Shuhei Yoshida on the future of gaming

0:02Welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of sticking an SNES cartridge into your handheld. I'm your friend Sean Hollister, and today we're talking to Shuhei Yoshida. He helped work on the original PlayStation, he produced PlayStation games for decades, he led Sony's internal publishing teams, and he championed indie games. A journalist once called him the soul of PlayStation, and he was pushed out of the company. But I don't just want to talk about the past. I first met Shu when he was wearing his technologist hat, when he introduced PlayStation VR, and again when Sony embraced the Steam Deck PC handheld.

0:37I want to know how he sees the future of gaming. How will we play? How will games be made and played in an era when server farms are gobbling up all the chips and developers have generative AI tools? Will people keep buying increasingly powerful and expensive boxes to go under their TVs? or is the future handheld or phone or cloud? Shu is a prolific gamer who thinks about all of this, and at Sony, he was in the room. But first, here's what's happening on The Verge today. This is 90 Seconds on The Verge from Monday, September 28th, 2026. There may be a way to save your gin smart oven. Grilling company Weber made me facepalm this past week when it chose to save a few pennies by nixing its cloud services, taking away features you paid for, like a live camera view of your food.

1:25But two June owners have started Project July, which claims your oven can run its own server. Just unscrew seven screws and plug your laptop into the oven to install. They say they need to test it more before they offer a download, though. Do you trust NVIDIA to contain rogue AI agents? It just announced a sandbox called the Open Agent Safety Platform that it claims can quarantine rogue AI within milliseconds, keeping them from, you know, going off and hacking another company. CEO Jensen Wong, a man who notably does not seem to think the AI industry should slow down, told CNBC that AI agents should only have the info they need to do their job.

2:00NVIDIA claims the open agent safety platform is open source and doesn't necessarily require NVIDIA's latest CPUs to run. And for the first time in 11 years, Bose is making wired earbuds again. They're$99 and have two microphones per earbud for both noise-canceling and transparency modes. Either nature is healing or this is a recession indicator, writes Verge subscriber Berkelian. I just hope the USB-C buds can dethrone the earpods. Can someone please ship earbuds with an incredible mic? You can read more at theverge.com. That's 90 seconds on The Verge for Monday, September 28th, 2026. Support for the show comes from Sonos.

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3:55Mark your calendars. Shop new deals every day this Prime Big Deal Days, October 6th and 7th. You're listening to Deep Grim Flux TTS. Different voices. Same model, all ready to speak. Flux TTS is a streaming text-to-speech model built for voice agents. Flux reads the room. It holds context across the conversation, turn after turn. With consistent tone, interruption handling, and plenty of personality. So your agents keep it flowing and customers can just keep talking. Try DeepGram Flux TTS free now until September 12th. Visit deepgram.com slash keep talking. Terms apply. Shuhei Yoshida, welcome to The Vergecast.

4:36Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yay! You spent 31 years at Sony playing games and figuring out what gamers will pay for. If you had to just reach into your brain and pull out a picture of where the industry is headed, where do you think all of this is going? So, you know, looking back how the industry has progressed, I think every year, almost every year for the last 20, 30 years, there are more people playing games, I think, across many different devices and from all over the world. And, you know, the gaming has spread to all corners of the world. And the game creation has spread to all corners of the world.

5:27Thanks to, you know, digital distribution of games, anyone can buy games as far as, you know, you have access to Internet and money. and anyone can now become a game creator as long as you have a PC and download some, you know, tools like Unity or whatever. And now, you know, AI tools is coming up. That's making even more larger number of people to become a game creator. You know, I have a couple of friends who are really good at designing and creating art. they tell me they can now make games by themselves by using AI coding. So that's really great news for gamers who can see more different types of games being created.

6:22But it could be a challenging time for all the game creators who want to make a living by making games. Tell me a little bit more about AI gaming. There are AI tools for game developers. You've talked in the past about how they might make game development easier, faster, let everybody, you know, become more of a game developer. But I'm also wondering if you've seen AI games themselves where the game, the AI is not used for the graphics, but in a way that actually makes you want to interact with generative artificial intelligence or characters that are built on top of that. Yeah, yeah. That's the most interesting aspect of AI tools, right?

7:09You know, what the AI tools will allow new kind of gameplay that is not possible. So it's always indies who try these new things first and release. And I played many games that takes people's input, like a natural language input, whether it's typing in or talk, and the character talks back or a story being created around what you say. And it's pretty interesting. And these games are being, you know, very short and small, you know, very experimental. And many of them are like released for free as an experiment. But these show, you know, promises. of some new kind of interactions. But the question is, if these games make the use of the server, that's going to be a cost, right?

