Sony has announced today a small shake up in the executives that run its Playstation division. Reuters reports that Kaz Hirai, currently the CEO of Sony"s consumer products unit (which includes the Playstation division) will be moved into a new chairman role at Sony Playstation starting on September 1. Andrew House, currently the head of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, will become the new president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment International.
Hirai was only promoted to become head of Sony"s consumer division last March, a month before the cyber attacks hit the Playstation Network and Sony Online Entertainment that caused Sony to shut down both online networks for several weeks. According to a spokesperson for Sony, today"s reshuffling of the Playstation executive ranks had nothing to do with the cyber attacks. His replacement, Andrew House, has worked at Sony for 20 years and was an active part of the launch of the Playstation console business.
Hirai"s new role as chairman will remove him from the day-to-day operations of running the Playstation division. However, this new role should not be a setback for him in his possible bid to become CEO of Sony. The article quotes analyst Nobuo Kurahashi of Mizuho Investors" Securities as saying, "He"s in pole position to head the whole company, so he needs to focus on that, which is probably why they sought out a successor for the videogames business." Howard Stringer, the current CEO of Sony, has been slammed by others for the company"s reaction to the Playstation cyber attacks. In a shareholder"s meeting this week, a person asked him to resign which Stringer ignored.