While I'm sure they do loads of important meeting-and-paperwork-related stuff in the office, from where we're sitting, the job of a corporate exec is simple: act as a corporate figurehead. Give us an idea of how your company's feeling, and where it's headed, from a bunch of quotes you deliver in an interview. So when new SCE boss Shuhei Yoshida - Phil Harrison's replacement atop Sony Computer Entertainment's Worldwide Studios - gave his first real interview, it was time to listen! Listen to him talk about getting SCE Japan, America and Europe on the same page, about how developers underestimated the PS3's multi-core architecture.
So here's Shuhei Yoshida on all the SCE's working together:
After Ken Kuturagi's departure, Kaz Hirai completely changed the way we worked internally. Before, because Ken was such a big visionary, he came up with something, a great technology, but then landed it on us as a finished thing...but Kaz is involving Worldwide Studios members and regional headquarters people to inform strategy, for the company and the platforms.
That's a major, major change in how we work, and I think it's the right change. Looking at how we struggled with PlayStation 3, one visionary just can't get it perfect three times in a row.
And here's Shuhei Yoshida on the woeful level of support the PS3 received from third-party developers early in the console's lifespan:
[Developers] massively underestimated the effort that was needed to re-architect the game to properly take advantage of the PS3's multi-core architecture...But it's impossible to bring the level of support that we feel is important for the PlayStation 3 platform without the third parties' continued support. That was the miscalculation by both us, and from third parties.
And there you have it! Shuhei gets off the mark. I would have preferred something a little more explosive - maybe along the lines of "ROBBIE BACH EATS BABIES" - but I guess he's got to warm to the position first before kicking it up a notch.
Yoshida-san: I have big plans for Worldwide Studios [GI.biz]