During his 31-year career at PlayStation, Shuhei Yoshida was responsible for the company’s internal studios. And while he enjoyed plenty of successes, he also witnessed and decided on the cancellation of several games.
He discussed this topic on the Spotify podcast My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin. Yoshida mainly talked about two canceled titles: a new science fiction license designed by Santa Monica Studio and a project developed by a European studio. The game from the God of War teams was provisionally named Internal-7 (see image at the bottom of the article) before its cancellation in early 2014.
“One was actually one of the internal games developed by Santa Monica Studios. 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.*
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 […]
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.”
