SOE to Report to SCE
By Shawn on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 5:07 PM PST In Game Companies, Game Consoles, Games Industry, Sony, Sony
Sony has announced that starting April 1, Sony Online Entertainment, currently part of the Sony Pictures Entertainment, will report to Sony Computer Entertainment under Kazuo Hirai. The move is part of restructuring due to the rising popularity of the online gaming market.
“I am excited to be able to work with SOE even more closely, as online games and services become a more integral part of the PS3 entertainment experience,” Hirai said.
“This new structure will allow us to take full advantage of the extensive breadth of expertise of the two companies and increase our range of exciting entertainment offerings to our consumers.”
At this time SOE will continue to produce games for the PC and PS3 under President John Smedley, who will report to Hirai.
“We are thrilled to become a part of the incredible team that has made PlayStation 3 the premier platform for next generation online gaming,” Smedley said.
“This move is going to broaden our capabilities and expand the development of our products into new and exciting directions.”
If anyone had any doubts as to whether casual gaming would truly impact the more traditional video gaming industry, this restructuring of Sony should remove them.
Maybe they should just fire John Smedley….
Also on a differnt note.. why would this have any impact on casual gaming.. to me it looks like it was slapped under the wrong devision in the first place… Sony Pictures ?