Idk about ‘stepping down’, but I will say that it feels like he has a fairly twisted view of what ‘Western’ players want. Ff16 is a pretty good example; it looks like an empty shell with some vague ‘final fantasy’ flavour sprinkled on top of yet another dull, boring ‘dark gritty violent’ storyline that’s actually completely tame (visible blood spatter is not ‘dark’ or ‘gritty’ lmao).

Then you have FFXIV which has moved from being a ‘video game’ to an ‘experience’. Rpg
Mechanics, team play, class skill sets and individuality, all reduced to the absolute minimum possible with very likely more to come, so the true endgame of FFXIV becomes…starting a Twitter account? Even things like making players run through dungeons after completion; it’s not for gameplay purposes, it’s for social/advertising purposes (people can get their gpose screenshots shared in peace lol).

And I mean, there’s nothing wrong with catering to the social aspects of an MMO; that’s what they’re for. But warping the gameplay as a whole just to cater to some invisible demographic that ‘just wants to relax and take screenshots’ has been a huge detriment to the game. Easier fights, less decision making during gameplay, less mechanics used in fights, fights often being designed around a specific cinematic event and not to be actual video-game battles (the Proto-Carbuncle basically exists solely for the cinematic). Like, you really have to try for the fight to go badly lol. He even conveniently repositions himself the entire fight (though they all do that now lol).

Realistically though it seems misguided to blame ‘Yoshi-P’ solely for everything that’s happened in the game. He’s the director, sure, but I think there’s more to it than him just barking orders at people, ‘MAKE THIS EASIER’, ‘DONT MAKE THE PLAYER CHOOSE’, including pressure from higher ups to meet what id assume are insanely high sales/profit with an infinitesimal budget.

If anything I think the higher-ups are the ones most responsible