Last September, Jim Ryan announced his resignation as CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment on March 31. Hiroki Totoki became the interim CEO of SIE, but the Japanese company found suitable candidates for this position.
Sony announced that Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino will take over as co-heads on June 1. You may have heard about Hermen Hulst or seen him in a game, at a presentation, or in an interview. He currently heads PlayStation Studios and was involved in the creation of Guerrilla Games Horizon: Zero Dawn and Killzone. Nishino-san is also a Sony veteran but prefers to stay behind the scenes.
They will have different responsibilities. Hulst will become CEO of SIE's Studio Business Group, which includes PlayStation Studios, Bungie, and PlayStation Productions. This means that he will be responsible for new films, TV shows, comics, and other projects based on the PlayStation franchises.
Nishino-san will become CEO of the Platform Business Group and will oversee everything that is not related to software development. He will have to deal with technologies, products, services and the SIE platform, as well as interact with third-party publishers, developers and engage in hardware marketing.
Time will tell how successful the decision was to appoint a gamer and a former game developer to a senior position in the entertainment part of PlayStation, and someone else to the rest of the positions. Do you think this will lead to better PlayStation performance?