Former Sony Interactive Entertainment executive Shuhei Yoshida has shared how his crucial feedback played a role in the success of Gran Turismo.
During a recent interview, the former head of PlayStation Worldwide Studios at Sony Interactive Entertainment was asked to share some achievements in his career at the company that haven’t been talked about enough. In response, Yoshida brought up the early days of the first PlayStation, when Kazunori Yamauchi was working on the very first Gran Turismo. He pointed towards the tagline stated on the game’s cover, which termed it as the “real driving simulator”.
Yoshida recalled that, during development, Yamauchi showed him a prototype of Gran Turismo, and he was among the first to play it. At the time, the game’s director was really serious about its simulation aspect, which was a little too advanced. At first, Yamauchi didn’t take Yoshida’s feedback at face value, so he gathered around thirty consumers to test the game.
As Yoshida had expected, all participants crashed their car without exception at the first turn because the gameplay was too difficult. He was at the back of the room observing the play test with Yamauchi. It was at that point that the game’s director turned to Yoshida and told him he was right. Ultimately, this led to Yamauchi rounded things off and toning down the pure simulation aspect a little to shape the Gran Turismo that became a huge success on PlayStation.
Elsewhere during the interview, Yoshida was asked if Team Asobi could become PlayStation’s new Japan Studio. The former Sony Interactive Entertainment hopes this would be the case. According to him, PlayStation needs a studio that can develop AA games of high quality with tighter budgets but just as much success, and he believes Team Asobi is doing just that. He further said that there has to be another way forward for the industry than moving in the direction of ever longer and more technically demanding games.
