In a week that saw the announcement of Hideki Kamiya’s departure from PlatinumGames, the folks at Sony seemingly said…hold my beer. As Sony Interactive Entertainment announced their current President and CEO Jim Ryan will be retiring in March 2024 and Sony Group Corporation COO/CFO Hiroki Totoki will be taking on Ryan’s duties in October as they work through a transition as well as the announcement of Ryan’s replacement.
Ryan who has been with the company since 1994, climbed his way up from the European branch of Sony Interactive Entertainment eventually being named SIE President and CEO in early 2018. Ryan’s reputation amongst the PlayStation faithful was never quite as warm as his predecessors such as Kaz Hirai and Andrew House, but he did preside during a time when previously PlayStation exclusive titles started to see PC releases.
In a comment released from Ryan, he stated a major factor in his decision was trying to reconcile living in Europe while working in North America. With a nearly 30 year run at Sony, he’s certainly earned his retirement. It will be interesting to see who will ultimately take the reigns of SIE, will it be someone who the PlayStation community be intimately familiar with such as Shuhei Yoshida, or perhaps Adam Boyes lured back from his CEO post at Iron Galaxy Studios…it’ll probably be someone who’s known internally, but is generally unknown by the public at large. Needless to say it will be interesting to see what comes out of this massive shake up when it completes in Q2 of 2024.