Sony’s head of independent development at PlayStation and long-time game development leader for the console maker, Shuhei Yoshida, is leaving the company after over three decades. He helped produce some of the PlayStation’s earliest hits before moving onto help lead the platform’s powerhouse first-party studios across multiple console generations.

As of January 15, 2025, PlayStation’s Shuhei Yoshida will leave Sony but not retire from the industry entirely. Yoshida made the announcement while on the PlayStation Podcast Tuesday (a condensed transcription of the interview appears on the official PlayStation blog.

Long-time PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida, lovingly known as Shu, has announced his departure from Sony after 31 years of service. Although understandable, the announcement came as a bit of a surprise and in a rather unconventional way: an interview with the PS Blog.