Ken Kutaragi, The 'Father of PlayStation' Retires

This may not be as dramatic as Hiroshi Yamauchi's retirement from Nintendo nearly five years ago (after leading the company with an iron fist for 53 years!), but when "the father of PlayStation" steps down from his executive position at Sony Computer Entertainment, it's time to start the press! As you might remember from last November (story), Ken Kutaragi had already stepped down from his position as president of SCE, taking the role of company chairman and board member. And now, Sony announces that he will completely abandon his executive management responsibility at the company's annual shareholders' meeting, on June 19, 2007.

Ken Kutaragi will still serve as Honorary Chairman of SCE afterwards, however, so his monetary future is in no danger. In his place, Kazuo "Kaz" Hirai (currently President and Group COO, SCEI), will be promoted to President and Group CEO, continuing his responsibility as the leader of the PlayStation business worldwide. The announcement also includes the following recollection of Kutaragi's achievements at Sony:

"Mr. Kutaragi, well known as the "Father of PlayStation", invented and launched the original PlayStation in 1994 and its successor, PlayStation 2, in 2000. Since the introduction of PlayStation and subsequently PlayStation 2, these platforms opened up a vast market of computer entertainment. The two platforms combined now have an installed base of more than 200 million units in homes around the world, with more than 2 billion units of PlayStation and PlayStation 2 software titles shipped worldwide. The third generation of the company's home computer entertainment system, PlayStation 3, launched in November 2006 in Japan and North America and in March 2007 in Europe, will continue to revolutionize the computer entertainment experience with its immense computational power connected to the network."

We still expect to hear more about Kutaragi in the future, though, as he pursues his dreams beyond PlayStation and accelerates his network vision:

"I am happy to graduate from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. after introducing four platforms to the PlayStation family", said Ken Kutaragi. "It has been an exciting experience to change the world of computer entertainment by marrying cutting edge technologies with creative minds from all over the world. I'm looking forward to building on this vision in my next endeavors."

I f*cking love it, it is f*cking blue!

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)