The company plans to have a big boardmeeting in February

Jan 9, 2012 14:14 GMT  ·  By

Sony, the worldwide technology giant which also has a big presence in the video game space, has denied rumors that it plans to replace current president Howard Stringer with Kaz Hirai, who is well known to gamers for the prominent role that he has played in the development of the PlayStation hardware and associated video games.

The initial report came from the Nikkei business newspaper in Japan, saying that on March 31, when the current fiscal year is over, the company will announced that Howard Stringer would remain chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sony while Kazuo Hirai will get the president position inside the company.

The move was set to be approved at the board meeting that Sony has planned for February.

The fact that Kaz Hirai would be acting president of Sony might have meant that in the long term he would also get the CEO and the chairman positions, becoming the man to guide the destiny of the company in the long term.

At the moment Hirai is representative Corporate Executive Officer and Executive Deputy President of Sony Corporation and continues to lead the Computer Entertainment division, which is tasked with the development of the PlayStation Vita and the PlayStation 3.

The executive is now 51 years old and was promoted last year to his current position, in a move which has been seen as a sign that he will one day lead the entire company.

Sony has had a couple of troubled years lately and 2011 has not been much better, mainly because of the earthquake that has shook Japan and has affected production of hardware and video game development.

March 31 is expected to see the company release a set of rather bad financial results but significant improvements are expected for next fiscal year, when some speculate that we will also see the first glimpse of the PlayStation 4.