Shuhei Yoshida thinks Sony and Nintendo should stretch this console generation out
The former PlayStation executive told The Vergecast that Sony and Nintendo should keep PS5 and Switch 2 going as long as they can, because hardware keeps getting more expensive and nobody is asking for more power. Xbox, he says, is the one company that needs to move.
Shuhei Yoshida spent 31 years at Sony, most of them deciding what PlayStation made and what players would pay for. Asked on The Vergecast where console gaming goes next, his answer was blunt: not very far, and not very fast.
What he said
Yoshida argued that Sony and Nintendo should "keep the current generation as long as possible" rather than rush toward successor hardware. His reasoning is less about technology than about wallets. "People are very happy using PS5 and Switch 2," he said, and consoles have been getting steadily more expensive rather than cheaper as they age.
He also does not hear anyone clamouring for a bigger machine. "I don't think lots of people are asking for 'more power, we need more power'," he said, adding that developers are not pushing for it either. In his telling, the growth in games right now comes from access - cheaper tools, digital distribution, and software that lowers the bar for making things - rather than from another jump in raw performance.
Xbox is the exception
Yoshida drew a line around Microsoft. Xbox, he said, is in a different position and needs next-generation hardware, deeper PC integration and ecosystem changes to differentiate itself, describing it as "their time to play" in a landscape he called very exciting.
Pressed on Xbox's stated interest in new business models for its next console, currently known as Project Helix, Yoshida floated the arithmetic rather than any inside knowledge: if the hardware itself runs past a thousand dollars, he suggested a service wrapped around it might land somewhere near "$300 a year or $400 a year. A $50 a month subscription."
Why he matters here
Yoshida has no say in Sony's roadmap any more, and nothing he said is a leak. What makes it worth hearing is that he ran the studios side of PlayStation through three hardware transitions, so he has watched from the inside how a generation change reshuffles development budgets and player spending. His argument is that the conditions that used to justify one - players wanting more, hardware getting cheaper - are simply not there this time.
Why it matters
A slower generational cycle would mean the PS5 and Switch 2 you already own stay the target platform for longer, and it frames Xbox's next-gen push as a gamble the other two platform holders have no reason to match.