Shuhei Yoshida, one of PlayStation's best and most beloved executives, is to be recognised for his achievements at this year's BAFTA Games Awards. During the awards ceremony, he'll be given the BAFTA Fellowship award, the organisation's top honour.
The BAFTA Fellowship is a 'Hall of Fame' style award, recognising significant contributions to creative arts. Other recipients of this award within the games industry include Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima, John Carmack, and Media Molecule's Siobhan Reddy. Yoshida will receive the award during this year's ceremony on 30th March.
It's certainly well deserved. He's been at PlayStation since 1993, working across various roles with a focus on software. Eventually he climbed the ladder to become president of Sony's Worldwide Studios, now known as PS Studios, where he helped bring about many fan-favourite franchises. He currently heads up the company's indie games initiative.
While he's taken a step back from the limelight, Yoshida remains a favourite face among PlayStation's upper ranks. His appearances during press conferences and interviews are always a treat thanks to his jolly demeanour and genuine love of games.
"Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of working with incredibly talented teams who’ve developed some of the best games in the industry," Yoshida says in a statement. "I’ve always celebrated alongside these developers as their games have received well-deserved awards – it is an amazing honour for me to receive an accolade of my own."
Congratulations, Shu!
[source bafta.org, via videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 22
Well, he deserves this. Congratulations!
Well deserved.
N.i.c.e. well deserved.word up son
It's impossible to hate this man. You can't change my mind.
Well deserved, Shu! Thanks for letting us change our PSN names. (Old Podcast Beyond joke)
By the way, the thumbnail is excellent.
He deserves it, and god forbid we ever reach the day where we award Jim Ryan for how much he’s mucked things up since he took over.
Very well deserved! Love the guy.
Shu fully deserves this. Congratulations 👏
The man looks like someone who loves his job and looks fantastically happy and content. Also he is just someone with passion for his work the man deserves the recognition.
Ahh, an actual leader at SIE. Even if he's been shoved in the basement. Nice to see someone out there remembers he's down there!
Someone who deserves a award unlike Phil Spencer.
@4kgk2 unless there's an award for most hypocritical B.S. of the year.
Should be the face of PlayStation.
@KaijuKaiser It's a fair but somewhat complicated question. I think we've seen in a lot of companies, good or bad, big or small, that despite being a corporation, the people at the top are dramatically responsible for the tone and culture of the company. Even behemoth companies are shockingly nimble reflections of the people that are running them.
Where the point is somewhat valid is both Jim's fault and not his. Sony, historically has been...problematically run, as a company. What's different is that SCE and PlayStation have always been run very very differently from the rest of Sony - and it's worked. While the rest of Sony has found themselves alienating themselves in most other industries, SIE thrived with very dynamic and passionate leadership that set a very different tone to how SIE approaches both their customers and their partners.
Then then they send Jim, and it suddenly starts operating like the rest of Sony always has (and lost market because of.) Do I think Jim is individually responsible for those policies? Not necessarily. I think Jim is very good corporate climber. A yes-man without a lot of inventive ideas of his own that pleases those at the top by dutifully implementing corporate imperatives without push-back in response to the mood of the market, and without really thinking forward.
He's not a dynamic, creative, or adaptive leader. He's a by-the-numbers leader focused on extracting every unit of value from a captive market. The opposite of everything PS was built on. And while he's working for now because there's not any kind of real strong competition that's been offering an alternative, that's exactly why he's so over-reactive to the CoD scenario. His fear over the effects of the CoD thing are because of mistakes he made last generation, in strapping the financial cycle around CoD sweetheart deals to prop up other activities with the expectation that their market power would cement that condition for the long haul. It's a leadership style marked by dealmaking to secure seats of power and deny alternatives to lock customers into "chosing" their product.rather than a leadership style marked by one of being responsive and dynamic making their product one people want to chose.
Charisma isn't really part of it. The lack of charisma just shines a spotlight on the more complicated issues people have with him because his own demeanor is almost its own meme generator of less tangible complaints. Andrew Wilson (EA) is charismatic, but not may people are very fond of him. Heck, Bobby Kotick (ABK) is charismatic and he's universally loathed by everyone but the banks he makes money for. Charisma's not the ticket to being a well liked leader. But it elevates an already liked leader if they have it and caricatures an unliked one if they don't.
Shu is charasmatic, yes, but if Shu was setting the tone for a draconian company, a Matrick style "dealwithit" company that knew they could extract you for every penny and coerce you into paying it, he wouldn't be popular. He's popular because when he was in leadership, he understood the market, reflected that understanding, and set policies and tones that aligned with it. Shu IS the PS4 launch. Shu is everything Jim is not, and everything that elevates an iconic entertainment company, compared to the leader of a powerful media company.
Can they write a contract making sure Jim Ryan NEVER gets one? Destruction of playstation shouldn't be celebrated. Mr Yoshida however, he should have his own stone memorial plaque and bank note so that when he passes over the world never forgets a legend.
@UltimateOtaku91
The L.I.A.R. award is also a thing.
@Bricktop33
Same goes for Phil Spencer, wants to be a hip figure by posing as a "gamer". The best man better reorganize Xbox studios and ensure that games are made. Seems like something he gets paid for.
Thats why he’s the 🐐
He is AMAZING!!! We erm Tweet sometimes on Twitter & he seems(he IS) a lovely & genuine guy & a REAL gamer to. I will CRY if he ever leaves PlayStation
Well deserved, congrats!
@TommyNL ill have you know that Phil just unlocked all 1000gs on Hellblade Senua Sacrifice which makes him a main man (according to Push Xbox)
He must be since everytime he picks up a controller they write an article about it.
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