8:01So the cost, you know, has to be covered by the users. So one example is, you know, there's a new game, like a character-based AI chat service. You know, one of the popular characters from Koei Techno IP was licensed. to this service company who created the, you can chat, have a conversation with a very popular character from a popular game. I see. Ryza chat your midsummer dream story with AI Ryza. That's it. Yeah, so some people are excited and the server was almost shut down at the launch because so many people connected. Only problem that I hear, There are lots of very heavy charge. If you want to have conversation, more conversation, you have to pay for credit.

8:56Oh, no. It's one of those. It's like, you know, of course, I think because, you know, it's using the server, AI server farm. So that has to be covered by the users. So all things come with a price, I think. There's a lot of stigma against AI and a lot of gamers are very vehemently against AI. A lot of people are worried about job loss and things like that. You said a moment ago that indies are the ones to experiment with such things. The stigma is so strong even that when I walked around the Game Developers Conference this last time, people are not willing to tell you if they're using AI tools.

9:36if you say hey i'm a journalist i'm writing a vet ai uh or you know game developers use it they'll they'll be angry they'll be they'll they'll say you know of course we wouldn't do that they don't want their names in print using but if you say i will keep you anonymous this is off the record or you know just i just want to survey i'm not going to print your name in the story they'll be like yes actually i used it to help me do this little thing faster yes actually i do believe it can help the industry. When you work with Indies, are you hearing the same? Do you hear something different? Do people want to use the tools?

10:10Are they worried about the tools? Well, you know, I know that everybody uses it anyway, right? The big or small companies. And of course, Indies, you know, they have less to lose. You know, they are very open about, you know, talking about, you know, one of the developers, you know, very premier developer in Asia, Indie developer, the one of the owners, founders, is a creative lead, he was saying that he has eight AI agents he's managing and if he wants he can create a game by himself but he wouldn't choose to do so because he has a good team but in the future instead of hiring new people, maybe he'll invest in tokens Wow Oh, yeah.

11:01So another example, I may have already said that a couple of friends in the industry who are very good at game design or creating art, they are saying they can now make a game by themselves. You know, like this game designer, he was saying that when he was, you know, making game, his design was limited to the ability, capability of his programming. So it was very difficult for him to, you know, make progress. But now, you know, he can rely on AI tools that, you know, he can now make design a game that he wants to design because he has a programmer, AI programmer partner that he has. And he's now saying that he may be able to release two games a year.

11:54So I think that's the reality. And of course, everybody using Gen.AI art to experiment the new concept art or art direction research, you know, not that they use that in the game, but, you know, coming up with different ideas quickly, really that's speeding up the game development process. And of course, QA and localization and, you know, all of the process. Oh, yes. I remember even before Generative AI, there was a time I used to be a game tester for a little bit. I haven't game tested at Sony briefly. There was a time when you would have to have testers walk around the edges of every level of a game to make sure that they can't walk through the wall or walk through the stairs or walk through the floor and fall forever.

12:47And now that's done automatically. No person has to physically walk a character into every wall. Yeah. AI does it 24-7 while people are sleeping. So they walk diligently. But because of that stigma, I'm curious, as a thought exercise, imagine that you are still in a position where you have a$500 million budget at a big company to decide what games get greenlit. What would it take for you to say, we are going to make a game that we are going to say it's AI. It's going to be an AI game and the technology is just instrumental to this. What would you need to see? What kind of fun would the player need to experience in order to make you want to greenlight that game?

13:42Well, I think, you know, of course, you know, people are studios, big or small are already using AI. And I think it's more about the communications. I think industry will find a way to communicate to, you know, players and, you know, media that the, you know, AI use for these purposes. And no one would complain about, you know, tools that, you know, expedite the development or QA or doing things instead of creating new art or new, you know, design. Or, you know, these are the things that are actually not showing great result. People can still tell the AI Gen, you know, AI Gen videos. For now. Yeah, for now.

14:33But so as long as companies can communicate correctly that these are the areas that they are using AI and these are not AI usage, I think people will start to accept it because it's a reality. The people on these PCs with these AI tools, they're making all these games. Where do you think they're going to play them? I've heard people say, you know, they always want to be in their living room with a box. I've also wondered if the future is handheld. The Switch is about to surpass the PlayStation 2 as the best-selling console of all time. And the Switch 2 is the fastest-selling of all time. Where do you think they'd play these games?

15:19Well, Switch and Switch 2 have been super popular. not because it's portable, but because it's a hybrid, you know, portable and console. If Switch was just portable, like a Switch Lite, the, you know, audience could be much more limited. So there are, you know, benefits of Switch being console connected to TV and people get together in the living room, playing together. And, you know, you look at, you know, all the advancement of technologies, bringing new devices, you can play games and games revenue on smartphone, I think is the biggest. But the PC and console are still, you know, steadily growing, I think.

