(Bloomberg) — Sony Group Corp . is set to lose its long-time PlayStation hardware architect, Masayasu Ito, who is retiring at the end of this month.
The 60-year-old executive vice president of Sony Interactive Entertainment, the arm responsible for PlayStation and other Sony gaming initiatives, will leave the company on Oct. 1, Sony told Bloomberg News on Tuesday.
Ito retires after a five-decade career at Sony, having joined the Tokyo-based company in 1986 and worked on car audio equipment before moving to the console division in 2000. During his tenure at the PlayStation Group, Ito led engineering. for the PlayStation 4, which has sold more than 117 million units, and the latest generation PlayStation 5. In between, it also helped launch the updated PS4 Pro model, adding improved graphics and compatibility without making the generational leap from an all-new one. console platform.
The PS5 has been affected by supply chain and logistics since its debut in November 2020. Before the launch, Ito wrote on the PlayStation Blog about the challenges of developing the console during the pandemic. Part of the initial difficulty in assembling enough units had to do with Sony’s ambitious custom design for the console and its components, which led to production performance challenges for chip supplier Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
“Our team values well-thought-out and well-designed architecture,” Ito wrote of Sony’s engineering philosophy in the blog post. “Inside the console is an internal structure that looks neat and tidy.”
(Updates with confirmation from SIE in second paragraph)
©2022 Bloomberg LP