14 DAY TRIAL // There's a new trend at Sony, as the Japanese giant is replacing its senior staff with people from gaming studios. It started with Guerilla Games' CEO Hermen Hulst, who was named the new head of Worldwide Studios late last year.
Given that trend, we've been surprise to learn that the next person to take a top-tier position at PlayStation is coming from Sony. SIE (Sony Interactive Entertainment) Japan Studio is getting a new studio director, Nicolas Doucet, the Creative Director and Producer of Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, a game developed by SIE Japan Studio.
The information was made official in a corporate statement issued by Sony Interactive Entertainment early this month. Nicolas Doucet replaces Allan Becker, a veteran of the gaming industry with dozens of Sony first-party titles under his belt, including Knack, The Last Guardian, Gravity Rush 2, and Shadow of the Colossus.
Becker was Head of Sony Santa Monica before taking on the role of head of SIE Japan Studio, which is now donning to Nicolas Doucet. It's unclear what will happen with Allan Becker, but he is not mentioned in the press statement released by SIE Japan Studio, so your guess is as good as ours.
Another important thing worth mentioning is that Doucet will also retain his position as creative director. Nicolas Doucet is also responsible for the success of some Bionicle projects 20 years ago, so it's clear that he likes to play with the latest PlayStation technologies. However, Doucet has a hard road ahead if he wants to match the work of his predecessors.
With the PlayStation 5 launch looming, it appears that Sony has overhauled its entire leadership, including Shawn Layden who left Sony back in October and Shuhei Yoshida who has been given a back seat role.
We can't help but wonder how these changes will affect the PlayStation 5 launch and the first-party titles that will follow. It's clear that they will certainly have an impact on PlayStation's strategy for the years to come, but only time will tell whether it will be positive or negative.