He also probably was involved in the decision to publish Stellar Blade, so yeah, his impact is only just starting
[GI.Biz] PlayStation names Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino as its new CEOs
- Thread starter --R
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I don't think this is a good idea. It sounds good on paper, but it could fall apart in execution because they could struggle with having a cohesive vision for the PS. You need one strong leader to make the major calls. And it turns downright dysfunctional when those leaders disagree. Ask anyone who have had two bosses.
Honestly: The constant vacation on a boat photos that would crop up around the discussions of layoffs and closures
If someone was tracking Jim Ryan's plane they need to track Hulst's boat
Probably nobody, as Hermen Hulst is still responsible for the development, publishing and day to day operations of first party content.
These are his successors. And yes, they will report to someone within Sony as SIE is still a subsidiary of Sony.
I don't think a 1-to-1 succesor is the plan, Hulst + Nishino will have Ryan's duties, and Totoki will be sitting above them if needed
would be funny if that Lego Horizon rumour actually results in a game
Sony's bosses told him to find good live-service projects so Sony can keep making expensive AAA games. And that's what he has done. That a ton of live-service game fail is normal. Hermen did what he was told to do. Sony can't just keep making $200 - $300 million budget AA singleplayer games. They have to do both. Which is smart.
given what they say here, it seems Hermen is still gonna do that with added responsibility of managing Bungie, their IP on transmedia stuff and other creative stuff at PlayStation so I guess the role just got changed up
It reads like they are seeing which of these two would be better at being the head CEO in a year or two.
Or if neither of them, then bringing in someone outside the company.
I think it's a good idea to split these roles and it's a natural split with matching competencies. Playstation and Xbox are getting big and it's hard to keep your eye on it all, especially with the expansion into transmedia.
I feel like this is the right decision at the right time.
I feel like this is the right decision at the right time.
Totoki is COO and CFO of the mother ship Sony Group that SIE, as a subsidiary, reports to. There was always a direct management line from Sony Group down to SIE. People are just more aware of him since he was interim CEO when Jim stepped down.
I only could see this causing conflict if there are fundamental decisions taken by one division, that could cause the other to perform worse. Lets say Hermen decides on his own that all studios switch to PS5-PC development and that all games release day-and-date. This would lead without a doubt to more software sales, great for Hermen's division, but probably impact hardware sales, not great for Hideaki's division.
But I doubt such big moves wouldn't be thoroughly discussed between them first, maybe even with Hiroki Totoki, to which they both report still.
Yeah but they still call him here chairman of SIE which I think was Ryan's title.
To be honest, Shuhei Yoshida is the only old timer that I remember that used to back indie dev and started in the era where cool games are still being published on PS platform. Even though he is still around the indie push seems to be gone, maybe they have moved on to the china hero thing and reach out to Korean dev like stellar blade for AA games. Smaller size games seems to be gone from PS
I think a lot of people have been disappointed in Sony first party direction. GaaS being a major focus and also the general lack of output of most of their major studios on PS5. This gen has been going for almost 4 years now and we have not seen any new releases from ND, Bend, SP, and others. Only Insomniac has been releasing on a regular schedule and they got punished with layoffs.
Probably still Hulst, as the press release states he's still responsible for the development, publishing and business operations of 1st party content. He basically just get more influence in PlayStation Productions (film and television adaptations) and maybe more influence in the publishing side of business, don't know how much influence he had in that prior.
That was more Shuhei and 2nd/3rd party team that were responsible for that
Totoki is probably just there for general oversight, don't think he is gonna be looking at PlayStation's management at the level he has been so far in Interim capacity
Read the OP again.
Hermen & Nishino are Jim Ryan's successors. Both are now CEOs.
"Hulst is CEO of the newly named Studio Business Group, which includes all of PlayStation's first-party teams
So it looks like Totoki gets the third party relationships as his extra responsibility. It overall looks like he gets to have more on his plate with this promotion. No9 idea if stuff like overlooking the marketing was his thing before.
I'm not sure what changes for Hulst on paper but maybe with this he has more authority over the first party studios since he has one less person on the ladder above him?
Of course I'm aware the actual specifics of this isn't really going to be known by anyone here but it can still be fun to speculate. It seems like the change of having a CEO specifically for the platform and the first party studios would have implications but I have no idea what they would be.
I'm not sure what changes for Hulst on paper but maybe with this he has more authority over the first party studios since he has one less person on the ladder above him?
Of course I'm aware the actual specifics of this isn't really going to be known by anyone here but it can still be fun to speculate. It seems like the change of having a CEO specifically for the platform and the first party studios would have implications but I have no idea what they would be.
The split makes me think Sony CEO had a problem of being in two places US and Japan. Ryan was flying to Japan every other week or something, spliting this will help. Noshino being in Japan makes me think we will not travel that much and Hulst will stay in US where most Sony studios are.
Sounds good we need more CEOs that know what game devs like less PR BS not pointing fingers at anyone
That's true, he'll have a bit more involvement with SIE than prior Sony Group execs. Both a good and bad thing. Good as Sony has been disjointed for a long time and he can leverage collaboration between the various other subsidiaries. Bad as he's another mother ship layer that happens to also be the CFO of said mothership.
