PlayStation
The former head of PlayStation canceled two exclusive games after spending 25 million dollars on them: “I felt really bad”
Difficult decisions and canceled projects: the reality behind making big-budget video games.
In his long career at PlayStation, Shuhei Yoshida has been behind some great PlayStation Studios projects. He has certainly found titles that have become classics, but not everything is a success. In a recent interview, the former PlayStation executive revealed some of the details behind the production of big-budget video games, as well as the tough decisions that are made when a game doesn’t live up to expectations.
“We cancelled lots of projects”
During the interview with Game File, Yoshida talked about cancelling games, starting with games that were in the prototype stage and didn’t end up meeting expectations. “In the worst case, we kind of calculate how much more money we need to spend to finish the game,” Yoshida said. “If the revenue seems lower than the money we need to spend to finish, we cancel the project. We canceled lots of projects after the prototype level, and no one knows in public.”
This was not just limited to prototypes but also games that were already in full production. Yoshida mentions the cancellation of two titles that, based on his comments about the high budget at the time, would have been games of yesteryear. “Sometimes the game is in deep production,” Yoshida says. “The largest I canceled were two games, after we spent $25 million. At that time, that was lots of money. Now, not as much. I felt really bad about how we couldn’t see this.”
Finally, Yoshida comments on what he believes is the key to being such a good producer that makes decision-making so complicated. “I always believed that [the reason] why I was able to work very well with developers and studios was because I know I cannot make games,” Yoshida continues. “I produced, so I was really harsh on producers. That’s what I used to do, but other than producing... artists, programmers, and other functions, I had just respect for all these people.”
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