Sony reorganizes divisions, has big plans for future

by David Hinkle { Feb 27th 2009 at 11:50AM }

Like two lovers caught in a seductive tango, chief executive Howard Stringer has taken the lead as president of Sony's electronics division, taking on a more intimate and hands-on role with the company's future. The previous president, engineer-turned-exec Ryoji Chubachi, will undertake a new role as vice chairman and stay on to assist Stringer. This recent move is part of Sony's attempt to manage the huge losses the company has suffered recently. The reorganization doesn't stop there, oh no, Sony is really shaking things up.

The company is forming two new divisions, one of which will oversee PlayStation and Vaio PCs, while the other takes charge of Bravia TVs, Cybershot digital cameras, and Handycam camcorders. The man in charge of the new PlayStation and Vaio division is none other than Kaz Hirai, head of Sony's gaming business. Heading up the other division will be Hiroshi Yoshioka, who currently oversees Sony's TV business.

On the video game side of things, one of the opportunities presented by this restructuring will be the expansion of PSN beyond the realm of games. Sony wants to offer real network-based content that works across all Sony devices, including its game consoles, Walkman brand, and even the e-Reader. With Sony reorganizing all of its divisions, the prospect of SCE having greater access to other divisions in the company becomes higher. This leaves the possibility of new synergistic ideas within Sony, such as PSN on your cell phone or an MP3 store for PSP. This corporate shuffle will allow Sony to be the "united company" it has been telling us it will be ... for years.

Source - Stringer adds president post in shake-up [Via Edge]
Source - Strategy Analytics: Sony Brings Down Silos To Address Connected Consumer Opportunities

Tags: howard-stringer, kaz-hirai, scea, sony, sony-computer-entertainment

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

koehler83 @ Feb 27th 2009 11:54AM

Step 1: Disband SOE and move the staff to studios making games for Sony platforms and not for Windows.

Markez @ Feb 27th 2009 11:56AM

Step 2: Realize in horror that you look like one of those horrific animatronic robots from Chuck E Cheese that lifelessly turns from side to side.

Marty @ Feb 27th 2009 12:25PM

Step 3: ???

WRE @ Feb 27th 2009 12:41PM

Would it be possible for Step 4 in this scenario to be Profit?

Chris D.(PSN: Aggie_CEO | XBL:The Aggie CEO | Steam: Aggie_CEO @ Feb 27th 2009 12:51PM

No No No....

Step 4 would be to make back he Billion and some change that you lost, then step FIVE is profit

Great Golem+ @ Feb 27th 2009 2:10PM

Step 1 should be putting all PSX and PS2 games they possibly can on PSN.

Kodros @ Feb 27th 2009 2:23PM

Step 5: Facepalm yourself once you realize that SOE is making the Agency and DC Universe for both Windows and the PS3.

Maverick Saturn @ Feb 27th 2009 11:55AM

Sounds like a more organised structure to me :D

And opens up more possibilities, heck, there should be a PS3TV already :P

Marty @ Feb 27th 2009 12:18PM

Because the world needs a more expensive TV right now!

Jake @ Feb 27th 2009 12:59PM

that would be amazing!!!

from what i see they're working on something that yes could benefit them, but the psn is really for ps3 and they seem to be ignoring what people want!!

Maverick Saturn @ Feb 27th 2009 1:12PM

Marty, think of the benefits, watching a movie and suddenly it split screens to allow you to access PSN! Ha! :D

I'm joking Marty, I know about the expences, but let me at least dream a little :P

joeybeast @ Feb 27th 2009 11:57AM

Does that mean more cat fights with MS?

greggo @ Feb 27th 2009 11:58AM

Fanboy comment got me banned.

Discotheque @ Feb 27th 2009 11:59AM

You silly monkey...

Levi @ Feb 27th 2009 12:07PM

Trix are for kids

Markez @ Feb 27th 2009 12:08PM

I heard the Trix Rabbit killed the Trix Monkey back in the 80's with a tire iron after they got into an argument about who would get more space on the front of the box.

ryan @ Feb 27th 2009 12:44PM

I'm glad you got banned. Your comments were worse than a barrel of monkey eating Trix machines...alright that was a horrible follow up, but your comments sucked and needed to be put to death. :D

Rahul (Rurouni Kenshin Forever!) @ Feb 27th 2009 5:40PM

Too bad I wasn't able to see it. : /

FeaturePreacher @ Feb 27th 2009 12:09PM

Sony still makes walkmans? I thought those things were defunct by now. Well hopefully, this restructuring will change their design philosophy towards straightforward hardware to support easy to develop software and a user interface with ubiquitous features.

j.howlett @ Feb 27th 2009 12:27PM

it's the brand name for their portable music players, like playstation is for their game machines. they have some nice mp3 players.

