Who Is PlayStation's New CEO, Hiroki Totoki?

I’m actually glad that Ryan is leaving. He had the benefit of following the ground work and success created my Shawn Layden. Ryan seemed to lack the enthusiasm to be the PlayStation leader.

@MrZurkonKeelYou Yeah, shawn layden era is fun, playstation is close to their fans (playstation experience event), they still make AA games that won't sell much but will make their fans happy (sotc remaster & the last guardian), and they're not censoring 3rd party games like now.

Although moving their hq to california is shawn layden fault.

Hopefully Hulst doesn't take over

People keep hating on Jim but love Phil who want to monopolize the gaming industry you can’t make this up lol.

Totoki is a pure finance guy and will likely appoint someone in his mould.

People I know who've worked with him say he's very data-driven and he's a very effective decision-maker (not always a strong trait of Japanese business). Let's see.

@wiiware nothing wrong with moving the hq to California. That’s where some of their biggest AAA studios are. Makes sense for HQ to be there as well.

What we won't know by these announcements is if there's anyone Jim Ryan would be pushing to take his place or if its something the Sony board will pursue independently by inferring this pro temporary appointment

Traditionally they have promoted from within, but does this infer possibly expanding to looking externally?
Obviously Shuhei Yoshida has a lot of sentimental support & engages with the PS Community. But his current role was (according to him),a result of a Jim Ryan initiative to overhaul & improve & encourage Indie support back to Playstation.
Would Shu want the CEO role given its demands? He seems quite happy engaging with devs in his current role.

One would hope a Shawn Layden/Shu Yoshida type figure could be found who hopefully can engage & communicate with the community, but obviously a lot of senior management currently there like Hermen Hulst & co.,would have been Jim Ryan appointments,so time will tell.

Sony is the only big company I care for. Just the name alone. Best company name. Short, beautiful, slick. Same as logo design etc
So hope CEO will be Japanese again. The "Americanization" (or Britishicasion if you want) was the only bad thing about them

@4kgk2 eh? I dont see anybody singing phils virtues. Nobody. I think this guys going to be spread out too much to dedicate his time to this. I hope i'm wrong (as you guys always say i am) but i think this could have a detrimental effect on us the gamers because his prioritys look as though they are focused on other things.

"Obsessed with growth."

Oh man, we're just going from bad to worse, ain't we. At least he's only an interim CEO.

I always liked Big Jimmy. That lack of Acquisitions of studios had always been my main complaint of Playstation. He went to the right direction with acquiring a lot of studios.

"obsessed with growth" sounds bad to me though. Let time tell what that even means.

Will he put an end to all the ridiculous censorship that Sony have been forcing on developers??

Sony is a corporation. It exists to make money, not to be your friend. Anyone hoping for a new era of love for customers will be disappointed.

@LifeGirl True, but depending on who's in charge they tend to have a different strategy. Some years ago, they funded all sorts of projects being acutely aware than only 6/10 would be profitable but that those would more than make up for the losses of the rest (don't remember who said that). Then they decided they didn't want to make those games any more, so now they either make sure things (e.g. sequels) or games as a service. I hope they go back to their earlier strategy so that we can get some gems that don't have mass appeal, but offer variety.

I hope they ultimately find the right replacement. Sony seems to have lost their way in recent years: increasingly disconnected from the player base, less willing to take risks on a variety of games, closing Japan Studio (that one still hurts) etc. They seem to have become pretty complacent. Really hope that the replacement is someone who understands and loves games and wants to push forwards the medium, as well as follow the PS exclusive 'winning formula'.

As he's interim, there will be no big decisions under his tenure.

I've disliked Jim's tenure as CEO and disagreed with pretty much every decision you can tie to him.

If we can get rid of Phil Spencer next year then it may well be an exciting time for gaming.

@JimRyansReplacement
It’s the centralisation that took place with that move that was the issue. It used to be individual regions had their own management structure and decision makers leading to less homogenised output and a greater variety of games and respect for said variety. The centralisation was disastrous, the choice to let the US lead very poor.

@LifeGirl why? They brought Mark Cerny onboard for PS4 and the whole deal was he had a respect for development and that was his input.

@Oz_Momotaro Why has he been a non-event? His role is to support indie devs and promote indie games on Playstation, something I can't really complain about.

