PlayStation CEOs Hideaki Nishino, Hermen Hulst on video game strategy

(Editor’s note: Variety’s interview with Sony Interactive Entertainment executives Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino took place on Oct. 16, ahead of PlayStation’s Tuesday announcement that it is closing Firewalk Studios and Neon Koi. SIE was unable to reach studio CEO Hulst available for further comment or to clarify his earlier comments about layoffs in this story prior to publication.)

This spring, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida turned heads when he tapped two PlayStation vets to lead Sony Interactive Entertainment: Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino.

After all, having co-CEOs is a potential recipe for friction. In their first interview since taking on their new roles in June, Nishino and Hulst talk Black about how their partnership works. They argue that the scale of the business behind the “God of War” and “Spider-Man” franchises has grown to require two operations, each needing specialized management: a platform business run by Nishino and a studio business led by Hulst.

“These are not co-CEOs; these are two CEOs of the company,” says Nishino. “Hermen does his thing, I do my thing, and then we meet to talk about how to grow the company. ” Nishino acknowledges the inherent tension in the structure, but spins it as a healthy dynamic: “Growing the company to success also has a conflict: how we influence each other, or how we want to sacrifice or not. It’s a balance. It is an opportunity and a risk part.”

Hulst estimates that 80% of their daily time is spent managing their discreet areas. “It’s really nice to have two developers at the helm. We both have engineering degrees; we are both quite practical,” he says, adding: “There has to be enormous trust, and we have worked together for a very long time.”

The two-in-a-box CEO arrangement is rare, but there are signs that the right duo can make it work. In early 2023, for example, Netflix installed dual CEOs to manage the streamer — and so far, Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters have overseen impressive growth and stock market rallies.

Nishino became product manager at SIE (formerly SCE) in 2016, then from 2021, was head of the Platform Experience Group until he became CEO in 2024. Hulst came over from his post as head of “Horizon” producer Guerrilla Games, which Sony acquired in 2005, and went on to become head of PlayStation Studios.

It’s an unpredictable time for PlayStation. SIE’s Bungie studio laid off more than 200 employees in July. In September, the company shut down its “Concord” live service game two weeks after its Aug. 23 launch, then shuttered studios Firewalk, the maker of “Concord,” and mobile-focused brand Neon Koi earlier this week. PlayStation was also surprised by the $699 price tag for its PS5 Pro console, due out in November.

At the same time, PlayStation garnered praise for the new platformer “Astro Bot” and has built credibility with fans with the announcement of the “Ghost of Tsushima” sequel “Ghost of Yōtei”. The division is also highly anticipated for Season 2 of HBO’s mega-hit adaptation of PS game “The Last of Us” and Amazon’s new “God of War” series.

Hulst and Nishino have adopted a “show, don’t tell” leadership style at PlayStation. “It is important that we convey our strategy,” says Hulst. “But at the end of the day, I’m with the creators a lot of the time.”

Nishino is on the same page: “For me, the product, the content, it should be the forward-thinking stuff,” he says, adding self-effacingly, “Behind the scenes, who’s the guy doing it? It doesn’t matter.”

Read more from Black‘s interview with Hulst and Nishino below.

Since the PS5 Pro is coming out very soon after we publish this story, I wanted to ask about the timing of that in relation to what will be the actual next-gen device. Are you waiting for Nintendo to make the first move with a Switch 2 announcement before you get there? And what’s the plan for rolling out the Pro and making it clear who the product is for versus who the actual next-gen device is for?

Nishino: So we made Pro in the last generation. We learned a lot from there. When we sold PS4 Pro, in addition to PS4, 20% of customers actually got PS4 Pro. It was high-end, it was premium tier. So there are potential users who acquire these kinds of devices. Interestingly, it wasn’t just about highly engaged users; in fact, new users are also coming to PlayStation to get PS4 Pro. So we started working on PS5 Pro even before PS5 launched – it was another five-year project for us. So there was talk about whether or not we wanted to do another Pro. But the most important thing was that there are technologies we can grow up in three years or five years. So innovation and technological progress is faster in a modern world. Phones are updated every year, PCs are updated every year. I don’t think we would update every year, but there are things we can package together to bring the best things into the game console segment. So that’s the vision.