Nathanical @ Feb 27th 2009 3:16PM

Their Walkman range is still going, and as far as quality goes id say going strong. When u take into concidderation that there are OTHER players out there that arnt made by apple, the walkman is still prominent. While not as feature rich, or asthetically sleek as the ipod, when it comes to its MUSICAL abilities (where it counts), its among the very best, and head over sholders above the ipod. Its certainly got the best sound quality of all players ive tried (inc: Creatives, and ipods).

In short, The Ipod is the fashionable one, but gets trumped by most others in the sound quality department.

The Walkman is among the best when it comes to sound quality, but lacking in the (non musical) features department. + gets bundled with some real nice earbuds.

Hashbrown Hunter @ Feb 27th 2009 4:28PM

Have any of you guys seen that new red hot OLED touchscreen Walkman? If the next PSP doesn't resemble that in some way, I just may kill myself.

Bleu @ Feb 27th 2009 12:09PM

I like these moves the possibilities are endless...I am excited for Sony.....Long Live SONY!

Duke @ Feb 27th 2009 1:40PM

Creepy... The possibilities are endless now? What is it that some of you smoke to take such basic news and make it sound like cancer is being cured.

Popfrogs @ Feb 27th 2009 3:53PM

In this case, a reorg COULD cure the cancer that has been hurting Sony for a few years. I had a feeling this old dude would end up running Sony. I guess if you're knighted, nothing is out of your reach.

Bleu @ Feb 27th 2009 4:01PM

Duke come on bro the explanation of the moves makes total sense to me-they are not just making moves just to make moves...these will help them out in the long run.

Chris D.(PSN: Aggie_CEO | XBL:The Aggie CEO | Steam: Aggie_CEO @ Feb 27th 2009 12:10PM

PSN on Wireless cameras, Cell phones, Walkmans, Handycams, & TVs!?!?

That would make it "SONY Network" not "PlayStation Network" wouldnt it??

either way I'm down. just wonder how they would run all that together tho. I mean I can see purchasing MP3's on the PSP and PS3 but what other than Videos can you get on Cameras??? at the very LEAST they need to make a "universal" log-in for ALL of their services and possibly even work with Goggle to attach it all to a Gmail account. I mean its not like they can get in the email game THIS late and expect to make a dent so why not just partner up with the BIGGEST threat to ANY software company?? One thing is certain. they need to focus MORE on Software and they will be fine in the gaming divison. sure they can bring out a 320GB HDD and 500GB HDD model PS3 but they need to have ALL programmers on the PS2 emulation software as well as other features online such as being able to message friends, add friends, check games played, view trophies, etc.

Marty @ Feb 27th 2009 12:24PM

I'm sorry, but I can't see a PSN / Sony account being linked to a Google account. The two companies have nothing to do with each other, and to unify the wide variety of services they offer would be almost impossible.

I do think that unifying all their own internal accounts / devices would be a good way to go, however. At this point, I think the only way anyone can beat Apple / iTunes is to start with a device like a video game console and expand out from there. Microsoft has a good platform right now, with the Xbox / PC / Zune, but they aren't taking advantage of it. Imagine being able to browse the net on your MP3 player, buy some music, and then have it synced up with your PC / console(s) wirelessly when you get home.

That would be awesome, in my opinion, and the first company that does this (and does is it well) will make a strong push against Apple's market dominance. This doesn't require Google in any way though, so I don't see the point in worrying about joining accounts with them.

Chris D.(PSN: Aggie_CEO | XBL:The Aggie CEO | Steam: Aggie_CEO @ Feb 27th 2009 12:48PM

yea the google thing was an OUT there thought. as for going up against iTunes though YEARS ago one would think Sony would BE the one thats able to do it. then they do the stupid ATRAC thing and turned people off. I mean hell they HAD ARGUABLY the BEST music player with the Walkman and theoretically should have taken it to the next level, but then the iPod launches and Sony gets shit thrown in their eyes for kicking shit at the consumer with ATRAC. Yea MS has the BES window right now in order to do that With the Zune but they have to REALLY step their game up on that and SOON(Where are those Zune Games at anyways??)

But yea if they can get ALL of their vast branches unified on the PSN some how and do it RIGHT it will be crazy, and can easily be a good service. Especially if they allow you to pay to Stream movies to Bravias or Cellphones

lego91994 @ Feb 27th 2009 1:34PM

Marty, you can already browse the net and buy music on the iPod Touch, and when you connect it back to the computer it syncs everything back onto itunes.

