Sony names new PlayStation leaders following Jim Ryan’s retirement

Sony names new PlayStation leaders following Jim Ryan’s retirement

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Sony is appointing co-CEOs Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino to lead its PlayStation business from June 1st. Hermen Hulst, who currently serves as PlayStation studios chief, will be appointed as CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) studio business group. Hideaki Nishino will be appointed CEO of SIE’s platform business group, and both will report up to Sony CFO and SIE chairman Hiroki Totoki.

The unusual appointment of co-CEOs comes just months after former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan retired. Totoki had been serving as interim CEO of SIE and was working to find the successor for the SIE CEO role, but Sony has now decided it wants to split up responsibilities for leading its PlayStation business across platform and games. Both Nishino and Hulst are Sony veterans, with Nishino having served multiple roles for more than 20 years at Sony.

This is the first time Sony has appointed co-CEOs to run its PlayStation business, and it comes amid a game industry that’s reeling from layoffs over the past 18 months. Sony laid off 900 PlayStation employees earlier this year and closed its London Studio in the UK that developed PlayStation VR games. Microsoft laid off 1,900 Activision and Xbox employees earlier this year, and then shut down the Bethesda studios behind Redfall and Hi-Fi Rush last week in another round of layoffs.

Sony’s announcement of new PlayStation leaders also comes just hours before it’s due to report its latest earnings. Sony lowered its PS5 console sales forecasts last quarter, so all eyes are now on the number of PS5 units that the company managed to sell in its 2023 fiscal year ended March 31st. We might also get further hints at Sony’s ambitious PlayStation PC plans.

During an earnings call earlier this year, SIE chairman Hiroki Totoki also discussed the opportunity to grow PlayStation games on PC / multiplatform. “In the past, we wanted to popularize console... but there is a synergy to it,” said Totoki. “So if you have strong first-party content, not only with our console but also other platforms like computers, first-party can be grown with multi platforms and that can help operating profit to improve.”