After Jim Ryan retired, Sony names new PlayStation leaders

Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino, who are co-CEOs at Sony, will take leadership of the PlayStation division starting on June 1. The CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) studio business group will be Hermen Hulst, who is currently in charge of the PlayStation studios. The platform business group of SIE will be led by Hideaki Nishino, who will report to Hiroki Totoki, chairman of SIE, and the CFO of Sony.

Jim Ryan, the former CEO of PlayStation, retired a few months ago, which is why the unique co-CEO appointment happened. Although Totoki was acting as SIE’s interim CEO while searching for a replacement, Sony has now made the decision that it wants to divide up the duties of running its PlayStation company between platforms and games. Hulst and Nishino are both former Sony employees; Nishino worked there for more than 20 years in a number of roles.

For the first time, Sony has named co-CEOs to oversee its PlayStation division, and the announcement comes with a furious 18 months of layoffs in the video game industry. Earlier this year, Sony closed its London Studio in the UK, where it was developing PlayStation VR games, and laid off 900 PlayStation employees. After firing 1,900 workers from Activision and Xbox earlier in the year, Microsoft closed the Bethesda studios that were home to Redfall and Hi-Fi Rush last week in yet another round of layoffs.

Sony also announced the addition of new PlayStation executives just hours before it was scheduled to release its most recent financial results. All eyes are now on how many PS5 units Sony was able to sell in its 2023 fiscal year, which ended on March 31st, after the firm cut its sales expectations for the PS5 console last quarter. We may also receive additional details about Sony’s grand goals for the PlayStation PC.

Earlier this year, SIE chairman Hiroki Totoki talked about the potential for PlayStation games to expand on PC and other platforms during an earnings call. “There’s a synergy to it, but we wanted to popularize console in the past,” Totoki remarked. “Therefore, first-party content can expand across multiple platforms and enhance operating profit if it is strong, not just on our console but also on other platforms like computers.”