SoCoolCurt (PSN: KillaKornbread - XBL: SoCoolCurt) @ Feb 27th 2009 3:03PM

Marty i have a Zune, 360, and a PC and they already do what you're talking about. i can browse the Marketplace via WiFi on my Zune when im out and add music to my Cart, then when i get in my house (or in range of my network), the Zune automatically connects to my home network, which in turn starts the Zune software and a sync process on my PC, which downloads the music i have in my cart and syncs it. then my 360 can stream from my Zune app on my PC. so it already does almost exactly what your talking about now but for some reason, they just dont advertise it. i can even preview tracks on the go with my Zune.

i think the iPod Touch does it a little better since i think you can download music right on the device but either way, things are moving that way already.

Hashbrown Hunter @ Feb 27th 2009 4:41PM

I have a feeling they meant to take the software of the PlayStation Store and just rebrand it.

For example, the Music Store would look similar to the PlayStation Store but the colors may be different and all of the items would be related to music (songs, music videos, interviews, podcasts, etc.)

Sort of like what they did with the Video Store for PSN. They just took the PlayStation Store's layout and mixed it up and made it all movie related. Same idea. This would work pretty well for stuff like a Bravia-branded Video Store, or a Walkman-branded Music Store, or even a Sony Ericsson cell phone app store.

This synergy of divisions has opened up a lot of possibilities for Sony. Now it's time to see whether they'll take advantage of that.

Popfrogs @ Feb 27th 2009 11:02PM

"I do think that unifying all their own internal accounts / devices would be a good way to go, however"

They're already doing this. They've linked the PSN accounts to their official forums/blogs with a single sign-on system. I imagine this will only grow over time. You can also check people's PSN status through their web tools, check their trophy lists, etc. Sure, Microsoft has probably done this for awhile with the Live service, but this thing is still very new for Sony.

Chris D.(PSN: Aggie_CEO | XBL:The Aggie CEO | Steam: Aggie_CEO @ Feb 28th 2009 10:31AM

@popfrogs: you can check trophies online now???

when did that go live??? they said they were gonna add it a while back but I hadnt seen it since and figured it would be done by E3

Also as for unifying accounts he means ACROSS the board. With Walkman, Cameras, Cellphones and the like

Rocks @ Feb 27th 2009 12:17PM

hmm, i started thinking about this, and it could be quite awesome really...

especially if they start making all the devices compatible... sony e-reader, psp, hell even integrated PSN built into bravia TVs with movies to download, trailers to watch, ect...

ha ha, getting a bit carried away... but still cool.

Professor Lario @ Feb 27th 2009 12:31PM

If Sony has had a weakness it is a disorganized structure with divisions not talking at best and competing with each other at worst. The possible synergy from a restructure is mind blowing!

Nate @ Feb 27th 2009 12:46PM

I completely agree - how does one company compete with itself... isn't that sort've counter-productive? yet somehow Sony has done just that.

Hashbrown Hunter @ Feb 27th 2009 5:13PM

Yep. Just look at what happened between Sony and Sony Ericsson over not allowing the use of the brand 'PSP' for a phone. That was a clear sign Sony needed some restructuring.

Nate @ Feb 27th 2009 12:46PM

this has been needed for a VERY long time. Though it still looks like beaurocracy to me, so it might just be smoke and mirrors. Man, a decent completely integrated company... so much more opportunity.

aristokrat @ Feb 27th 2009 12:48PM

I hope Sony can pull it off. My brother is a huge Sony fanboy (he refuses to buy an Xbox because he hates MS so much from the computer side of things...ugh) because of their potential synergistic possibilities, and it would be cool to see what they can pull off. It will be interesting to see if Stringer really lays down the law.

On a side note, isn't this part of the plan for the Cell processor anyway? I thought the idea was that you could include Cell chips as processors for every piece of electronics, and then you could interconnect for cloud-computing style power boosts. Like your TV, PS3, Amplifier, etc could all share processing power and take full advantage of processor down time. It's a really cool idea, but I guess you'd also have to write scalable code (I guess that SDK could do that for you?)?

nick @ Feb 27th 2009 1:53PM

I don't think the cell process is well suited for all applications, although it certainly excels for computational throughput. We already know that developing software on the cell can be challenging. And it's be said that it's probably best suited for imaging or physical simulation, which may favor scientific, medical, and engineering applications.

Beyond that, I remember reading that IBM was planning to incorporate the cell into their mainframe line, and there was discussion of putting it into TVs.

Kleptomaniac @ Feb 27th 2009 3:50PM

I think its more Toshiba that is pushing the Cell into more electronic devices outside of PS3. I remember reading about that TV they put it into that could display all of those HD channels simultaneously. My qosmio laptop has a "toshiba HD quad core processor" which is just half a Cell with a slower clock rate really.