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Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced that its Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden has left the company (via Siliconera).
It is with great emotion that we announce that Worldwide Studios Chairman Shawn Layden will be departing SIE. His visionary leadership will be greatly missed. We wish him success in future endeavors and are deeply grateful for his years of service. Thanks for everything, Shawn!
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) September 30, 2019
Layden has worked with Sony since 1987, and his first post was as a communications assistant for the company’s co-founder, Akio Morita. He managed Sony Computer Entertainment’s London Studio as a producer from 1996 to 1999, when he was then promoted to vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. Layden became the president of Sony Computer Entertainment Japan for three years between 2007 and 2010. He assumed the role of president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America in 2014, after Jack Tretton’s departure.
Over time, Layden was tasked to focus on PlayStation’s Worldwide Studios to ‘provide platform-defining content that helps drive the growth of SIE.’ Through this shift, he was responsible for the continued success of the PlayStation 4 with games such as Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted 4, and The Last Guardian developed under his guidance that drove the company.
Sony did not elaborate as to why Layden has left the company, nor who would be filling his shoes. Jim Ryan is the current president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, and therefore oversees the direction of Worldwide Studios. He works in tandem with Shuhei Yoshida, the head of Worldwide Studios, and Yoshida said recently that developers still have ‘a lot to learn’ about PSVR.
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