"It doesn't matter what the head office says," reflects the former PlayStation boss on his time at the company. We are PlayStation!

In an interview, Kaz Hirai was talking about his management philosophy during his management in the company's gaming field.

During his years at the helm of PlayStation, Kaz Hirai was noted for his role in the brand's disastrous E3 conference in 2006, where he seemed to take a casual approach to leading the company. That attitude doesn't just appear to be a public persona, but he seems to carry it behind the scenes, as he recently shared during an interview about his time leading Sony's gaming division.

In an interview conducted by Japan's Nikkei X Trend trade publication, Hirai was interviewed alongside Takaya Awata, CEO of Toridol, and focused on their management philosophies. Hirai shared anecdotes about the ways he led the company based on his knowledge of the gaming industry. At times during meetings with Sony executives outside of gaming, they would offer advice on what direction PlayStation should take as a brand. "When I was president of Sony Computer Entertainment, which ran the PlayStation business, whenever [then Sony CEO] Howard Stringer or other executives came in to recommend things, I would go my own way," Hirai recalls. "It doesn't matter what HQ says. We are PlayStation!"

Hirai continued to follow his instincts with the PlayStation brand throughout his time leading the division, eventually forming a strong relationship with Stringer. When Stringer stepped down in 2012, Hirai was promoted to CEO, which he says put him under a lot of pressure to steer the ship, not just for Sony's games division as it prepared to launch the PS4, but for the company as a whole.

At the time, Sony had posted its worst ever net loss, which eroded confidence in the company. Meanwhile, some were nervous about Hirai's appointment because, as he puts it, "one article even claimed that 'Kazuo Hirai, who only knows about games and music, was elected the new president at the age of 51 only because Howard Stringer, who spoke only English, liked him [because he] was the only one who understood his jokes.'"

His first task in this role was to reassure the public. "Everyone was worried about things like, 'I don't know if he's going to pull the ladder out from under me,' or 'Is he the type to take credit for successes and blame others for failures?'" he explains. "If I couldn't earn people's respect, we would never be able to work hard together. So I started by making sure they knew I was someone they could trust."

This allowed him to travel to various departments unannounced and speak directly to them. However, one of the lessons he learned as CEO was to not let other departments follow their whims like they did when he was at PlayStation. Instead, he sought to create a defining purpose for the company, to set the movement for experiences, and to guide it across all sectors, gaming or otherwise.

Hirai eventually stepped down as CEO in 2019 and served as an advisor to the company until 2024. And while his E3 appearance may be infamous, it was during his time at PlayStation that the company launched the PS3 and turned the hardware's fortunes around after a bumpy initial launch.

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