Almost all Playstation showcases or state of plays of the last several years have had a significant indie dev presence. There have been some very high profile releases like Stray and Kena. PS Plus Extra has a wide range of quality indie titles. Loads of excellent indie games are on sale basically the year round.

It's hard to say exactly which accomplishments are his, because his role is very behind the scenes, but as a fan of indie gaming, I certainly feel like there's never been a better time to own a Playstation. I'm sure the same is true for Xbox with GP, but the one doesn't take away from the other.

looks like someone that will make playstation great again after 5/6 horrible years and make me finally clean my ps5

@Oz_Momotaro Not sure why you dismiss Stray and Kena as indies. Is it because they are not pixel-art metroidvanias? Stray was developed by a very small, independent team over a long period. Kena was developed by a small, independent animation studio as their first game ever, and self-published as well. They are as indie as they come.

I'm not sure why it matters that many indies are part of GP. That is a much more mature platform than Sony's competing service, it is to be expected that they have a head start. But Sony have definitely made strides in the right direction there.

If you're looking for evidence, you're not going to get it. As I said, his role is so behind the scenes it's hard to gauge what his accomplishments are. I just find it odd to be so dismissive of him, as if you know for a fact he hasn't contributed much. You simply don't know that, and you exaggerate how bad Playstation as a platform is for indies.

An obsession with growth is a bad thing like seriously that gave me chills u can't have endless growth sony needs to focus on wut they already have

Could we see Shawne Benson as a replacement? We saw her in the latest State of Play (and that was kind of surprising to be honest).

Can we have Shuhei Yoshida??

@thetraditional ooh it could either go really well or badly....Great call!

@get2sammyb when I say he had the luck of following Layden I mean that as the public face. Ryan might have the actual role of president but he never connected with the audience he served in the way Layden did imo. Layden was the face that led the way to PlayStation’s peak at the time and was well liked and respected by media and consumers alike.

Oh yes, give us more data driven gaming. I can't get enough of data influencing what I play 😁

What SIE really need, is someone who can work closely with some sort of creative director, who has a vision for the future of their gaming output and brand overall. With the numbers-and-data-bot finding a way to make these things more profitable whilst staying the f*** out of the way

Hopefully sony buy more studios.and the PlayStation exclusives come quickly.and it will be interesting to see how things gonna be.word up son

I'm thrilled Ryan is leaving. Although this Hiroko is the "infinite growth obsession" dude, the worst element of capitalism, so that's not great...

Sony is losing touch with the fan base. There's nothing on the horizon that I get excited for when I think of PlayStation, at least from a 1st party perspective. These State of play showings are snoozefests. Sure, Spider-Man 2 will be fun, but it's hardly original. I want Sony to turn it around, make some more quirkier titles, revive some old IPS like Infamous or Warhawk or Syphon Filter, stuff like that.

If there was someone within Sony/PlayStation to take over permanently they would’ve announced it.
So count out Shu & Hulst. Sony might be holding interviews in-house, but I doubt it.

A Shawn Layden return would be ideal.

I really don't like the direction that Playstation has taken, especially in terms of communication, the launch of PSVR2 was disastrous, and I miss a bit of the brand's Japanese sensibility, whether in commercials or in games.
That said, I respect Jim Ryan a lot, he faced an extremely difficult period for the industry, both in terms of the pandemic and the issue of company consolidation, surviving the struggle with Microsoft and going head to head is not a task for everyone, and despite all this, the PS5 is about to break records compared to its predecessors.
So in my opinion, as the difficulties will only increase, the next president can and should be someone aggressive like Jim Ryan. What Sony really needs for Playstation is a better marketing, PR, more Japan, a face to appear and communicate to fans, interact with people, and that person doesn't necessarily need to be the CEO.
Wish all the best to JR, as a Sony fan, he has been with the brand since the beginning, a good retirement for him and good rest from this crazy industry. The family is always more important.

Sounds like Totoki is a restructure kind of guy and maybe PlayStation needs that to be put back on its path. First order of business, get out of commie-fornia and move back to Tokyo.
This guy being well informed into SIE as a whole sounds perfect to be the new CEO permanently. Failing that I'd take Shu Yoshida. He deserves it for all he's contributed to PlayStation and the industry. And he's a gamer who understands the roots.

