A former PlayStation exec’s hit industry memoir is now a podcast

A former PlayStation executive has turned his popular games industry memoir into a podcast.

This month British games veteran Shahid Ahmad attracted thousands of engagements on Twitter with a retelling of the early days of his career, which he did via a mammoth Twitter thread spanning hundreds of tweets.

‘Code is Just’ – which he named the thread – recounted the beginning of Ahmad’s near-40-year games career, when he was a young man programming games from his bedroom in 1982, overcoming poverty and racism to make it as one of the UK’s earliest game creators.

Ahmad went on to fill many esteemed positions in the games industry, most notably his decade at Sony Interactive Entertainment (2005 – 2015), where as director for strategic content he played a large part in the indie push on PS Vita and PS4.

On Wednesday, the first part of Code is Just was released as a podcast, with more episodes coming weekly, complete with music composed by Ahmad himself. You can listen to it via the embed below, or via iTunes or Spotify.

Last year Ahmad contributed to a documentary called The PlayStation Revolution, in which he reflected on his ten years at PlayStation.

Of note were his comments on Sony’s transition from the “difficult period” of PS3, which he said ultimately transformed PlayStation from a “hubristic” organisation into the “humble, passionate and excited” company that launched PS4.

Had the organisation not made that cultural change, Ahmad said, it could’ve been “the end” for the platform holder.

“PS3 was many things to many different people,” he said in the film. “It was definitely a difficult period, because a lot of work had to be done to turn around the technical deficit and the monetary deficit created by the launch of this extraordinary piece of hardware.

“Because it was an extraordinary piece of hardware, but it was also extraordinarily difficult to get the best out of. And people did, and it did eventually turn into a success. But my god was that a war of attrition.”

He added: “The PlayStation that emerged at the end of PS3 was a much more gritty, determined, focused entity – and I’m not saying this from a personal perspective, but from a corporate perspective – than the much more hubristic organisation at the beginning of the PS3 era.”