Shuhei Yoshida on his relocation, exclusives and future of PS3

By alan tsang

Sony's President of Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, sat down with ThreeSpeech in an interview to discuss his plans for the PlayStation name. He began by giving some background information about himself and his transition into Phil Harrison's former position, admitting that his predecessor's departure was "unexpected" but he will "continue that drive."

The main question on everyone's mind was exclusives, mainly whether Sony will begin paying for them. Yoshida stated that he understands due to the rising cost of development, third-party publishers must recuperate costs, hence the need to go multi-platform. He tells us Sony's strategy is "invest(ing) in our first-party studios; (and) in terms of exclusive titles, our role becomes more important." LittleBigPlanet is the exclusive the President is most looking forward to and further indicated Home should be ready by Christmas. He also addresses canceled games; citing "business situations and priorities" as the reasons why Eight Days and The Getaway, in their pre-production phase, landed on the cutting room floor.

Yoshida also confirmed his move from the US back to Japan this year, in order to participate more in the "overall direction-setting of our company and our future platforms" and "to participate in the top management group of SCEI and really achieve the vision that Kaz has in terms of how this company should work going forward." Of course, no Sony executive can go on interview without agreeing with the prediction that the PS3 will remain "a really relevant system for another ten years." For more, read the in-depth interview over at ThreeSpeech.

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