The PS3 gave Sony headaches, former chief thought, ‘PlayStation was done’

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

Who is it about? Shuhei Yoshida spoke in an interview about the era of PlayStation 3 and explained how tough the time was back then.

• Yoshida held various positions at Sony Interactive Entertainment – Sony’s entertainment division.
• In 2008, Yoshida was appointed President of PlayStation Studios (previously SIE Worldwide Studios). He held this position for 11 years until November 2019.
• On January 15, 2025, Yoshida retired at the age of 61, leaving the company after over 30 years.

During his years at Sony, Yoshida was involved in the launch of the first PlayStation, and as an executive producer at PlayStation Studios, he was responsible for games like Gran Turismo, Ape Escape, and Crash Team Racing (via mobygames).

The Toughest Time for Sony

What does he say about the PS3 era? In the interview with Venture Beat, Yoshida said that the PS3 period was very tough for Sony, and the company 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 over.

Yoshida further explains that fortunately, Sony’s flat-screen TVs were very popular at that time and generated enough revenue to cover the losses of the PS3, allowing the company to survive.

Still, the PS3 era was really tough back then: “That was the hardest time. Another was the PSN outage. It lasted for months. It’s incredible how difficult that was internally.”

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How well did the PS3 sell? Looking at the sales figures of the different Sony consoles today (via sonyinteractive.com), it becomes clear that the PlayStation 3 sold significantly worse at the time than its predecessors, the PS1 and 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 chief Phil Spencer has no desire to try to take players away from PlayStation: It is official, the console war is over: Phil Spencer says in light of the PS5 that he no longer wants to bring all players to Xbox