Sony’s PlayStation architect to retire after decades at SIE

The 60-year-old executive vice president of Sony Interactive Entertainment, the arm responsible for PlayStation and Sony’s other gaming initiatives, will depart the company on Oct. 1, Sony told Bloomberg News Tuesday. He will have a mobility related assignment at Sony Group from October and also continue to support SIE’s Platform Experience Group in an executive adviser until March 2023.

Ito is retiring after a career spanning five decades at Sony, having joined the Tokyo-based company in 1986 and worked on in-car audio equipment before moving on to the console division in 2000. During his tenure at the PlayStation group, Ito led engineering for the PlayStation 4, which has sold over 117 million units, and the latest-generation PlayStation 5. In between, he also helped bring to market the upgraded PS4 Pro model, adding improved graphics and compatibility without making the generational leap of an entirely new console platform.

The PS5 has been plagued by supply chain and logistics snarls since its debut in November 2020. Before the launch, Ito wrote on the PlayStation Blog about the challenges of developing the console through the pandemic. Part of the initial difficulty in assembling sufficient units had to do with Sony’s ambitious custom design for the console and its components, which led to production yield challenges for chip supplier Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

“Our team values a well thought out, beautifully designed architecture,” Ito wrote about Sony’s engineering philosophy in the blog post. “Inside the console is an internal structure looking neat and tidy.”