The sales of PlayStation 3 and its games have been far from a catastrophe, but still far from generating any kind of profit for Sony Computer Entertainment. Sony is expected to present a massive loss for the last fiscal year and when reorganizing the company there doesn’t seem to be any room for Ken Kutaragi, the father of the PlayStation. Even if PlayStation was a simple CD project for the SNES, that was never completed, you can not deny the importance Kutaragi had for the PlayStation and the sequel PlayStation 2. These two were the consoles that made Sony the biggest and best selling video game console manufacturer. Kutaragi has been reassigned at several occasions during the last two years and was removed from the board at an earlier occasion.
Kazou Hirai, president of SCEI, will replace Kutaragi. Kutaragi will still be around as an honorary member of the board and as a senior technical adviser.
It’s been known for some time that Kutaragi and VP Howard Stringer have had communication problems, but that it would end like this was not expected. Whether Hirai will be able to fill Kutaragi’s shoes remains to be seen, but you can’t deny that this is a loss that will leave some open wounds, no matter company he had left.
