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Shuhei Yoshida Reveals How Sony’s TV Division Covered Huge PS3 Losses During ‘Difficult’ Launch: ‘I Thought We Would Be Over’

Shuhei Yoshida, former head of SIE Worldwide Studios, has looked back on the PS3 launch of 2006, revealing it was by far the most difficult period during his time with the console manufacturer. In fact, Sony incurred such a major loss during this time that he thought PlayStation would be finished.

Speaking on the Kinda Funny Gamescast, Yoshida-san, who departed the PlayStation maker earlier this week after more than 30 years with the company, described “The most difficult time, (was) launch of PS3, it was hard.” He then explained that Sony made a lot of money on its TV business, which managed to cover the losses generated by the PS3.

The launch year and the second year after launch the company made huge loss, I thought we would be over, we are over but luckily these years Sonys TV division had a huge hit with flat screen, big screen called WEGA Series huge success, Sony made lots of money (from WEGA TV business) to cover the loss from PS3, so we survived. When I learned about the losses I thought we are finished.

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The PS3 was fully showcased during E3 2006 and didn’t exactly the ground thanks to its $599 price point, and it would take a few years before Sony would start making a profit on the console. In addition, its Cell architecture made it notoriously difficulty to develop games for, leading to a number of third-party titles come off inferior to their Xbox 360 counterparts.

Elsewhere in the interview, Yoshida revealed that his most anticipated video game of 2025 is Ghost of Yotei from Sucker Punch Productions, and also shared some insight into why the PS Vita didn’t quite reach the commercial heights Sony had hoped for.

[Source – Kinda Funny Gamescast via Zuby_Tech on X]