Game Development Giant

While Hisao Oguchi was still worried that although the sales of Sega MD had not changed as usual, the sales of Dreambox 2 were still out of reach as if he had taken a train, he was waiting at the New Tokyo International Airport in Tokyo, Japan. In the hall, a young man less than thirty years old was quietly waiting for his flight.

New Tokyo International Airport is the famous Tokyo Narita Airport in later generations. In 2004, it was renamed Narita Airport to distinguish it from Tokyo International Airport, which is Haneda Airport.

The young man is twenty-nine years old. His previous position was as an assistant to Shigeo Maruyama, the founder of Sony Music. Now his position has been changed to scea, the head of the marketing department of Sony Computer Entertainment America, allowing him to Fully responsible for the sales of Sony's upcoming new console in North America.

His name is Kazuo Hirai, and now he is just one of thousands of ordinary Sony employees. If there is anything special about him, it is that he is the kind of person who has a very high reputation in the group and is highly valued by the top management. Humanoid, that is, has a bright future.

You only need to know a thing or two from the fact that he was appointed to one market at a young age and will also be the pioneer of Sony Computer Entertainment's largest market in the future.

Shigeo Maruyama was one of the 100 veterans who founded Sony along with Sony's fathers Ibuka and Akio Morita. His status within the group was extremely high. Hirai Kazuo was his assistant before, so the degree to which he was valued is naturally evident. .

Moreover, Shigeo Maruyama is one of the few supporters who is optimistic that Ken Kutaragi’s game console will become Sony’s future pillar industry. During the process of establishing SCE, in addition to receiving strong support from Norio Ohga, Ken Kutaragi also Shigeo Maruyama gave him the most support.

The originally appointed president of Sony, Toshio Ozawa, suffered a heart attack only half a month after taking up the post of president of Sony Computer Entertainment due to health reasons. Now that he has been admitted to the hospital, it is impossible to hold the position of president any longer, and Kutaragi Ken originally thought that he would be straightened up directly.

However, Sony has always carried forward their tradition of distrust, and Kutaragi Ken was previously unruly, so he did not succeed in taking over. On the contrary, Maruyama Shigeo took the initiative to take on the position when there was a dispute. If it were someone else Kutaragi Ken may be very dissatisfied, but facing Shigeo Maruyama, his status and prestige are no better than those of Toshio Ozawa. Even the elders who were much higher than him did not feel dissatisfied at all.

Moreover, Kudo also knew that when he was ostracized by many people before, it was Maruyama Shigeo who protected him.

"Hirai!"

When Kazuo Hirai was sitting quietly in his seat with his head down and thinking about something, a voice called his name came from a distance. Kazuo Hirai turned his head and looked in the direction of the sound, and then his face immediately showed surprise. With a look on his face, he quickly stood up. He walked over quickly.

"Senior Kudo!"

To Kazuo Hirai's surprise, he never expected that he would be the actual person in charge of the entire PS project and the number two figure in Sony Computer Entertainment after Shigeo Maruyama. It can also be said that his immediate boss, Kutaragi Ken, came to see him off in person.

Because the flight was approaching, the two of them didn't talk too much about work, in fact. During the entire meeting, which lasted more than 20 minutes, Kutaragi Ken, who is always known for his seriousness, did not even take the initiative to mention anything about work, even. Whenever Hirai Kazuo took the initiative to talk about it, he would always wave his hand to indicate not to talk about it yet.

He would even further express his apology and send the other party to the United States at this time, but it is really because the release of PS is imminent, and the sales channels and market in North America are still somewhat unsatisfactory.

One of the reasons for saying this is that Hirai Kazuo just had a child born not long ago, and it has not even been a hundred days since he was born.

Another reason is that Sony has always had a tradition of independent branches and doing their own thing.

Sony is huge and powerful, but Sony's internal management has always been extremely chaotic. Although Sony has always adhered to Ibuka and Morita Akio's concepts of freedom, innovation, and happiness, the relationship between Sony's internal companies has been far from clear. There is no such harmony as this idea.

As we all know, Sony has a big business and is involved in many industries. However, not all of these companies are established and managed by Sony. They feel that most of the time, they play the role of investors or controllers, and most of the management rights are It falls on the joint venturers, which is why Shigeo Shigeo Maruyama can almost regard Sony Music as his own backyard.

