The PS3 prepared Sony headache – a former boss thought that “Playstation was done”

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Shuhei Yoshida was a leader at Sony for 11 years and experienced the difficult phases of the company-such as the PS3 era.

Who is it about? In an interview, Shuhei Yoshida spoke about the Playstation 3 era and tells how difficult the time was back then.

  • Yoshida worked in various positions for Sony Interactive Entertainment-the Entertainment division of Sony
  • In 2008 Yoshida became President of the PlayStaps Studios (previously Worldwide Studios). He held the position until November 2019.
  • On January 15, 2025, Yoshida retired at the age of 61 and left the company after over 30 years.

    • In the years at Sony, Yoshida was involved in the market launch of the first PlayStation and was responsible for games such as Gran Turismo, Ape Escape and Crash Team Racing as an executive producer at the PlayStaps Studios.

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    The most difficult time for Sony

    What does he say about the PS3 era? In the interview with Venture Beat, Yoshida told the PS3 time very hard for Sony and the company had lost a lot of money:

    At that time I was part of management, so I could see the finances. We lost a billion dollars. I thought Playstation was at the end.

    Afterwards, Yoshida explains that Fortunately, the Flatscreen TVs from Sony were very popular at the time and brought in enough money to cover the losses of the PS3 so that the company could survive.

    Nevertheless, the PS3 era was really hard at the time: “That was the most difficult time. Another was the PSN failure. It took months. It is incredible how difficult it was. “

    How well did the PS3 sell? From today’s perspective, we look at the sales of the different Sony consoles (via Sonyinteractive.com) it becomes clear that PlayStation 3 sold significantly worse at the time than the predecessors, PS1 and the PS2. The successor, the PlayStation 4 was also much more popular.

  • PlayStation – more than 102.4 million units sold (as of March 31, 2012)
  • Playstation 2 – more than 160.0 million units sold (as of March 31, 2012)
  • PlayStation 3 – more than 87.4 million units sold (as of March 31, 2017)
  • Playstation 4 – more than 117 million units sold (as of June 30, 2022)

    • Only the current Playstation 5 (74.9 million) and the Playstation Portable (76.4 million) have sold fewer units than the PS3. It is all the better for Sony that Xbox boss Phil Spencer no longer feels like trying to take the Playstation to lose weight: it is official, the console war is over: Phil Spencer says in view of the PS5 that he no longer says all players wants to get to the Xbox

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