Demon’s Souls ‘underestimated’ by Sony

In a new interview, Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida admitted that refusing to publish Demon’s Souls in the US was “one of Sony’s biggest software mistakes this generation.”

February 10, 2012 4:15 PM18

There’s a reason why Demon’s Souls was a PS3 exclusive. In Japan, the game was published by Sony. However, in America, the game was published by Atlus–after Sony’s US division passed on the opportunity to release the game stateside. In a new interview, Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida admitted that the refusal was “one of Sony’s biggest software mistakes this generation.”

“We underestimated the quality of the game,” Yoshida said.

“When it was close to final I spent close to two hours playing it and after two hours I was still standing at the beginning at the game. I said, ‘This is crap. This is an unbelievably bad game,'” Yoshida told Game Informer. “So I put it aside.”

Demon’s Souls went on to become a tremendous success for Atlus. The game even won a few Game of the Year nods, before developer From Software decided to make a multiplatform “sequel” in the form of Dark Souls.

“We definitely dropped the ball from a publishing standpoint, including studio management side. We were not able to see the value of the product we were making,” Yoshida lamented. The studio head hopes to never “make the same mistake again,” and notes that Sony still owns the Demon’s Souls IP. “Our business is to grow our IP and we love Demon’s Souls. From Software is a very important business partner, so we’ll see.”