•Kaz Hirai, who served as president of PlayStation from 2007 to 2012, admitted that he frequently disregarded instructions from Sony’s top executives during his tenure.
The revelation came in a conversation published by the Japanese publication Nikkei XTrend and translated by Game Observer. “When I was president of Sony Computer Entertainment handling the PlayStation home console business, whenever Howard [Stringer] and the other executives told me this or that, I went my own way, saying, ‘What the headquarters says is irrelevant. We are PlayStation,'” Hirai reportedly said while laughing.
Hirai later succeeded Stringer to lead Sony as a whole, a period he recalled involved significant struggle for the company and required a shift in direction.
“The first things I focused on were: ‘getting people to know me’ and ‘getting them to move in the same direction,’ ” Hirai said. “Without respect, no one is going to think, ‘Let’s work hard together!’.”
In a notable shift from his earlier attitude, Hirai sought as Sony CEO to prevent different divisions from acting independently. He wanted everyone working toward a unified goal rather than pursuing their own agendas. During this time he introduced the “kando” slogan, drawn from the Japanese word for being emotionally moved by something—a corporate strategy encouraging staff to create products and experiences that touch people’s feelings rather than merely functioning well.
Hirai’s period as PlayStation president covered a pivotal stretch in the division’s history. He took over following the launch of the PlayStation 3, the troubled release of the PlayStation Vita, and the infamous PlayStation outage in 2011. Hirai stepped down as Sony CEO in 2018.
He is also remembered for the widely mocked PlayStation E3 2006 press conference.
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