Kazuo Hirai ran PlayStation like an independent kingdom, even when Tokyo told him otherwise.
In a discussion published by Japanese outlet Nikkei XTrend and translated by Game Observer, the former Sony chief executive admitted that during his time directing Sony Computer Entertainment between 2007 and 2012, directives from group headquarters barely registered. When then-CEO Howard Stringer and other senior leaders handed down instructions, Hirai took his own path.
"What the headquarters says is irrelevant. We are PlayStation," Hirai recalled saying, laughing about the attitude in retrospect.
That brazen detachment defined a turbulent stretch for the video game arm. Hirai took control of the division in the messy wake of the PlayStation 3 launch, steered it through the debut of the PlayStation Vita, and weathered the massive PlayStation Network outage in 2011. Before stepping into the top job at the gaming unit, he had already become internet folklore thanks to Sony's memorable E3 2006 media presentation.
Reversing Course at the Top
The irony arrived when Hirai replaced Stringer to head the entire corporation in 2012. Suddenly, having fiefdoms ignore central leadership became a massive operational headache rather than a rebellious virtue.
Sony was bleeding cash and struggling across consumer electronics. Hirai discovered that pulling the multinational back on track required breaking down the exact silos he had once defended. His immediate priority was earning trust across disparate business units so employees would pull in the same direction, a shift he acknowledged could not happen without basic respect.
To bridge the gap, Hirai introduced a corporate push anchored around "kando," a Japanese concept denoting deep emotional resonance. The mandate pushed engineers and product teams to stop building hardware purely around technical capability and instead design consumer devices that sparked an emotional reaction. More it forced disparate divisions to coordinate under one roof instead of pursuing isolated agendas.
Hirai retired as Sony chief executive in 2018, leaving behind a vastly more profitable and unified business than the fractured corporate giant he inherited. The gaming brand he once shielded from group interference went on to serve as the financial backbone of the wider company.
GDFiled by The Games Desk
Consoles, handhelds, PC gaming and the platforms and hardware behind them.
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