I think it was great to see people talking about it. Like year three, usually the conversation around the game console drops off, so people move the conversation more to the next generation, or something like that. But we’re kind of happy to see, like most dedicated game users are interested in PS5 Pro, and so I’m pretty sure new users will grab PS5 Pro as well. If that’s the PlayStation you want, that’s the case. So that’s where we designed the generation at this moment. We design everything with one in mind. It’s not like we just take one next step and we don’t know about the two steps ahead. This is not our way of working, because we have to make sure that the 10-year generational cycle also continues.

How do you balance that on the development side: knowing when certain devices are hitting and which titles you’re ready to announce or not? I’m very excited for “Ghost of Yōtei” next year, but I feel like there isn’t another really big one you’ve announced yet that would show a need to be played on PS5 Pro. Any big title announcements coming soon tied to the Pro or to the next generation?

Hulst: We spend a lot of time doing portfolio planning, and platform is a big part of that. So when we were doing our planning from the early stages of PlayStation 5, it was really important to get really high quality titles on PlayStation 5 right out of the gate. And it has served us well and bought us the position of PlayStation 5, which is really, really good.

I think the other thing to say here is that the teams love to tinker with the hardware. They love the privilege of being involved in the hardware. And hardware isn’t just the boxes, it’s also the peripherals. And teams like Team Asobi on “Astro Bot”, that team is an excellent example of early helping to design, beyond some schematics, the hardware functions of the controller and creating demos for it. And in fact, in some cases, these demos develop into a whole product that becomes a big product in its own right. So we’re on board with that. We enjoy that very much. Same with PS5 Pro. Both of the demos you’ve seen are PlayStation Studios. The teams take great pride in doing so. We are of course involved in any hardware planning. It’s very much that symbiosis on the hardware side, what can you do with it? And here is the feedback and can you do demos for it? And all of this to inspire third parties, which are obviously a huge source of revenue for the company, to inspire what you can do and what’s the quality line for these short showcases. It’s always been a part of what the PlayStation studios do, and it always will be. And that’s in addition to finding the incremental additional revenue streams or opportunities to leverage in film and television and merchandise and location-based entertainment and whatever else.

Nishino: I just wanted to say that the Pro is not a next generation. It is still in the PS5 generation. The PS5 Pro will do everything the PS5 does. So it’s a consumer choice. If they see a need for more visuality, they get it. So we wanted to give the consumer an option within the generation, that’s what we do.

When it comes to the customization side, which has obviously gone up a lot on PlayStation over the years, with “The Last of Us” Season 2 — potentially Season 3 after that? — and “God of War” and “Horizon” TV shows in the works. Where are those projects right now? And on the gaming side, are you looking at releasing new games in these franchises alongside these shows?

Hulst: “The Last of Us” HBO series has been a game changer in terms of the credibility of game-to-TV series adaptations. We learned a lot from that. We learned that it’s really important to involve the original creators to ensure that your experience remains very authentic. As the teams stay involved, we apply this type of learning across the board. On PlayStation productions, we now have 10 productions underway: “The Last of Us,” “Twisted Metal,” a few others that we’re very excited about. I think that going forward we will become more and more careful and strict about our franchising. So we talk about adaptations, but in adaptations it’s taking the game and then seeing what else you can do with it. We’re actually looking to build from the ground up — as we originally tried to do with “Horizon,” by creating this world and creating this story — and how can you tell stories in this world in different mediums? And so we create franchise teams and portfolio management teams to work with teams to do it properly and find different ways to tell stories in the worlds we create.

You all went through layoffs earlier this year similar to those that hit the entire gaming industry in 2024. But Microsoft recently had new ones, you all took “Concord” offline, and you’ve had further cuts at Bungie. What is the current outlook for PlayStation and expectations for studios and games to be closed moving forward?

Hulst: I want to say a few things about it. It is our duty to look at our resource planning and ensure that we run a sustainable business. It’s part of being a CEO. We never take that lightly because we know these people personally and it is very close to our hearts and the teams and good working atmospheres. But yes, we have had some layoffs. But it’s also important to realize that on the content side, PlayStation Studios is now a much bigger organization than when it started. It has grown tremendously. And that’s organic growth that our existing teams, I think, hired quite aggressively as well as through M&A. So the organization, the employment is much bigger now than it was, let’s say for example five years ago.