Shuhei Yoshida is leaving PlayStation in January, a concept that is still difficult to reconcile with since Yoshida-san has been with PlayStation pretty much as long as PlayStation has existed.
Yoshida-san has had a number of roles in that time, including being the boss of the whole PlayStation kit-and-caboodle, but lately he’s been the head of PlayStation’s Indies branch, doing what he can to champion indie developers and games. And for the final time as the head of PlayStation’s head of indies, he’s shared his indie picks for the year.
Shared on the PlayStation Blog, Yoshida-san highlights 11 indie games that are his top picks for the year, though they’re not numbered. His 11 games in the order given are:
- Pacific Drive
- Animal Well
- V Rising
- SCHiM
- The Plucky Squire
- Palworld
- Neva
- Fear the Spotlight
- Slitterhead
- Nine Sols
- Balatro
Of course Yoshida-san will likely continue to share indie games he’s playing and that struck a chord with him on social media, so it’s not like we’ll never hear from him again regarding indie games.
But this is one of the final things he’ll have publicly done for PlayStation before he retires from the company that has pretty much been his entire career, in his current role there.
Oddly, this annual reflection of indie games he’s done over the last couple of years is one of the last times players will hear from Yoshida-san in such an official capacity at PlayStation, and another marker of the end of his time there.
So since we won’t get another chance, we here at PSU want to take this moment to wish Yoshida-san all the best in his retirement, and thank him for all that he’s done to help make PlayStation the console and platform we’ve all loved to play games on for years.
Source – [PlayStation Blog]