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Sony chief exec calls it a day

by Steven Williamson on 27 April 2007, 09:25

Tags: Sony Computers Entertainment Europe (NYSE:SNE)

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Father of Playstation retires



The chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc and the inventor of the original Playstation, Ken Kutaragi, yesterday confirmed that he will be retiring from his position in June this year.He will be replaced by Kazuo Hirai, currently president and chief operating officer of the division.

"Mr. Kutaragi has said that he has been considering this decision for some time," Sony Computer Entertainment America spokeswoman Kimberly Otzman said in a statement. "Sony and SCE will continue to seek Mr. Kutaragi's input and ideas from a broad perspective, while continuing to support him as much as possible in the realization of his dreams."

Kutaragi has confirmed that he wishes to continue to innovate within the industry, "It has been an exciting experience to change the world of computer entertainment by marrying cutting-edge technologies with creative minds from all over the world. I'm looking forward to building on this vision in my next endeavors."

The shake-up in the video-game division comes amid broader problems for Sony. The Playstation 3 hasn't been selling as well as expected and the company are expecting heavy losses in 2007. In the past couple of weeks its been reported that Sony are planning to cut up to 8% of their work force in Europe; Sony have said that this has nothing to do with the performance of the PS3.

Sony had been looking to the third generation of its PlayStation console to put it back on top of the gaming world, a position Mr Kutaragi secured for the firm with the launch of the first PlayStation back in 1994. As it stands, Nintendo and Microsoft are way ahead of the game as the Japanese company announced record profits yesterday and Microsoft's Xbox 360 continues to sell well across the Globe.

Kutaragi will be given the title of honorary chairman and will act as an advisor to the main body of Sony.


HEXUS Forums :: 4 Comments

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Posted by Gordy - Fri 27 Apr 2007 10:51
Retired my backside, more like pushed out of the door for the disaster that is the ps3 :D
Posted by directhex - Fri 27 Apr 2007 11:09
yeah, and replaced with kaz? same ****, different day
Posted by iamwhoiam - Fri 27 Apr 2007 11:30
Haha, this makes a lot of sense.
Posted by DeSean - Fri 27 Apr 2007 15:10
Sony have not hit the mark with the PS3, but the console does still have huge potential.

They did seem to make stupid mistakes however, and somebody messed up (or lots of people).

Having better developer support (including before the console launch) would have been a good idea considering the apparent complexity of the luverly little IBM CPU. They should have planned better from the beginning (I read that the Cell was originally the GPU or something?), and made sure the online facilities etc were better developed by launch day.

Lastly, you can't beat some good old underhand/and or viral marketing/PR. Even restricting supply for a little while to silence the idiots who sneer constantly on forums about the number of PS3s on shelves. Selling it worldwide would have been a good plan, supply issues could be spun as popularity. The UK advertising wasn't good enough, I don't even remember it… You need to create a buzz about a product like this, make it the thing to have, and let peer pressure do the rest.

So basically they should have booted some people out before the damn thing was even released, though it is easy for me to say that now and less easy to do at the time.

Again:

The PS3 is not a disaster. :angst:

For one of those look at poor old ATi and R600, judging by the latest info. “R600” will probably become a phrase for a technology firm cocking up…