Today marks a special day in the long history of PlayStation with the official formation of Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (SIE). As you may remember from my last note, this new organization will combine the strengths of both Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. and Sony Network Entertainment LLC into one global interactive entertainment powerhouse.
So what does this day mean for you, the gamer? If I’m honest, probably not a whole lot — at least not in the short term. But in the long run, it will mean everything. The formation of SIE will allow us to forge a unified PlayStation organization that can adapt more quickly to meet the needs of the gaming community, innovate with digital services like PlayStation Vue and PlayStation Now, and — above all else — drive consistent and constant innovation in the dynamic medium of videogames. You’re already seeing the early fruits of that effort with PlayStation VR, and the work will continue across a number of fronts.
Our full integration won’t happen overnight. But the work is well underway and I’m delighted to report that we are tracking ahead of schedule.
In addition to my role as President of Sony Interactive Entertainment America, I’m also honored to be taking on additional responsibilities supporting our excellent first party game development teams as Chairman of Worldwide Studios. Working with the inimitable Shu Yoshida, leaders like Scott Rohde, Michael Denny, and Allan Becker, I am committed to building upon our strong heritage to deliver ever more innovative and epic titles. That includes Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End from Naughty Dog in just a few weeks, and extending through Horizon Zero Dawn from Guerrilla Games, The Last Guardian from Japan Studio and genDESIGN, and beyond — and that doesn’t even include the powerful line up of VR titles we are developing worldwide.
As Blogcast listeners may already know, I have history with Worldwide Studios — in fact my PlayStation career began in game development in Japan and latterly Europe. I have enormous respect, and limitless devotion, for the creators, artists, and engineers within our Worldwide Studios, and I’m eager to be back in the business of helping developers realize their dreams.
And to our faithful and discerning PlayStation community, I thank you for your dedication, your enthusiasm, and your trust as we embark on a new journey as Sony Interactive Entertainment.
The future is surely bright.
All the best with this endeavor. Can’t wait to see what you guys have in stores for us.
Excited to see what the merger brings for the community. Best of luck!
Does this mean Socom will be brought back? The gaming community has been dieing for this to happen but we keep getting ignored. #1 ranked game to see remastered for ps4.
Sorry to tell you this, but they closed the studio that made Socom in 2012. If they did make another with a different studio, it probably wouldn’t be the game you wanted.
I am wondering if they will go through with H Hour a sitcom spin off created by the founder of socom. May or may not happen. Concept looks good but it needa more development from last years showcase of it. I may upgrade to ps4 when it comes out. Not much a gamer anymore, but socom 1 and 2 were it.
Congratulations on the new organization. I would also like to add another voice for a SOCOM 2 HD remaster, or even a PlayStation Now release of SOCOM 2. And please redesign the Vita, or release a new handheld with all of the physical controls found on the DS4. I can’t utilize remote play on the current Vita because of the back touch and lack of physical controls.
Is there any chance to make racing games to play on split screen (multiplayer offline) for PS4? Thnx
@ AgroNuculli
The just-released Trackmania Turbo on PS4 has splitscreen offline co-op AND dual driver mode. It’s worth a look.
Hahahaha nice try.
That logo brings back fantastic memories though.
Lol, I thought the same thing!
You’ve a dream job sir. Do it well!
Let us change our names.
They’ll make that feature available on April 31st.
Source?
You know that there is no April 31st? However, with this merger happening, psn name changes might be finally a real thing.
Did Allan Becker leave his position at Japan Studio to work at SIEA?
Shawn Layden, please don’t forget your iconic PlayStation mascot “Crash Bandicoot”!
We want want him back. And with that, we mean “as a Sony IP”. You have such a great
relationship with Activision right now. Please contact Robert Kotick (Activision) and try to make
a deal so that Sony Interactive Entertainment can finally acquire the rights/IP of Crash Bandicoot.
We fans want him back. Don’t make a simple Activision/Sony collaboration, just to make one game
under Activisions umbrella. No, please acquire the IP. Bring the lost son back home!
Thank you
Lol really ca$htivision will never sell it i’d give up if i were you personally
Yee
New company name awaits!
I only hope your customer service improves, still pretty mad about how SNE handled my problem and never gave my a solution for a mistake made by SNE
I think it sounds like a good idea especially VR, but one thing I was hoping would happen is if they re-made Black Ops 2 for the ps4 doing that it should be able to compair to BO3 and I’ve also heard about a new ps5 that’s coming out that’s all digital I don’t know if that true or not but I dnt think it would be that good if it’s was true.
