Shawn Layden quit Sony

It's sad, Shawn seemed like a cool guy and under it's time, SIE was at its best.

I hope this doesn't mean that things are going to change with PS5, Sony should only improve on its current strategy.
 
How do other companies manage it? Do Apple et al stay regional?

I know Microsoft does. They even have different regional offices for different regions within Asia.

Companies that want to do well in Japan will generally have a Japan specific marketing department as marketing to the consumers there is vastly different than say NA. Even product development for large multinational corporations is generally different for the Japanese market than it is for the rest of the world. Heck, there are enough differences between North, Central, and South America that large multinationals will often have different teams handling each of those regions.

Considering how well Sony's PlayStation division has been operating since the PS4 release, it's surprising that they would want to make a move like this.

Then again perhaps this is more superficial than substantial. They may be moving them all under one umbrella with the intention of having independent subdivisions. But currently, if that article is correct, there's a lot of confusion internally as to who reports to whom. What is the chain of command? How much autonomy will each sub-division have? Etc.

Regards,
SB
 

"power struggle" and "take power". That's not how it works, it's Sony not a Klingon Bird of Prey. :no:

How do other companies manage it? Do Apple et al stay regional?

Nope. Apple have regional management who have day-to-day responsibility (legally mandates in most countries/regions) but none of the posts are executive positions.

Considering how well Sony's PlayStation division has been operating since the PS4 release, it's surprising that they would want to make a move like this.

There are new viable, credible competition in Stadia and new technologies and business models that could impact PlayStation's business and they need to be positioned for that. When PS3 launched, PSN was a backwater but now it's front and centre of their services. The same thing happened with Apple before the iTunes store became the profit behemoth it did and being the boss of that is kind of a big deal.
 
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Maybe he is just suffering from some sort of serious illness...
If due to illness, either the announcement would say so, or would say, "for personal reasons." Either way, there'd be a bigger hoo-ha about a 30 year Sony veteran who's contributed so much. The quietness of the departure coupled with the significance of the career shows there's more going on behind the scenes. Perhaps it came to a head one day, maybe Layden was being blocked through this unsure command chain, and he just walked out?
 

The third-party nervousness around the PS5's imminent launch isn't directly attributable to either leader, but there has been a fair amount of internal secrecy so that data and information isn't leaked before launch. Internal teams are slow to receive word about the new console, which means that third-party developers and publishers are being kept in the dark far more than in past cycles.

Goddamit Sony! What's so wrong about giving us the juicy specs?!
 
Yes. Strange. The lack of communications may mean therenit one but two PS5 candidate ... and -as it is rumored- both of them will be released with the PRO version beeing an expensive monster.... ?!?
 
You clean house when things are not going to plan, not when you are market leader.

They could just be restructuring PlayStation within Sony as they always seemed a lot of layers of management, indeed it's been a bit of a mess for a while. It felt like Andrew House ran a stable, if complex, ship but since he departed it has all been in flux.

Whoever is in charge needs to let Cerny design PS5 as he sees fit and don't much about with Sony's first party studio's creative process. Just pay the bills, keep advertising Spider-Man on the side of London buses and let people do what they do best so making sure you're ready to transition to streaming if they ever really becomes something money-spending gamers crave.

You don't change CEOs when you're the market leader? Sony as a company is transforming and with any new CEO, he/she will bring in their own peeps. That's just how it works.
 
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