PlayStation's Dual CEO Setup Has 'Opportunities and Risks' | Push Square
Sony took the bold decision of replacing ex-CEO Jim Ryan with two executives. Hermen Hulst is in charge of PS Studios and first-party software, while Hideaki Nishino runs the hardware business. It’s an ambitious structure, and one that could easily lead to conflict: after all, you could argue a way to grow PS Studios is to release software on non-PlayStation platforms – but that would come at the expense of console sales.
How does it all work, then?
“This is not co-CEOs; it’s two CEOs for the company,” Nishino confusingly told Variety as part of an exclusive interview. “Hermen runs his thing, I run my thing, and then we get together to talk about how to grow the business. Growing the business for success has a conflict as well: how we impact each other or how we want to sacrifice or not. It’s a balance. It’s an opportunity and a risk.”
«The product should be the forward-facing thing»
According to Hulst, the two suits spend “80 per cent” of their time focused on their own respective departments. “It’s really nice to have two devs at the helm. We both have engineering degrees; we’re both pretty hands-on,” he said. “There needs to be huge trust, and we’ve worked together for a very long time.”
We suppose splitting the responsibilities does make sense; while hardware and software needs to coalesce in order to create the overall PlayStation ecosystem, they’re two disparate pieces of the same puzzle at the end of the day. As long as they both agree on the general direction of travel, then we suppose no harm can come from this approach – especially as Netflix has utilised it to great effect recently.
As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.
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