[GI.Biz] PlayStation names Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino as its new CEOs
- Thread starter --R
- Start date
I can never understand this line of thinking. Its like only a single hierarchical individual ruling is best when historically that's never been the case. Humans have worked collaborative in groups for more than thousands of years. People in general are good at compromising and negotiating and working together, but I guess maybe its different when your a CEO and everyone's a psychopath and a big fan of Ayn Rand.
I would literally buy another PS5 if I could hear him say that himself lol
He got Physint under him.
Could he get this guy for a sequel/new IP?
CEO now & if he couldn't even get the latter after nearly 10 years...
Could he get this guy for a sequel/new IP?
CEO now & if he couldn't even get the latter after nearly 10 years...
But he isnt. It started last gen with Andrew House & Shawn Layden.
Once again, Shawn has been gone well before that article was even written
and yet most games released so far this gen weren't greenlit by Hermen/Ryan
They've essentially been carrying the torch and continuing on the same trajectory (with added GaaS)
Great, now I can be mad at a new person when internal Japanese studios continue to be completely ignored by Playstation.
I'm far from sold on his creative vision for Playstation, but SIE's PC push started shortly after Hulst took over with two games he had a hand in leading the charge. If nothing else, this is certainly encouraging on that front.
And I while dumping hundreds of millions into AAA Kojima passion projects, including a next-gen MGS-like, doesn't clear the stench of Japan Studio's rotting corpse from the air, it is a nice start.
And I while dumping hundreds of millions into AAA Kojima passion projects, including a next-gen MGS-like, doesn't clear the stench of Japan Studio's rotting corpse from the air, it is a nice start.
except their newest ground-up internal studio is a Japanese one, has been expanded since and is probably about to announce their biggest game yet?
even though im a pathological pessimist, i wanna hope that hulst wont stifle creativity, being a creative himself.
too early to tell though.
Glad to see Hulst get the promotion. I think we are going to see some legendary games under this leadership. I remember Hulst mentioned KojiPro and FromSoft when discussing potential 2nd party partnerships a few years ago. We already know about DS2 and Physint from Kojima so maybe SIE got another FromSoft game too.
Congrats! This photo of Hermen's cute cat is the first thing that comes to mind whenever I hear anything about him :)
and not the upside down PS5???? lol
There's only two now, so there's really not much to ignore.
They'll make a big deal about Asobi's game, and Gran Turismo is its own beast.
Why limit this to internal Japanese Studios. Under Jim/Hermen we've seen Sony invest more in South Korea, China and now India. Countries that have been previously ignored by first party so I don't get this criticism
Lies of P and Stellar Blade from South Korea have it out of the park. Besides Black Myth and Phantom 0, I'm curious to see what else is coming from China. I hope they are bangers. Any idea what's coming from India in terms of Sony Projects? Love seeing other countries coming into gaming. I hope many more will follow from around the globe.
I think a couple of the games from the first round of the India Hero Project are already out, and they recently began the 2nd round of submissions
India Hero Project
www.playstation.com
People act like Sony just shuttered Japan Studio for no reason and didn't build Asobi out of it, then expanded them further & set them up for success.
PlayStation isn't ignoring the Japanese market there's just not much for them there since they don't make mobile games (yet).
If they were ignoring Japan they would have just let JS continue to flounder or closed them down entirely without retaining any of the talent
It seems that Hermen Hulst has a good relationship with Hideo Kojima who is basically the person who makes me buy every new PlayStation, so I approve of that. Congrats to him.
well they have neon koi (used to be another name with zynga) working on a big mobile title
yep and tbh I would not be surprised to see Asobi with a mobile title in development at some point, or PS working with mobile devs in Japan
Jim was responsible for pivoting a lot towards GaaS and the bulk of them have been swiftly killed so this line of "it was greenlit by so and so" holds littleweight when things are in constant flux. Hermen was literally in charge of those studios as well, being at the top of the software hierarchy. I'm not saying him being the "blockbuster" guy is bad at all, just people should expect more of what we have been receiving.
Nishino oversaw the release of the Portal which was a success:
Exclusive: The making of the PlayStation Portal
Project lead Hiromi Wakai explains Sony's goals and why the Portal isn't a Vita 2.www.gamefile.news
and he was the one who talked about potentially adding cloud support to the Portal in the future.
新PS5と“PlayStation Portal”はなぜ生まれた? SIEプラットフォーム責任者に聞く「年末商戦」で狙うもの【西田宗千佳のRandomTracking】
PlayStation 5が発売になって3年が経過し、またホリデーシーズンがやってくる。av.watch.impress.co.jp
He was in that role as SVP of Global Product Strategy and Management since 2016 so would have been involved with the PS5 and the PSVR2 too.
Nice, hope this means cloud gaming for Portal in the future…and iterations of the device being released with OLED, better WiFi chip, improved remote play software, etc.
This right here. Devs becoming CEO's is what I would like to see more of...
Haha yep. First thing I always think of when hearing his name. Hilarious that he did this.
There's a format of business that allows employees to each have a complete stake in the business. Some companies operate like this, but very few - they also tend to be extremely successful because everyone has governance rights, and can help to decide how things operate.
