Sony has announced a management restructure for their PlayStation business, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), that will see long-serving employee Jim Ryan take over as CEO.
Jim Ryan, who is currently Deputy President of SIE, will take over as President and CEO of the company on Monday 1st April 2019, unless somebody is playing a pretty elaborate and cruel april fools prank. SIE’s current president and CEO, John Kodera, will swap roles with Ryan, becoming the Deputy President of the company. Jim Ryan will still, of course, have to report to the bigwig himself, Kenichiro Yoshida, who is President and CEO of Sony Corporation.
In the announcement of the restructure, Yoshida said that he had decided to change the management of SIE to “ensure sustainable evolution of the PlayStation platform and further growth of the network area”. Yoshida says that Kodera’s new role as Deputy President of SIE will allow him to “focus on the key mission to further develop PlayStation Network that has now grown into an immensely large platform with over 90 million monthly active users worldwide”. We don’t often get to hear statistics like that, so this gives us a good indication of how immensely popular PSN has become.
Jim Ryan, meanwhile, has been an employee of Sony since 1994. He has held numerous roles at the company since then, including President of SIEE (Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe), Head of Global Sales and Marketing at SIE, and Deputy President of SIE. In taking over as President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Jim Ryan released the following statement.
“It’s a huge honor to be asked to take on the role of President and CEO of SIE. I’ve seen the PlayStation business grow and change massively since the very early days, and I hope to be able to put that experience to good use in reinforcing the foundations of the Game & Network Service business, and in evolving the entertainment that PlayStation offers to its engaged and passionate community. Working with John and the SIE team around the world, I am committed to strengthening relations with our business partners, and to continuing to provide the ultimate interactive entertainment experiences that make PlayStation the Best Place to Play.”
It is widely believed that Sony are restructuring things as they prepare to move into the next generation of consoles. When and where the next generation of PlayStation console will be revealed is not known, but we do know that it won’t be at this years E3 following Sony’s announcement that they won’t be attending.
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