He describes himself as being "obsessed with growth"

Yikes that's a gigantic red flag good thing he's temporary 😬 Hopefully they find someone that can strike the right balance between corporate and good public relations

This guy won’t be any better.

@TimeDelayedGamer you're right as a gamer, but they're business leaders. Has any gamer ever talked to one of those leaders? No. The fact is simple: they want their business grow and their methods could be customer-friendly or not.

Personally I think Playstation has offered a very Vanilla lineup recently. There’s been lots of open world action games, but they’ve really lost a lot of variety in other styles of games. That works against XBox who can barely put out 2 or 3 exclusives a year recently (usually fps), but Sony is ignoring family gaming and the casual market and is losing to Nintendo badly in this respect, especially in Japan. I would hope who ever takes over permanently will try and make the console lineup more well rounded.

@Oz_Momotaro Reinventing some old IPs would inject some lifeblood into these states of play snoozefests. Look at Capcom, literally remaking their entire RE series, continuing Street Fighter, innovating with Monster Hunter, brought Mega Man back, continuing AA, and their profits, stock and popularity have skyrocketed in recent years.

Nintendo continuously reinvents Mario, with 64, Sunshine, Galaxy, Odyssey, NSMB, and now Wonder. They reinvented Zelda with OOT, WW, and BOTW. Both IPs are just as relevant today as they were back in the 80s, perhaps moreso (Mario film made 1B+)

Sony keeps a few old IPs around like God of War and Gran Turismo, but they're sitting on an enormous wealth of old IP that they just don't seem to want to use. The notion that there's millions of loyal PlayStation Gamers that have been gaming with them for over 20 years, to also say that 70 to 80% of those PS players have never played any of those old IPs, doesn't add up. Sony is having an identity crisis, and they seem clueless as to what to do about it. VR is and will remain a niche for quite some time, so they can't bet on that to be the huge breakthrough that they need. They had a good thing going with The Last of Us, until they decided to pour tons of resources into a stupid multiplayer game; MP is not what TLOU is about. Let's continue Uncharted with Drake's daughter, but they don't seem to be doing that.
Splinter Cell is dead. Metal Gear is dead. Perfect Dark is years away. This is the perfect time to bring back Syphon Filter; can't tell you how much I'm craving a big-Budget, decent third person stealth action game.

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head that would make PlayStation more exciting again. Ryan personified the abandonment of the company's roots, and while Sony is in the unique position of also being a hardware maker, we've seen time and time again what often happens to companies that completely abandon what made them successful in the first place.

Feels like the right time to bring back Kaz Hirai and Ridge Racer in one fell swoop!

@MagisterMagi Why is that? I don't know a lot about him.

Sony needs to be more Japanese. They've forgotten how to be playful and fun. It's all a bit soulless and rote at the moment. Listen to your roots, not suits.

@naruball Plus they also felt personable and had a great stage presence. Passion can drive these people, and that passion can go beyond just money. It's very popular to completely cynical, but while there is a lot of truth to it, it does not define everything and doesn't reflect reality.

Anyone would think JR is leaving this week and not in over half a year! I know the 5% of hardcore fans that frequent sites like this will care about who the next CEO is, but Sony will care about apointing a CEO that can hit financial targets. Sony is a business in an ever competitve world so growth isn't a luxury, its essential to their exsistence long term. Most Playstation players won't know who care who the next CEO is. You could put Kevin Butler on the screen and most players would just enjoy that.

@Jaz007 yeah. Exactly. Though as a gamer, I care about the games and everything else is just a little extra to me, I do miss that.

Whoever takes over seriously needs to focus on what the PlayStation brand is all about. Hopefully someone who understands what gaming is all about. And bring back franchises that made the brand stand out. Motorstorm, Wipeout, Resistance, Killzone, Driveclub, Ridgeracer. Not all PlayStation gamers want endless indie & open world nonsense.

Isn't this the guy who designed Cyberpunk? Hopefully we'll get a few less bugs this time! SMH!

@Oz_Momotaro Well, if it wasn't clear by now, media industries feed on nostalgia. To abandon one's entire legacy is how you lose your original fans, and your relevancy fades. Imagine if Mario, Zelda and Pokemon suddenly ended, Nintendo would be a world of trouble. You're unreasonable to say "Sony, throw all your old IPs away, only make new stuff every new generation". Completely unrealistic.