Since the retirement of Jim Ryan in March of this year, Sony has finally appointed a new PlayStation leader.
According to foreign media reports, from June 1, Sony will appoint Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino as SIE CEOs, and the two will manage the PlayStation business. This is also the first time Sony has appointed a co-executive officer to manage the PlayStation business.
Specifically, Hermen Hulst will continue to lead the efforts of SIE Studios, including PlayStation Studios, Bungie, and PlayStation Productions, and will be responsible for the development, distribution, and business operations of SIE's first-party content, as well as opportunities to scale IP through PlayStation Productions.
Hideaki Nishino is responsible for leading the platform experience, overseeing technology, products, services, and overseeing third-party developer and publisher relationships and commercial operations, including the sale and marketing of hardware, services, and peripherals.
Prior to that, in September last year, then-SIE president and CEO Jim Ryan announced that he would retire in March 2024, ending nearly 30 years in the PlayStation business, due to "the difficulty of balancing his home in the UK with his job in the US".
At that time, in order to smooth out the transition, Sony Group had made a series of temporary arrangements. Hiroki Totoki, president, chief operating officer and chief financial officer of Sony Group, has been the chairman of SIE since October last year, and in April this year, he became interim CEO of SIE.
In this new change, Hiroki Totoku will remain as the chairman of SIE, and the new Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino will report to him.
With the successor now confirmed, Sony's PlayStation business has also begun to enter a new era. However, it is worth mentioning that there are still many difficult problems to be solved at the pass of the new era.
Earlier this year, Sony SIE announced a major business change, and the PlayStation division will streamline its team, laying off about 900 employees, or about 8% of the total number of employees in the department.
It is worth noting that in addition to the closure of PlayStation's London studio, the layoffs also involved a number of high-profile studios, including Insomniac for Spider-Man, Naughty Dog for The Last of Us, and Guerrilla for Horizon.
After the retirement of the veteran, I don't know if the newcomer can bring new answers and weather to the market.