•Kaz Hirai, who led Sony’s gaming division as president of Sony Computer Entertainment and later served as Sony’s CEO, has reflected on his management style during a new interview conducted by the Japanese business publication Nikkei X Trend alongside Toridoll CEO Takaya Awata. The conversation focused on their respective management philosophies.
During his years as president of PlayStation, Hirai was famously memed for his role in the brand’s 2006 E3 conference, where he appeared to take a casual approach to leading the company. According to the report, this attitude extended behind the scenes rather than being merely a public persona.
Hirai shared anecdotes about driving the company based on his knowledge of the games industry. He recalled that during meetings with Sony executives outside of gaming, they would sometimes recommend directions for PlayStation as a brand.
“When I was president of Sony Computer Entertainment handling PlayStation’s console business, whenever [then-Sony CEO] Howard Stringer or other executives would come in to recommend things, I’d go my own direction,” Hirai recalled. “What headquarters says isn’t important. We’re PlayStation!”
Hirai continued following his instincts with the PlayStation brand throughout his time leading the division, ultimately forming a strong relationship with Stringer. When Stringer stepped down in 2012, Hirai was promoted to CEO—a role he said put him under significant pressure to steer not just Sony’s game division as it prepared to launch the PS4, but the entire company.
At the time, Sony had posted its worst net-loss ever, causing a loss of confidence within the company. Some were nervous about Hirai’s appointment; he noted that one article claimed “Kazuo Hirai, who only knows about gaming and music, was handpicked to be the new president at the young age of 51 only because Howard Stringer, who only spoke English, liked him [for being] the only person under him to understand his jokes.”
His first task in the role was to reassure people. “Everyone was worried about things like, ‘I don’t know if he’ll pull the ladder out from under me,’ or ‘is he the sort of person who would take credit for the successes and blame others for the failures?’,” he explained. “If I couldn’t earn people’s respect, we could never work hard together. So I started by making sure they knew I was someone they could trust.”
This involved making unannounced trips to various departments and speaking directly with staff. One lesson Hirai learned as CEO, however, was no longer to let departments follow their own whims the way he once did at PlayStation. Instead, he sought to create a defining goal for the company—to create moving experiences—and drive that through all departments.
Hirai eventually stepped down as CEO in 2019, serving as an advisor until 2024. Though his E3 appearance remains infamous, it was during his time at PlayStation that the company launched the PS3 and turned the hardware’s fortunes around after an initially bumpy launch.
business publication Nikkei X Trend
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