Sony Interactive Entertainment Executive Vice President, Masayasu Ito, who led the PlayStation 5 engineering team, is retiring early next year. In the meantime, the veteran executive will step down from his current position and occupy a transitional role at Sony Group starting October 1, while the industry giant continues battling PS5 supply issues.
Ito spent his entire career at Sony, having originally joined the company in 1986 after acquiring a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Tokyo's Waseda University. He first worked on Sony's car audio systems before making a switch to the firm's console division in 2000, where he contributed to the development of various PlayStation accessories. The hardware architect then served as a mechanical engineering lead for the PlayStation Portable console and also led the PS3 hardware team, before eventually overseeing all development efforts on the PS4, PS4 Pro, PS VR, and PS5.
Ito will still serve as an executive adviser to Sony's Platform Experience Group until the end of the conglomerate's current fiscal year, which runs through March 31, 2023. During this interim period, he will also take on a mobility role at Sony Group. The temporary assignment, which is a standard industry practice when it comes to C-suite changes, will likely see Ito facilitate a leadership transition at SIE. His immediate replacement will be another senior executive, Finance SVP Lin Tao, who was elevated to a Director role at the same time SIE appointed Ito as a Representative Director in March 2021.
This change in management isn't meant to signal a wider restructuring effort at Sony, a company spokesperson told Bloomberg. The situation comes down to the fact that the 60-year-old executive decided to depart after reaching retirement age. Regardless, Ito is stepping down during some rather turbulent times for Sony.
The company is still struggling to meet the worldwide demand for the PS5, primarily because the global pandemic continues to wreak havoc on its supply chains. Sony itself recently said that PS5 supply issues may continue until 2024, and while its main rivals are currently experiencing similar problems, neither Microsoft nor Nintendo responded to these market conditions by raising their hardware prices.
Meanwhile, Sony last month announced PS5 price hikes of up to 20% in non-U.S. markets, citing growing inflation rates and adverse currency trends. But some industry watchers believe that the PS5 price increase might not negatively impact sales. And in light of its August announcement, Sony itself clearly subscribes to that theory, as well.
Source: Bloomberg Japan