Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) veteran Shuhei Yoshida will be honored with the BAFTA Fellowship award at this year’s BAFTA Games Awards on March 30, 2023.
During his years at the company, Yoshida has become synonymous with PlayStation, serving as head of SIE Worldwide Studios for over a decade before stepping down from that role in 2019 to lead a new initiative that focused on celebrating external developers.
BAFTA said the Fellowship award is its most prestigious honor, and recognizes those who’ve made an outstanding contribution to the game industry.
“Shuhei Yoshida is a pioneer in the games world and is hugely deserving of a BAFTA Fellowship,” said BAFTA CEO Jane Millichip. “His collaborative, supportive approach continues to drive progress within the industry, using his platform to promote the voices and craft of others and champion the work of independent designers, studios and creatives.”
The BAFTA Fellowship specifically acknowledges Yoshida’s ongoing efforts to champion independent developers, while also celebrating his historic success with Sony and PlayStation, with the company debuting and nurturing a number of popular titles and franchises including The Last of Us, Horizon, Journey, God of War, and Uncharted during his tenure as president of SIE Worldwide Studios.
“Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of working with incredibly talented teams who’ve developed some of the best games in the industry,” said Yoshida. “I’ve always celebrated alongside these developers as their games have received well-deserved awards–it is an amazing honor for me to receive an accolade of my own.”
Previous recipients of the BAFTA Fellowship include Hideo Kojima, Siobhan Reddy, Shigeru Miyamoto, John Carmack, and Peter Molyneux.