(There's basically no external shareholders. Only employees, and they are the ones that get a right to voice their opinions and rights, it's democratic basically)
People keep referencing the Roman empire... and I'm like... Roman empire!? The same empire that was essentially a fascist government? Why do we care that having "two leaders" didn't work for them? Perhaps they failed because ya know... fascist empire?
I personally think that once you've sold your soul to "gods" (aka shareholders) and become a CEO you've become worthless for the most part and have chosen to oversee everyone and not to be closer to the process. You can't effectively help those that are closer to the ground, when you're on the highest throne. CEO is a position of power I've never been a fan of. That said Herman has the rare situation of having worked his way up from actually helping to work on games, to where he is today.
If he can maintain empathy and mediate between the bloodthirsty greedy shareholders and workers/creatives then I am cautiously hopeful (CEO's often just delete that part of their brain because it's a position dominated by sociopaths for a reason). I also think it's a very good thing that he has a "partner" of sorts in Nishino... and that they must both report to the COO. It's a lot closer to how their older model worked.
Sadly too many people approach this whole thing thinking purely in terms of like you said - libertarian capitalism...
The Roman Empire did have the senate at least, they mostly didn't have any power but sometimes they had a bit. But yeah anyway I agree in our Capitalist shareholder lead society there is very little chance for those in power to do much good even if they really want to. And at least Herman isn't an accountant they seem to be the worst types to be made into CEO's.
These are good choices. I think having co-CEOs in the context of one being focused on hardware and the focused on software and the studios is actually a good thing for Sony, especially considering how Jim Ryan openly said how exhausting the job was for him.
Herman clearly knows what he's doing with studios; and we're going to start seeing a lot of the games under his watch coming out soon. GAAS push or not. His rise has been nothing short is insane. Managing Director at Guerrilla to a co-CEO of SIE. Crazy. Nishino clearly knows hardware and has done some really great work.
Good for both of them.
Herman clearly knows what he's doing with studios; and we're going to start seeing a lot of the games under his watch coming out soon. GAAS push or not. His rise has been nothing short is insane. Managing Director at Guerrilla to a co-CEO of SIE. Crazy. Nishino clearly knows hardware and has done some really great work.
Good for both of them.
I think appointing Hulst is a good and smart move, it emphasizes the increased importance of PS Studios' own portfolio and the trans-media initiative with PS Productions.
But, for now it is also still too early to really judge his impact so far. All of the current PS5 games were already green lit and in development before he was appointed head of PS Studios in 2019. But, he was involved with the acquisition of Housemarque and Bluepoint which were smart moves in my opinion. On the other hand the acquisitions of Bungie and Firesprite so far seem to be troublesome going by news around those studios in the past year or so. And there's the closures of Pixelopus, Japan Studio and London Studio, which left a bad taste in my mouth.
However, it looks like Bungie is setting up for a return to form with the Final Shape release next month. Marathon is still a big question mark though, same goes for the acquisitions of Firewalk and Haven. Hopefully Concord has a strong showing in the upcoming showcase but they must be confident acquiring studios that have not released any game yet so we'll see.
It's good to see his close relationship with Kojima (Decima engine collaboration) and securing his 2 future games. Physint I think is really Hulst's passion project, a spiritual successor to MGS and granting Kojima's wish to have Sony Pictures support with his trans-media aspirations.
But, for now it is also still too early to really judge his impact so far. All of the current PS5 games were already green lit and in development before he was appointed head of PS Studios in 2019. But, he was involved with the acquisition of Housemarque and Bluepoint which were smart moves in my opinion. On the other hand the acquisitions of Bungie and Firesprite so far seem to be troublesome going by news around those studios in the past year or so. And there's the closures of Pixelopus, Japan Studio and London Studio, which left a bad taste in my mouth.
However, it looks like Bungie is setting up for a return to form with the Final Shape release next month. Marathon is still a big question mark though, same goes for the acquisitions of Firewalk and Haven. Hopefully Concord has a strong showing in the upcoming showcase but they must be confident acquiring studios that have not released any game yet so we'll see.
It's good to see his close relationship with Kojima (Decima engine collaboration) and securing his 2 future games. Physint I think is really Hulst's passion project, a spiritual successor to MGS and granting Kojima's wish to have Sony Pictures support with his trans-media aspirations.
Interesting to see it split into two positions, but I imagine the industry's increased complexity will need to have more internal scrutiny to make sure quality products and services are delivered.
I remember getting a Killzone 1 demo disc with a PlayStation magazine back in the day and watching some guy from an unknown studio talk about his game. Herman's come quite far!
I believe Hulst will stay "Head of Studios", just with the decision power of an CEO.
I hope SIE doesn't create some crazy management overhead.
No I said non VR. I can't play VR as it makes me sick. I've only played Astro's Playroom so I want another full fledged traditional Astrobot PS5 game.
"Non VR" now I see it. Yeah I'm sure it won't be a VR game. Which is good. It means I will play it. Lol.
Congrats! This photo of Hermen's cute cat is the first thing that comes to mind whenever I hear anything about him :)
The upside down PS5 is classic. I love this image.
Same if its VR only I'm out because as I said earlier VR makes me sick I can't go more than 15 minutes on any VR device without feeling nauseous.
3 actually.
Don't forget Totoki is acting as SIE Chairman. When Jim Ryan was around, it was only him at the top reporting directly to Sony Group CEO Kenichiro Yoshida.
No wonders he could just show up at a major signing in a plain white tshirt
