Shuhei Yoshida recalls when he cancelled two $25 million game projects, including one by God of War’s Santa Monica Studio

In a new interview, former Sony Interactive Entertainment president Shuhei Yoshida has recalled the times he cancelled two PlayStation projects after $25 million had been spent on each of them.

In the latest episode of the My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin podcast, Yoshida was asked if he could shed more light on his previous acknowledgement that he had cancelled at least two major games that were deep into production.

Yoshida explained that one of the games was in development at God of War developer Santa Monica Studio, while another was in development at a European studio.

“One was actually one of the internal games developed by Santa Monica Studios,” he replied. “Not [a] God of War game, a new IP. And it had a really amazing concept and very interesting gameplay ideas. And of course, Santa Monica Studios people are very, very capable of creating high quality art.

“So we supported [it for] many years, but after $25 million, they came to me and said that ‘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.”

Yoshida explained that cancelling games wasn’t usually a major issue, because many studios try out concepts and scrap them if they aren’t working, but said that at the time cancelling a game that had already had $25 million spent on it was less straightforward.

“I cancelled so many games [in their early stage],” he said. “No one knows most of the games, because we cancelled early enough. We tried a new idea, did the prototype. And if it’s good, continue. If it’s not good, rework or stop. So early cancellation doesn’t cost us much.

“However, if the game was kind of making progress and [had a] very promising vision, [and] went on and on, after $25 million it was a really hard decision. But I think in this case, the team at Santa Monica studio by themselves was like ‘you know, we probably have to stop’.”

“Another game of the same size cancellation was from one of the European studios, after I became responsible for Worldwide Studios. I looked at all the games in development, and there were many, many great projects from European studios, like London Studios, EyeToy and eventually PSVR and Media Molecule, you know? Guerrilla Games.

“There are many, many good games from Europe. But one game, [which] was a big budget project, didn’t in a similar way have the core game. So these are the two large cancellations. But these days, $25 million cancellation is nothing special. [There are] much bigger cancellations.”

Asked whether he regretted making those two cancellations, or whether there are were any others he wished had continued development, Yoshida said he felt it was better to pull the plug early instead of dragging the studio through a development process they weren’t enjoying.

“It’s hard, right?” he replied. “You know, we know if we continued, there was – even if small – a chance that the game could turn around. But 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.

“So every time I cancel the project, I try to communicate with the team saying that ‘I don’t want to get you to be stuck with this project for another two or three years. Not doing this means we can do something different, something new, like brand new. So let’s do the fresh restart’.”