Sony has officially confirmed the exit of longtime member of PlayStation management, Connie Booth.
As reported by Insider Gaming, Sony gave this statement to Axios:
“Connie Booth (sic) helped drive the success PlayStation Studios is experiencing today and her passion in fostering an environment where a team’s creative vision could fully flourish has left a positive impact on many game developers.
We’re thankful for Connie’s numerous contributions to the company and wish her the best in future endeavors.”
Sony did not give a reason for Connie’s exit in the company.
The public first received word about Connie’s exit from former PlayStation developer David Scott Jaffee. Jaffee worked on PlayStation franchises like Twisted Metal and God Of War. In that capacity, he had worked under Booth for many years, and consider her a part of the PlayStation that we used to know.
Jaffee made two videos about this news, and in the first one, he simply said that he didn’t know and could not speculate on how or why she had left.
In the second video, which we had just reported on yesterday, Jaffee made it clear that Booth was fired from the company. Neither Sony nor Booth have stepped forward to confirm or deny this specific claim until now. Jaffee’s insider information on this is that Booth took the blame for Sony faltering on their plans to shift to live service games, and he was confused on why it was pointed towards her when it was former president Jim Ryan’s decision to make the shift.
While it doesn’t seem that we will get the full story on this, it at least gives us some closure to get official confirmation that Booth has left. It’s certainly not a great look for Sony, regardless if the news get greater visibility or not.
We may also have to take more time to reflect on the claim that Shawn Layden, who used to lead PlayStation Studios, was escorted out of the building on the day he had left the company. Layden recently came up back in the news to share his thoughts about game preservation and his fears of industry consolidation. Layden stopped his retirement after Sony and now works at Tencent, not in a management capacity, but as a strategic advisor.
This was a rare peek at the behind the scenes going on at PlayStation. We may never really truly understand the ramifications of Booth’s exit, or the broader context of many PlayStation execs leaving the company in the past decade. The only way we could really make sense of it is if Sony management decides to dispel such rumors, or more insider information comes out the backdoor, via Jaffee or other people with ties to the company.
