promoted PC platform releases and a games-as-a-service strategy, at one point proposing a goal of releasing 12 live service games by 2025.
Speaking about his relationship with Jim Ryan, Yoshida Shuhei said, “Jim and I have worked together since the PS1 era… you don’t want your old friend to become your direct superior.”
However, Ryan later gave him a new position focusing on enhancing PlayStation’s support for independent game developers. Yoshida Shuhei said, “Because everyone in the company knew how much I loved indie games.”
He gave a very positive