Source: http://andriasang.com/con0eg/scej_restructure/

Sony Computer Entertainment announced today changes to its corporate structure, specifically targeting Sony Computer Entertainment Japan.

Starting April 1, SCEJ will have new "First Party Publishing" and "Online Service" divisions. The First Party Publishing division falls under the category of publisher and developer relations. The Online Service division falls under the category of sales & marketing and communication.

Also starting April 1, SCEJ president Hiroshi Kawano will directly oversee business strategy for SCEJ. Previously, Sony executive vice president Norio Sasaki had the lead in this area.

Sony also announced a number of new positions, including a head of the new First Party Publishing division, and a new Senior Vice President in charge of PlayStation Vita. For the full list of names, see this press release (Japanese).

I don't really get it why someone should 'restructure' if they don't even plan to get rid of useless management positions, but rather adding a few of them so that they have to pay more in the high-paid-staff section, or maybe am I misinterpreting that and they plan to add those employees to the middle-management section?

It also doesn't hurt that the president directly oversees the business strategy (for what is he called president if he only delegates :/)

Also, they probably should restructure their PR-division, I want incentives for being a Sony fan, since PS1! (something like the Blu-Ray Sony sent me when I registered my PS3 in week one after its release! - tough the Movie on it was crap (007-Casino Royale))

Does this mean that their Japan division will finally start making games?

I think you should add Japan to the title.

This was my thought as well. It does seemt to be adding a layer in a company that has not done well financially overall during the past few years.  I also wonder about a VP for just the Vita (as opposed to someone for handheld gaming efforts -- at least make the title sonud less specific).

I may normally post in Nintendo sections ... but I wish Sony no ill will. I just wish their current products were as good as their former products (And before anyone jumps on my, I am referring to their home electronics, not their video games).

Mike from Morgantown

Well, finally something!

SCEJ is negligible these days.

Looks like Kaz is bringing down the hammer trying to right this ship, still think the best move was getting rid of Stringer

Now Sony can finally make good games again :-')

Look, the problem with Playstation the past many years is sole accountability to one man.

One person cannot make all the decisions for all of Playstation.

You need one person to have several directors that report to him all capable of making management decisions. Then each of those have their own subordinates making decisions for each branch. Every head should be able to make the right decisions and break up the work among more people. Basically, each had is a visionary. Each visionary is hired by the president based on his own vision.

Breaking up vita and playstation is a smart move because it allows more focus to be given on each. One person simply cannot run both effectively.

It just feels like a lot of companies have a too big upper management and completely forget about middle management, or if they have middle management they don't let them make some decisions but rather make them in the upper management and then just delegate. Every layer of management in a company should be free to make certain decision, of course you can't let the middle management make strategic decisions, but short term decisions should be able to be made by them and sometimes it should be in the hands of the middle management on how to put the plans into reality (of course with guidance from the upper-management).

Now puting the Vita and PlayStation 3 in two separate is fine, but the "Online Service" and "First Party Developement" department do sound a lot like a section below top management, but the article makes it sound like its going to be a major departmet (which I can kind of understand with Online Service)...

I just get the feeling that they are wasting money needlesly on new departments... in my opinion they should trim the upper-management and top-management, put it on a intelligent organised middle management base. Now I don't know how exactly Sony is organised since I have never seen one of their organizational charts... but it seems like their are only trimming down the top-management but broaden the upper management... which is just wrong... trim down both or expand both and looking at Sonys overall financial situation, I don't think they are in a position to hire more personnel for management positions and throw money at them...

I think they did not make an optimal decision, but like I said, I don't know how they are exactly structurised... so I might very well be wrong with my opinion...