16:06And people like myself, I grew up playing games on console. I really like the ease of use of console. I just set up, connect to TV and now buy games on console and download and just play. And while I'm sleeping, all games get updated and ready for me to come back to. By the way, my recent, my current favorite device to play games are Steam Machine. I'm one of those rare people who can afford to pay like$1 ,500 for that. You started out with some criticism of the steam machine. You were saying maybe that this is too expensive for anybody except if they're researching games. But I think you've turned it around, haven't you?

16:57Well, no, I was talking about, you know, the price is not friendly for, you know, most of people. But luckily, I can justify spending money because I still work in the video game industry. So it's part of research. Has that replaced the PC handhelds for you? Because I know you also, even while you were with Sony, you were a big proponent of the Steam Deck. I feel like you're one of the reasons that so many big PlayStation games came to Steam Deck. And then also, I know you had an Xbox Ally handheld. Is this Steam machine, this Leanback experience, replacing those handhelds for you is the way you play?

17:38I am, you know, still. You know, I was a big fan of portable gaming PCs. You know, so I used to buy one or two new machines every year. Like, you know, GPD and Asus or, you know, Aya Neo. You know, all these, you know, mostly Chinese. You know, Manchester has created beautiful portable gaming PCs. And the most recent favorite was Log Xbox Ali X that I purchased last year when it came. And by the way, when I received my machine, I posted saying that this is Xbox. And with parents this. And actually, it's a PC. I think that's what we all found out, was that it's not quite an Xbox. But there's this sense that maybe PC is the way things are going.

18:34You know, I'm hoping that the Project Helix, I think they're going to update the UI. It's going to be another hybrid, right? PC and Xbox. So I hope they will make it easier to play games from Steam or Epic Store. But it still supports all three or even more sources of games on PC. So it's great. So that's the downside of Steam Machine. So because I want to play PC games on Steam Machine now, I cannot use Xbox Game Pass PC games. So that's a downside, I guess. And I guess you won't be able to use as many PlayStation single player at the games there in the future either. I mean, you were presiding over an era at Sony of incredible openness.

19:32It wasn't just you, of course, but this was the era when Sony opened up Crossplay. We started to see the PC games come. I remember at one point you said that it's almost like printing money, putting games on PC. And I think they made like a billion dollars bringing their games to PC. I thought so. So, yeah, I thought so. When, you know, first party... Oh, by the way, when I was running the first party development, we are not allowed to move, you know, AAA first party games onto PC. So we ported some smaller games to PC, and that was fun, but we are not allowed. But in the PS5 generation, they started to move in, you know, AAA games to PC and some games.

20:21really well. And for, so because I knew how easy it is to port the game to PC because PlayStation is a PC architecture. So, and they can, of course, upgrade and improve the game to fit into PC needs. But compared to creating new game or even porting to other potential platforms, porting to PC should be pretty budgetary. It's very straightforward now. The architecture, like you said, is the same. And the UI is getting more like that. If Helix is basically literally a PC that happens to play Xbox games, and of course Sony also, same architecture, basically a PC, but it does, you know, it has more proprietary layers on top.

21:21I wish that would mean the games would go everywhere. Sony put out a YouTube ad that's only on PS5, is its new campaign. And I know you're not there anymore, you weren't there for that ad, but I'm curious, how do you feel that these games will not be coming to PC now because they feel they need to change their release models? Yeah, yeah. So I talked about, you know, my days, like a PS4 generation, you know, Sony didn't choose to release AAA games, first-party games on PC, because they thought, you know, making it really PlayStation exclusive was important to appeal to console gamers. And during PS5, when they started to porting games to PC after a year or two, right?

22:13Not the day and date. A couple of online games, you know, they are doing day and date. But for single player games, they gave a window of exclusivity to PlayStation platform. And they felt that would be, you know, good enough to appeal, you know, to PlayStation users. But at the same time, by releasing first party games, IP to PCs and reach new users potentially. and those users, you know, playing first-party games on PC might become a fan of that IP might in the future, you know, come to PlayStation. You know, that kind of thinking I think they had. And these days, they seem to be putting that idea back to like older days.

23:04Yeah, because I'm not connected to PlayStation anymore, so I do not really know, But probably that, you know, first party business versus platform business. Now, platform business side is kind of winning the argument like this. Yeah, platform side always want something exclusive, right? The place I wanted the exclusivity is for the extra items that you tried to attach to the console or the handhelds, like the PSP, the Vita, and of course, your pet project, the PlayStation VR. I feel like people who bought those didn't get as many games specially made for those systems as they hoped there might have been.

