Sony has announced that Hideaki Nishino is the president and sole CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, effective April 1, 2025. Previously, he was a joint-CEO alongside Herman Hulst. According to a PR statement, while Hulst will still continue to serve CEO of the Studio Business Group, he will now report directly to Nishino.
Further, Sony also announced Hiroki Totoki, President, COO and CFO of Sony Group Corporation will step down from Chairman to become President and CEO of Sony Group Corporation. Lin Tao, SVP, Finance, Corporate Development and Strategy for SIE, will also step down from her position at SIE to become CFO of Sony Group Corporation.
According to the press release, “Nishino began his career at Sony in 2000 and currently serves as CEO, Platform Business Group, SIE. Prior to that role, he served as SVP, Platform Experience Group.”
While Sony has not stated why they are making such a major restructure to SIE, other than saying that its designed to “maximize synergies,” it is likely this is due to recent failures from PlayStation. Supposedly, Sony thought that Concord would be a massive success for the PlayStation 5. Instead, they shelved it due to poor ratings, player count, and sales.
Afterwards, Sony has cancelled in-development “games-as-a-service” en masse, such as a God of War live service game, a Spider-Man live service game, and countless others. The recent success of Astro Bot likely also played a role in this decision. The full consequences of this decision will likely become apparent soon. Hideaki Nishino will fill his role as CEO of Sony Interactive on April 1.