Hello cghunter69 ,
a new PS5 and all digital? No, this isn’t true.
Kind Regards
Dude they’ve been saying PlayStation would go all digital since the PS3 was in its pre-announcement days. Community has spoken, no one wants an all digital future for their content. Also the only rumors floating around right now are for PlayStation 4.5/4K which is not the PS5.
K up the good work sony love it
Activision is one of the few publishers that doesn’t seem interested in re-releasing old games. (Some might argue this is actually a good thing.) Call of Duty 1 for PS3 and Prototype 1 and 2 for PS4 are the only ones I can think of.
Cool. Let’s talk Backward Compatibility and how to continue the eco system of playing legacy titles across all of Sony’s products. Starting with reusing working architectures from one generation to the next and forward Compatibility libraries. Then let’s talk about saving our PSOne Classics/Discs, incentive programs to upgrade to feature enhanced versions and more.
Let’s also talk about studios like Evolution and Zipper on how we can stop that from happening.
Backwards compatibility would be boss. I hate seeing 9.99 a digital title for a game I have in a case collecting dust.
I love the new retro PS1 Sony logo. Now if only PS4 could play PS1 games! Especially since literally every other PlayStation console can (PS2, PS3, PSP, Vita, PS TV). Sony used to be the biggest supporter of backwards compatibility, so it’s shocking that the PS4 has none (except for a few controllers and some DLC). It now makes me hesitant to buy the PlayStation version of a game (especially digital) because all your competitors support BC (Xbox, Nintendo, PC, Android, iOS). Hopefully since the PS4 uses a PC-like x64 architecture, BC should be easy in the future. But until then, Microsoft “did the impossible” and made Xbox One BC. Now it’s PS4’s turn!
As long as you keep the great games and experiences coming (and please, don’t forget the Vita), I’m all for it! Cheers! :D
Viva la PSVita
Viva la Vita +1
Viva la Vita!
I love the new throwback logo. I can hear the “PlayStation sound” in my head just from looking at it :-)
“That includes Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End from Naughty Dog in just a few weeks, and extending through Horizon: Zero Dawn from Guerrilla Games, The Last Guardian from Japan Studio and genDESIGN, and beyond –”
BEYOND!
Ah man… It’s been a while since I’ve seen that logo and title. I’ll still break out some of my families PlayStation games everynow and again. Im supprised how little recognition for what you did there is happening!
All the best for the future! Now go save what’s left of Evolution studios!
Okay, I guess…
So, it seems like Sony does believe in the ability to change names… But only for themselves.
was writing this at same time as you, hahhaa
I CAN wait you’re games, applications and more
Nice ;) but I am still waiting for the day that Sony will allow us to change our PSN ID, at least once in life.
Regards
Congratulations! Looking forward to an amazing future with PlayStation!
Oh yeah, please give us a release date for Horizon Zero Dawn at E3 2016!
There’s a distinct lack of an angry spartan amidst all the hyped titles announced so far.
I hope this E3 raises the bar for the franchise. It could work wonders with some VR quirks, but it will definitely need a strong foundation for its traditional formula.
I also hope these changes in the company will help with licensing deals and more content shared between regions.
I hope you’ll create another AAA Vita game please
Given the treatment Sony has given the PS Vita and PS TV, I have no faith on Sony doing any better with the PS VR.
Show us that you still care about your other hardware before trying to sell us another one that for all we know you’ll abandon at the first opportunity.
Congrats on the change! While I do think this will mean very little for us, it could occasionally bring in some nice changes. I know this is *pure* speculation, but it could make possible little changes, like the LONG requested Change PSN ID, or a more varied IGC for PS4 (because right now, many argue there isn’t the mix of AAA and indie that IGC normally has provided).
If these things had elements in the 2 different companies before, it could make some things easier.
Or…it could mean not much haha. But hey, you can always believe.
Well this looks very promising , I hope that if you really want to listen to the gaming community here are a couple suggestions
Crash bandicoot needs to come back to sony
Allow us to play it on our Vita’s. And maybe update the classic game selection. There are so many hidden gems out there. Like rogue trip vacation 2012, blood will tell, and though I have never played it socom that gamers are begging to play. Listen to the players
SONY SUBSIDIARIES STREET FIGHTER GAMES COMING PS4 2016
Is this an April Fools joke? I’m slow….
Congratulations on your new role, and best of luck too you and your associates on the future content you’ll all be working on. One solid dedicated place is always good, IF ti’s done the right way! That being said. I look forward too seeing what gets accomplished, what gets planned and released!
If I can help in any way, please feel free too contact me through my contact info, email and/or phone.
