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Former Sony executive Shuhei Yoshida has been speaking about his time with the company at CEDEC 2026 (thanks, Genki), and has opened up about his failure to spot what a huge hit Demon's Souls would become.
Demon's Souls is the origin point of a series which includes Dark Souls and Elden Ring, games which have sold millions of copies across multiple formats. However, Demon's Souls was a Sony exclusive – and Yoshida explains that the way the company handled the game led FromSoftware to take its spiritual successors elsewhere.
Speaking at CEDEC 2026 and translated via Google, Yoshida admits that he didn't really have any idea what kind of game Demon's Souls was. "I really should have made sure to ask Mr. Miyazaki or our in-house producers exactly what kind of game was being made, but I just had a vague impression that it was a fantasy-themed action RPG," he says.
He then explains that the QA team would send a build to his office for checking on a weekly basis, and he decided to give it a try. He says that, even after two hours, he had failed to make any progress:
"I spent two whole hours doing the exact same thing over and over. I remember thinking, 'Man, this game is hard,' and 'This game is so unforgiving.' I recall just mentioning to the QA staff something like, 'This is really difficult, isn't it?'"
This stern challenge, coupled with the lack of pre-release hype and unimpressive Famitsu review score, led to a small initial shipment of just 20,000 copies in Japan. Yoshida assumed it was a dud.
As Sony's American and European divisions were effectively operating independently, the game's weak performance led them to pass on it, so Sony only published it in its homeland.
Then, a curious thing happened – in Japan, Demon's Souls began to pick up speed, with users online talking about the game and sharing secrets. "That word-of-mouth kept sales going steadily," says Yoshida, again translated via Google. "As its reputation grew, Atlus picked it up for the US market, and Namco picked it up for Europe."
After the dust had settled, Yoshida was keen to work with FromSoftware on a sequel, but the way Demon's Souls had been handled meant that the developer would work with Bandai Namco instead to create Dark Souls, a multi-format release which went on to spawn an acclaimed franchise.
Yoshida says he still gets comments about the way Demon's Souls went down:
"People tease me, saying, 'Oh, so you're that Yoshida guy who didn't get the appeal of Demon's Souls?' And well, that’s fair enough. But looking back, the lesson I learned is this: having come from a background of making action-platformers, my mindset was always about gradually teaching players the ropes—showing them 'this is how action games work'—so they could have a smooth, enjoyable experience.
I realized I needed to shift that perspective. When it comes to game development, you have to truly grasp the kind of user experience the creator is aiming to craft. That was a key realisation for me.
However, looking at the massive success and incredible strides made by Miyazaki-san and FromSoftware—from Dark Souls all the way to Elden Ring—I sometimes think it was actually a good thing that we didn't persist with it ourselves."
The relationship with Sony wasn't entirely dead, of course; it would remaster the game for its PS5 console, with the now-defunct Bluepoint handling the development. It would also work with FromSoftware on the PS4 exclusive Bloodborne.