RipTen Videogame Blog » Shuhei Yoshida

Sony: Vita to be “Easiest and Most Well Supported” Platform Yet

Garrett Hartman — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 00:36:55 +0000

Having learned their lesson from the early struggles of the PS3, Sony is creating the PS Vita to be easy to develop for. In an conversation with Develop, SCE Worldwide Studios Boss Shuhei Yoshida, admitted that developing for Sony consoles have been challenging:

“It had very, very high potential and peak performance, but programming for the PlayStation platforms was a huge challenge for game developers.”

And He discussed an important reason for a change:

“Development efficiency has become more and more important,”

“The focus has shifted to be less about getting the most out of the hardware, to be about having a very smooth production process. That’s because now it involves so many more people to make one game.”

Senior Vice president of SCE Worldwide Studios Michael Denny made sure to state the new goal:

“When it comes to ease of development, the Vita is a platform with which we’ve been very mindful of that, In terms of smoothing the development process, certainly what the Vita offers is close to that of the PSP, and with some of the help we’re giving to developers, I would say it is the easiest and most well supported platform yet.”

Sony World Wide Studios CTO Richard Lee agreed and confirmed ease of development a top priority:

“We made every effort to make it as easy as possible, I think we took the experiences from PS3, and decided that we wanted to go out there with a great developer environment that is compatible with the third party tools that developers normally use.”

So there you have it. Good news for developers and perhaps gamers.

Yoshida – Porting PS3 Games to NGP is “Simple and Quick”

Garrett Hartman — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:43:25 +0000

Accoring to Sony boss Shuhei Yoshida, porting games from the PS3 to Sony’s upcoming hand held, code named NGP, is “simple and quick”.

In a recent conversation with Edge magazine Yoshida discussed the importance of making development for the NGP easy and that although porting games are easy, they’ll be much more than just PS3 ports for the NGP.

“We were very focused on this area from the start. This is, again, a lesson learnt from the PS3. We had to make the development environment for NGP as ‘easy’ as possible. Today, many teams are familiar with the PS3 and are used to including a variety of effects in their titles.

“Based on this expertise – and also the working habits they developed working on the PS3 – we had to make development on the NGP as natural as possible – an extension of the PS3, if you will.

“So the three demos you’ve seen – Lost Planet 2, Ryu Ga Gotoku [Yakuza] and MGS4 – they prove porting is simple and quick, but it doesn’t mean that’s all you can expect. My view of NGP isn’t just as a platform for porting PS3 titles.”

Sony’s NPG promises to be a powerful handheld contender.

Source: Edge via CVG

The PlayStation 3 is Now Profitable for Sony

Sam Naylor — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:56:49 +0000

Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony’s Worldwide Studios, has said that Sony are now able to cover the cost of selling PlayStation 3 hardware, after nearly four years of losing money on every sale. Of course, this means that a price cut is unlikely as Sony try to recoup their losses from hardware sales.

“This year is the first time that we are able to cover the cost of the PlayStation 3,” Yoshida said. “We aren’t making huge money from hardware, but we aren’t bleeding like we used to.”

“When we bring the cost of hardware down, we are looking at opportunities to adjust prices if we believe that will increase demand,” he explained. “At the moment, we are trying to catch up our production… We have lots of great games coming out and innovations with Move and 3DTV, so we don’t believe this is the time for us to think about a price drop.”

Well done, Sony! You’ve managed to do what Nintendo have been doing for about six thousand years. Since the PS3 costs about the same as a small country, it’s no wonder you’ve managed to get the production costs down below the price you sell them at. A round of applause for Sony is in order, I think. Next milestone: make the PSP Go worth having. I know it’s tough, Sony, but we believe in you.

TGS 08: Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida Thinks New Xbox Experience “Is Quite Nice”

Sal Romano — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 23:02:18 +0000

Sony Computer Entertainment’s Shuhei Yoshida made an appearance at this year’s Tokyo Game Show as one would expect he would. He was there generally representing Sony, but checking out the competition as well.

What’s interesting about Yoshida is instead of bashing on his company’s competitors, he prefers to compliment them instead.

When asked about his feelings on the Xbox 360′s upcoming dashboard revamp, labeled as the New Xbox Experience (NXE), Yoshida responded:

“Yes, I’ve seen the videos, some screenshots and write-ups. I think it’s quite nice. I like the Avatar designs they’re working on.”

He said that the Avatar’s are a “little bit older-looking” than Mii’s when asked if he had noticed a similarity. However, Microsoft’s Avatars are “closer to [Yoshida's] personal preference”.

Hey, at least he’s a nice guy.