Haskell420
SONY COMING STREET FIGHTER 5 THEME CAMMY PS4 COMING ARCADE STREET FIGHTER PSN 2016
Good luck Shawn! I hope this change empowers your first party studio’s even more, the work they produce for us has been second to none!
Well PlayStation you guys have come a long way,and as a proud fan I’m happy!.I wish you all the best in the future to come!,keep PlayStation a family and friendly system and you,will keep attracting more people!.
Can you please do something with the Singstar team they are failing the community miserably as we used to have song updates every two weeks and they were huge and now we get them every 3 months with like 8-10 songs. We get minimal updates during that 3 month period of what to look forward to and doesn’t seem to get better. Other Karaoke games get amazing songs and regular updates. I am a big fan of the franchise and have money to throw at it but me like everyone else is frustrated in the performance of this team and time frame of release with only the same excuses given which honestly shouldn’t have change any more than when we were getting releases every two weeks.. Can you confirm if you will be addressing this with that team you can check the community feedback and will see that I am not alone in this and not intending this in a hateful way just looking for this to get better soon!
P.S. Congratulations on new role and look forward to positive changes to all parts of PlayStation network and features.
I wanna have something new to sweden and i wanna see the Resistance games to PS4. I love the Resistance games and i wanna play them again but on the PS4.
Hopefully the merging of the two entertainment brands will lead to a more fluid system of execution. It would be great to see the development and implementation of fan requests happen in a more timely fashion, noting the importance of these requests to the overall business over the long term.
Good luck, I’m on board.
Remember there’s more than 10 millions of Ps VITA Owners so please think about us and the money we give to this Company.. Dont forgive VITA is supoused to be a Playstation brand, WE NEED MORE SUPPORT FROM YOU SONY, show me that “this is 4 the players” is true..
Dear playstation, why cant you guys make all ps2 and PS3 games compatible with ps4. I know its too much to ask for but it would be great for the old timers ;)
I ive been with Sony for 20 years and I’ve been pretty happy as of late just last year my ps4 download until dawn not by my choice and I rang customer support although I didn’t receive a refund I was happy enough my card details had been taken off the system and a password has been put on my account but just a few weeks ago FARCRY primal has been pushed onto my console rang customer support to hear they can do nothing for me ,, all I’m seeing is Sony exploring new ways to rip customers off
SONY PARENT CAPCOM 2016 SUPER STREET FIGHTER 2 COMING PS4 THEME
SONY PARENT SNK PLAYMORE 2016
SONY COMING FATAL FURY 2 PS4 GAMES SNK PLAYMORE 2016
Man can’t wait for Detroit, GT Sports and Next God of War!
SONY PARENT CAPCOM 2016
April fools to you too!
It’s very good news, keep up a good works.
SONY COLLECTION STREET FIGHTER COMING PLAYSTATION 4 2016
Shawn- I hope you’re reading this, because your gamers have much feedback.
If you TRULY are going to unite Sony’s gaming ventures, I highly suggest you start to credit gamers for owning a game on different platforms. For example, if someone owns a digital copy of a game, it should be made available to them on your various services, like PS NOW. I, for example, bought numerous PS3 games but my launch-day PS3 died recently. So, I don’t have access to those games, both disc and digital. Surely the right thing would be to allow access to them on your different services, especially since the PS3 is being scaled back in terms of production. Places like BEST BUY don’t even offer new PS3’s for sale most of the time.
I also hope PS PLUS is improved, as the service has GREATLY gone down in quality over the last 2 years (just read the hundreds of angry messages in this very forum on the PS PLUS APRIL GAMES post).
I also hope PS NOW is able to add popular titles that PS4 gamers don’t have access to, including DEMON’S SOULS and DARK SOULS. I think there needs to be a greater effort to make PS2 and PS3 titles available for PS4 and future gamers.
Thanks for reading!
Did Shawn mention “The Last Guardian”? I hope that’s still a real thing, since we’ve heard nothing in many, many months.
And congratulations on moving your IE HQ to CA, Very smart business move.
I wish you the best for you and the team in this new era. I really hope that this merger with Sony Network Entertainment can also mean that we, gamers, will get a better experience on the PlayStation Network, better features, and an improved Firmware Upadte, which the latter needs a lot of attention. Features on the PS4 are great, but there’s a lot of room of improvement, specially knowing that the PS3 had features that the PS4 is yet to have.
I am confident as a gamer and as a consumer, that this is going to be for the better. Thanks for all these years!
P.D. Please bring back the PS1 startup in first party games!!