[GI.Biz] PlayStation names Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino as its new CEOs
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My initial read of this move is that each has to stand on its own in terms of P&L.
And I'm not sure what to think about that given Jim Ryan's comments a year or two ago about how a move like Xbox taking CoD exclusive would hurt the PlayStation business. Do I read that as the money they were making on a third-party title was being used to subsidize first-party development? If so, I'm inclined to believe that approach might be done with now.
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People's issue isn't that he chose sequels, but that he chose the wrong sequels. He chose Horizon 2, God of War 2 and Spider-Man 2 over Gravity Rush 3, Gravity Rush 4 and Gravity Rush 5.
The fact that they split the role makes me believe Sony is serious about going multiplatform. Before now Sony first party's main focus is to help sell Playstation, and all of their planning revolve around that goal. Now the software business is no longer in service of the hardware, it has its own profitting goal.
Similar read. Should make for cleaner reporting of core health.
I also wonder if this is further groundwork for bringing first party IP to other platforms. Since that business is now its own line.
Hulst's career glowup is even more impressive than Druckmann's. Man's got to be set for life at this point.
It will be interesting to hear what the new strategy is at the Sony Group meeting later this month. Also may be the end of selling hardware at a loss.
It makes sense to split them if they are going to do more PC releases and expand in other ways as well.
the indie focus is now about getting those games to release on PS and less about getting timed exclusive indie games. I would have thought people here would prefer that instead of indies getting locked in PS platform.
anyway, I think last notable indie games push by Sony are Kena, Stray and Tchia. Tchia is just last year. Sony still promote indie games
Makes a certain amount of sense when the last guy left because of the work and travel load.
I don't think it's shocking or anything to think the person focused on first party output should continue to focus on first party output rather than splitting his time between that and whatever goes on on the hardware platform side.
It's pretty normal to expect a sequel to follow up a successful new IP, more so if it takes 6-7 years to lay the ground work for that world. As for their output there's an almost equal split of new IP to sequel which isn't bad. We'll see if that balance changes as he starts greenlighting more games, but signing a new IP from Kojima Productions to work on after DS2 is already a great start.
Though5 it said PlayStation Home in the title for a moment lol
Tbh it sounds like they made Jim's position redundant and just had the hardware division and software division report directly to totoki
Like in the old structure it wouldve been: these 2 execs -> Jim -> totoki
Now it's just eliminated the Jim part
It also frees (requires?) the platform side to act in its best interest to get the most gamers on it.
I don't see a future where dedicated gaming hardware magically reverses its decline since the PS2 era, so it might mean a more aggressive Sony getting their own act together in the form of a wider platform including a mobile store and more widely available streaming service.
Hurst having actual experience in game development makes this undeniably good news. I'm not expecting him to turn the ship around and make Playstation as good as it was a decade ago but at least there's a chance he'll be better for employees.
That would be great for one division, but not really for the other. They still need to be profitable overall as SIE.
People love sequels. Nothing shocking about that.
At least it's not Druckmann. Hopefully the two help steer Playstation to a great place.
Seems like a very promising combination.
Nishino with Cerny has kept the fantastic hardware coming and while obviously it's still too soon to see any of the games that Hulst has recently greenlit and overseen from start to finish, they certainly seem quite pleased so far overall with his relationships with the first party studios along with his forging of relationships with fellow devs, like Kojima, seeing him move up a second time this quickly. He's really risen quickly, same with Guerilla itself too.
Nishino with Cerny has kept the fantastic hardware coming and while obviously it's still too soon to see any of the games that Hulst has recently greenlit and overseen from start to finish, they certainly seem quite pleased so far overall with his relationships with the first party studios along with his forging of relationships with fellow devs, like Kojima, seeing him move up a second time this quickly. He's really risen quickly, same with Guerilla itself too.
Yup, good stuff.
Yeah.
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Yeah, I haven't had huge interest in the games Hulst has been part of, but it's absolutely a great thing to have a developer heading up the software side of PlayStation.
I suppose the biggest question is, without a main leader who is setting the high-level vision of PS going forwards? Do these two guys just grab some coffee and hash it out?
I suppose the biggest question is, without a main leader who is setting the high-level vision of PS going forwards? Do these two guys just grab some coffee and hash it out?
Probably thinks every studio is as smooth at developing games as Insomniac and Guerilla.
Still better than the GaaS focus.
That won't be changing. He might not be as vocal about it as Jim Ryan, but it's not like the financial situation has changed there.
Honestly. This is pretty cool. Seems like one over hardware and one over software. Please just bring some good interesting games out of this.
Seems like a great duo to be honest. I was kind of dreading who the new CEO would be, but Hulst at least, knows what makes Playstation Studios great and this should ensure a focus on great games going forward (I hope).
It will be interesting to see how the future of Playstation unfolds under them. I'll be cautiously optimistic about it.
They did ask me originally but I am too busy trying to play every deckbuilder on Steam. Maybe next time.