Over a week after Bungie CEO Pete Parsons revealed a major restructuring of the company, PlayStation Chairman Hiroki Totoki was asked to explain the situation by Sony’s own investors.
We credit Genki_Jpn on Twitter with providing a summary, but realized we can provide a transcript and some additional details here.
Hiroki Totoki, as most PlayStation fans know, was briefly CEO of PlayStation. The CEO role has now been split between Hermen Hulst, who heads the Studio Business Group, and Hideaki Nishino, who heads the Platform Business Group.
However, Hiroki remains Chairman of PlayStation. While he does not manage day to day operations of Sony’s gaming division, Hermen and Hideaki both actually answer to him. Both Hermen and Hideaki do have to consult with Hiroki constantly, and they will often have to make the bigger decisions together with the Chairman.
That is only one of many roles that Hiroki plays in Sony Group. Another role is as Sony’s CFO. In this capacity, Hiroki has always been answering questions from investors about PlayStation, in the same way that he addresses inquiries about their music, film, technology, and financial businesses as well.
Hiroki was asked about the current status of Bungie by Toyo Securities in the Q&A for their latest quarterly financial meeting. Toyo was founded in 1916, and is one of Japan’s many financial institutions and brokerages. As it turns out, even Sony’s investors in Japan had heard of goings on at Sony at the other side of the world.
This was Hiroki’s statement, translated in real time, and edited by us for more clarity.
“So, at this moment, Bungie restructuring has been already announced. And at this moment, as you correctly pointed out, for this restructuring, the purpose is cost restructure and portfolio organization. Simultaneously, we have to enhance efficiency of the business. So back office functions should be integrated with the studios of SIE.
So, Bungie itself as it is considered, Destiny 2, and new live service title Marathon, the company’s current head count and all its resources will be concentrated there. Bungie should develop high quality and wonderful game experiences, so that is why we have concentrated its resources there.
And other functions in Bungie other than that, and other games in development, will be transferred to the PlayStation Studio Group. And so there will be some reallocation of the resources. In any case, the organizational structure will be changed, and so we would like to optimize our overall studio structure.”
Hiroki does not say anything here that we did not already know, but it is certainly interesting that he went into as much detail as Pete Parsons did to Bungie employees. It’s a sign that the issues with Bungie are so serious for Sony as a whole, that investors feel that they had to know where their $ 3.6 billion went, and is still going.
Hiroki also reaffirms that Bungie are still making Destiny 2 and Marathon, and that one of their games is being spun off to its own project, with its own separate studio. There’s no particular indication that Hermen, or Hiroki himself, is now directly managing Bungie. But it certainly seems like Hiroki is already giving out orders to correct the studio’s course.