23:47Do you know what goes into those decisions? Oh, well, yeah, because I live, you know, these days like a PSP, PSV, Vita, and VR. Managing two platforms at the same time is so hard. You know, every asset, every team from development standpoint, we have finite number of studios and finite number amount of budget, annual budget to spend. And we always have to divide that budget and teams into you make games on Koso, you make games on Portable, or your next game will work on both or something like that. And because the platforms are very different, PSVR was still on PS4, the same architecture, but the games have to be uniquely made for PSVR.

24:43So that's still specific to PSVR. And so all these need for dedicated resources was really difficult to manage. And at least, you know, when I was at Sony, I felt very constrained to be able to support both. And in the end, the console was the biggest business for the company. You know, we had to prioritize the console side. Some people would question, why do you come out with the headset to begin with, if it's not going to get that level of support that people would hope and expect? I imagine that was pretty hard for somebody who championed it like yourself to not have those resources. You can say after the fact, right?

25:34You can say that after the fact about everything. We are so excited. We are bringing the experience that was never possible before on the regular TV. So we are so excited. But one of the reasons I've been saying the success of Switch is the same. I'm sure Nintendo has the same problem when they are doing both console and portable. They have to divide their resources between two completely different platforms. But Switch merged the two into one. So all games work as a console game and a portable game. And they are able to dedicate all the resources, studios, and budget into one platform. That was Switch and Switch 2.

26:21So I think that made managing resources much easier and being able to support the platform much better than they used to. That brings me back to the affordability question. In particular, Sony and Microsoft are both facing this problem. But Microsoft has a very interesting selection of messaging. It says that, on the one hand, it says that it needs to pursue radical new business models. Business models that we've never seen before, that people have not considered before, in order to not have people paying thousands of dollars for the console. But it also says that it does not want to subsidize the Xbox anymore.

27:04So it's not going to do the Razor and Blades model of, you know, we're going to try to make up the money on the games and then make the console cost less money because we know you're going to buy games to go with it. what do you think these radical new business models could be? Are they going to put ads in all of our games? Are they going to rent the box? Do you have to pay for a subscription service? When you buy Xbox Live for$200 a year, we'll give you a box if you keep paying for it like a phone every month for 24 months. Well,$200 a year may not be enough, right? Like, you know, if it's over$1 ,000 hardware price and it comes with, you know, basically the services.

27:48So maybe$300 a year or$400 a year. Yeah, like$50 a month subscription. How's that? And while, you know, Sony and Nintendo have sold enough number of current generation hardware, right? So because of the cost of goods, they might be looking, pushing back the launch of next gen. And I think they should try to keep the current generation as long as possible. Because, you know, I think people are very happy using PS5 and Switch 2. People have finite, you know, budget. And it feels like PC and consoles, the components, very specific to these devices have increased the price way more than all the other form of entertainment.

28:41People who have systems like PS5, Switch 2, or PCs, good enough PCs, probably will be happy to play games on them and not necessarily consider replacing. Well, I for myself, I have a gaming PC for work that I purchased five years ago. That was pretty good. And while I was thinking to replace my gaming PC, this price hike happened. So I was late to replace it. So I got in early. I lucked out. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wish I had made that decision a year ago. So I think that kind of thinking will happen to many people. I don't think lots of people are asking for more power. We need more power. Or even developer, I don't think developers are asking, you know, we need better hardware or like that.

29:45So I think that means that the current generation, you know, Sony and Nintendo are going to do pretty well for many years to come still. Xbox is a team who wants to change the, you know, competing landscape. So it's going to be hard for them, but it's their time to play. So it's very exciting, you know, what's going to happen next year. So, right. Support for the show comes from Sonos. Think about the first time you heard your favorite song. Who were you with? What did it make you feel? Was it the music or the lyrics that grabbed you first? and what were the specific tech specs of the sound system it was playing on.

30:34Yeah, nobody remembers that last part. Sonos gets that. Their system is designed to just be there, clear, ready, out of the way, so nothing stands between you and the next song that hits you out of left field. For a bunch of years now, I've been incredibly jealous of my friends who have Sonos speakers. I was just always impressed how all that sound and punch and energy came from that speaker in the corner. But Sonos recently sent me two of its play speakers and now I truly, truly get it. Everyone knows that the quality is immediately noticeable when you listen to a Sonos speaker. But the bigger thing that I've learned is how everything is working together and creating this little ecosystem.

31:15It's just really important to me, especially as audio has become more integrated into our daily media lives, whether that's music, a movie, and yes, the Verge cast or Virgin History or Decoder. I want it to sound as good as possible. Visit Sonos.com and build your system. Sonos, love the sound, feel the system.