And when these enterprises are on the right track, these branches can even further set up subsidiaries to operate independently. However, the mountains are high and the emperor is far away. Sony's headquarters is almost beyond the reach of these enterprises that are almost in the form of 'feudalization', and each branch has little control over them. For the sake of their own interests, branches compete with each other as fiercely as with other non-Sony companies, or even worse.

This is the thick department wall that Sony employees often talk about.

This situation is at least so far unable to be changed, or to put it another way, the vast majority of Sony's leaders are unwilling to carry out reforms, because such reforms are like harming their own interests, this kind of pathological and abnormal The situation will not change until Sony, this behemoth, is terminally ill and will die completely if it does not change.

That was the ‘One Sony’ story of a later head of Sony.

Kutaragi Ken and Hirai Kazuo talked more about life issues, and Hirai Kazuo answered them one by one with a smile. He has a gentle personality and is not good at arguing with others. He is very different from Kutaragi Ken, but he admires Kutaragi very much. Ken, he was like this when Kudo was ostracized and could only gain a foothold in the group under the protection of his boss, Shigeo Maruyama-senpai.

And this time he was awarded such a large number of people. Although it required him to leave his beloved wife and his newly born child for a long time, he still had no hesitation. Even now, Kazuo Hirai can still recall his own life in the conference room. His first reaction when his boss Shigeo Maruyama asked him about his intention to go to the United States.

It's ecstasy.

There was no hesitation, worry, intolerance, or anything else. There was just ecstasy. When I heard Senior Shigeo Maruyama ask in a questioning tone whether he would be the head of the marketing and sales department of Sony Computer Entertainment in North America, I wanted to jump three feet high to vent my excitement at that time.

Then, of course, he agreed without hesitation.

Kutaragi Ken has been sending Hirai Kazuo to the plane. In fact, this is not the first time that he has come to see off his subordinates. When Kato Yu was appointed as the head of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Kutaragi Ken also came to see him off in person, and it was still late at night. It came in the cold wind, and Kato Yu, who was only a few years older than Hirai Kazuo, was directly moved to tears.

There is quite a sense of a scholar dying for his confidant.

Sony Computer Entertainment's appointment of Kazuo Hirai is very low-key. Just like their previous appointment of Yu Kato, it caused almost no news in the industry. Even compared to the previous appointment of Hisao Oguchi by Sega, it is not as good as the appointment of Hisao Oguchi. At least Hisao Oguchi's appointment is still in the industry. This caused some quarrels.

The reason for the dispute is whether a person who has only been responsible for software development can also do a good job in marketing.

Both sides argued with each other, each holding his own opinion. Although Hisao Oguchi's initial strategy greatly increased the sales of Sega MD, this strategy of price reduction sales was not recognized by those who opposed it, because this sales volume was reduced. Improvement does not bring profit to Sega, and profit is the most important thing.

However, those who support Hisao Oguchi also believe that temporary benefits are not important, but market share is important. No matter how big the losses are now, when the number of machines is large enough, these losses can be completely eliminated by relying on the games released. of turning around.

Now the supporters of the two groups are evenly matched. Although supporting Hisao Oguchi seems to be very reasonable, due to the previous failure cases of Nintendo, many people still hold a cautious wait-and-see view, at least. not agree.

Sony, specifically Sony Computer Entertainment, has also discussed this topic internally.

In general, there are both those who support and those who do not support. What is different from the outside opposition, which is dominated by Nintendo, is that within Sony Computer Entertainment, there is great appreciation for Hisao Oguchi's strategy.

Especially Kutaragi Ken, he even publicly said in an internal meeting that Oguchi Hisao's plan gave him great inspiration, very, very, very much, and they used it for reference when the PS was released. In this sentence , Kutaragi Ken used three exceptions in a row to express his importance to Hisao Oguchi's sales strategy.

Kutaragi Ken's words were also supported by Maruyama Shigeo.

At that time, Shigeo Maruyama had not yet succeeded Toshio Ozawa as the president of Sony Computer Entertainment. Even so, Shigeo Maruyama continued to openly express his support for Ken Kutaragi in public as he always did when Kutaragi was marginalized.

And as Shigeo Maruyama, Kazuo Hirai, of course, is no less willing to give in.

When the plane took off, Kazuo Hirai, who was sitting in the first class cabin, looked down through the window of the plane at Tokyo, which was being pulled away but still brightly lit. Thinking about what he was going to do in North America, he felt an unspeakable feeling. The mood suddenly appeared in his heart. (To be continued...)