Leaving. Says he still wants to work in the games industry. 

Vita was impressive but an ipad 3 inside. 2004 PSP was more impressive with the concept of a potential PS2 in your pocket. It wasn't as powerful as that but at the time that was the impression. PSP is closer to a portable Dreamcast than PS2 but still mindblowing for the time. PSP was custom so nothing on the market at the time even compared in any form. Tapwave. N-Gage. were PS1 level. GBA was a suped up SNES. DS closer to N64/PS1.

Kyuu is wrong. PSP had a great library. Esp for RPGs.

Gave it a very quick read and seems like it was his choices, but even so, wtf is Sony doing to not convice the guy to stay? The guy was there with them since before the PS1 was even released!

Huge, massive loss for Playstation.

Hopefully Shu finds another place he likes a lot too, I would genuinely like to be friends with the guy, where he goes to should be pretty glad to have him.

I'm not sure how server maintenance could be indicative of a remaster/remake but could be leading to news of some sort with that heavily rumored December 3rd showcase considering it's the same day of this scheduled maintenance lol. Which would be difficult to consider a coincidence.

Can't force someone to stay if they don't want to, at some point even Shu wouldn't be worth the costs of "convincing him to stay" I think he'll likely join a nice relaxing indie label and just chill for the rest of his life, he may just not want to work in a massive corporation anymore. It's sad to see the old guard of Xbox and PlayStation almost entirely gone but it was going to happen eventually! We're getting older!

Just have to accept that at some point all these "veterans" are going to leave, I'm an Xbox fan who thinks Shu is great but I do think people put too much stock into veterans as well, it's not like he is the only one who will be good. We have to get new blood into this industry eventually otherwise it's doomed. That's a bit of a side-note comment though and not specifically related to Shu but the overall picture on how people react when veterans of the industry leave certain studios and whatnot.

guys ... he worked for 31 years for the same company. People get tired, need fresh air, in some cases they want their own thing. What can Sony do? Pay him a billion a year? He is great, did fantastic for the indie division, he basically discovered FallGuys, he will be missed but that's how life works.

It's not. 

I expected it to happen eventually, but the old guard of PlayStation leaving makes me a bit somber, and fills me with nostalgia. Shu is one of the first suits I associated with PlayStation and video games in general.

Hoping the best for him and his future endeavors!

Impossible to say how much of Shu's decision is motivated by wanting to persue something different after so many years, or not jiving with the direction of the the industry.

Ragarding the latter, he is very passionate about indies, and passion projects within Sony such as The Last Guardian, in an industry where big companies will invest 8 years of development and a 200 million budget into a single game, before even releasing a trailer to see if people are even remotely interested in it.

I'm sure he will be fine though. He's leaving the company while being respected and liked, and I'm sure many others would be happy to have him join their ranks.