Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida has discussed cancelling games during his tenure at the company, including a new IP from God of War developer Santa Monica Studio. Sony had invested $25 million into the game, saw potential in it, but ultimately decided to shut it down and eat the cost.
Yoshida said on the My Perfect Console podcast that this new game was not a God of War title, but it had a "really amazing concept and very interesting gameplay ideas." Sony worked on this game for "many years" but after spending $25 million on it, the studio itself approached Yoshida to say things were not working out.
"They came to me and said, 'We have to stop.' I do not exactly remember the reason--probably the team was not able to find the game. It was a great concept, great idea, but you know, the gameplay didn't really come to be," he said, as reported by VGC.
Yoshida did not provide a timeline for when this occurred, however. Earlier this year, it was reported that Sony canceled a live-service God of War game, but the one Yoshida is speaking about was a new IP.
Also in the interview, Yoshida said cancelling games is a normal part of the business because the creative process involves lots of iteration. Cancelling games early in their development "doesn't cost us much," Yoshida said, but it was a "really hard decision" to cancel the new IP at Santa Monica Studio because of the time and money involved.
"But I think in this case, the team at Santa Monica Studio by themselves was like, 'You know, we probably have to stop,'" Yoshida said.
Yoshida also discussed another game he oversaw the cancellation of, and this was a title from an unspecified European studio. Yoshida did not share much in the way of specifics, but said this was a "big-budget project" that lacked a "core game" and did not go ahead.
"These days, $25 million cancellation is nothing special. [There are] much bigger cancellations," he said.
Yoshida went on to say cancelling these projects was ultimately in the best interest of the developers and the business overall. "If we continued, it just got bigger and bigger in terms of [financial] loss, and the developers eventually get tired of working on these. And it's not healthy to work on something that's struggling for the longest time," he said.
Yoshida added that, when the decision to cancel a game came down during his time at Sony, he tried to communicate with the developers about how it might be rough to abandon a project, but sometimes it's necessary. "Not doing this means we can do something different, something new, like brand new. So let's do the fresh restart," he said he told developers.
Yoshida also made headlines recently for saying he would have "resisted" Sony's push into live-service games and that he was surprised Horizon Forbidden West didn't sell as well as expected. Yoshida also talked about why there hasn't been a Bloodborne remaster yet. He left Sony earlier this year after 30+ years.
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Yoshida said on the My Perfect Console podcast that this new game was not a God of War title, but it had a "really amazing concept and very interesting gameplay ideas." Sony worked on this game for "many years" but after spending $25 million on it, the studio itself approached Yoshida to say things were not working out.
"They came to me and said, 'We have to stop.' I do not exactly remember the reason--probably the team was not able to find the game. It was a great concept, great idea, but you know, the gameplay didn't really come to be," he said, as reported by VGC.
Yoshida did not provide a timeline for when this occurred, however. Earlier this year, it was reported that Sony canceled a live-service God of War game, but the one Yoshida is speaking about was a new IP.
Also in the interview, Yoshida said cancelling games is a normal part of the business because the creative process involves lots of iteration. Cancelling games early in their development "doesn't cost us much," Yoshida said, but it was a "really hard decision" to cancel the new IP at Santa Monica Studio because of the time and money involved.
"But I think in this case, the team at Santa Monica Studio by themselves was like, 'You know, we probably have to stop,'" Yoshida said.
Yoshida also discussed another game he oversaw the cancellation of, and this was a title from an unspecified European studio. Yoshida did not share much in the way of specifics, but said this was a "big-budget project" that lacked a "core game" and did not go ahead.
"These days, $25 million cancellation is nothing special. [There are] much bigger cancellations," he said.
Yoshida went on to say cancelling these projects was ultimately in the best interest of the developers and the business overall. "If we continued, it just got bigger and bigger in terms of [financial] loss, and the developers eventually get tired of working on these. And it's not healthy to work on something that's struggling for the longest time," he said.
Yoshida added that, when the decision to cancel a game came down during his time at Sony, he tried to communicate with the developers about how it might be rough to abandon a project, but sometimes it's necessary. "Not doing this means we can do something different, something new, like brand new. So let's do the fresh restart," he said he told developers.
Yoshida also made headlines recently for saying he would have "resisted" Sony's push into live-service games and that he was surprised Horizon Forbidden West didn't sell as well as expected. Yoshida also talked about why there hasn't been a Bloodborne remaster yet. He left Sony earlier this year after 30+ years.
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