The hardware chief and current executive vice president at Sony PlayStation, Masayasu Ito, is leaving the company after working at Sony for nearly four decades. Masayasu Ito is retiring from Sony Interactive Entertainment at the end of this month. He has worked at Sony for 36 years, from a mechanical engineering lead for the PSP to the hardware engineering lead for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and even the current PlayStation 5; Ito has played a huge role in making Sony what it is today.
As announced in a press release, the lead engineer of the latest consoles from Sony has reached 60 years of age and will be replaced by Lin Tao. Ito’s leadership saw the PS4 reaching the heights it did, selling a monumental 117.2 million units during its lifetime. Making it one of the most successful consoles ever made. According to Bloomberg, Masayasu Ito’s reason for retiring is simply reaching the age of retirement.
The Impact Of Masayasu Ito
Ito has been with Sony since 1986 and moved on to PlayStation in 2008. Like the PS4, the current generation flagship from Sony is continuing to sell remarkably well. Global shortages and supply chain issues have recently forced Sony to increase the price of the PlayStation 5, along with reducing the weight of the console (probably by reducing the size of the massive heat sink).
Writing on the PlayStation Blog in 2020, Ito discussed some of the difficulties and challenges when it came to developing a console during the pandemic. Ito is the reason the latest consoles have transformed into more PC-like devices.
Ito started his career working on audio equipment for cars back in the 80s and ended his career as the vice president of PlayStation after launching the third successful mainline PlayStation console under his leadership. Without a doubt, it has been a good run, and hopefully, the successors can continue to deliver the same level of quality we’ve come to expect from Sony.
In other Sony hardware news, the company has launched a new gray camo color scheme for the PS5, as well as a new controller called the PlayStation Edge that rivals the Xbox Elite controller.