Sony Names New Head of Worldwide Games Studios

Sony has promoted a senior executive at its U.S. games studio to lead its global studios, it said Friday.

Shuhei Yoshida will from Friday fill the spot effectively left vacant since Phil Harrison resigned at the end of February. Yoshida is one of Sony Computer Entertainment's longest serving executives having joined the company in 1993. Alongside Harrison he played a part in starting up Sony's PlayStation business

Yoshida has worked in various roles at the Sony's games division and was promoted to senior vice president of the U.S. studios in February 2007.

At the global studios he will take overall responsibility for development of Sony's in-house games software.

"Under the leadership of Yoshida, who has proven track record in managing creative talent, Sony Computer Entertainment's Worldwide Studios will accelerate the software development for the PlayStation 3 and PSP (PlayStation Portable) platforms and vigorously expand the gaming market," Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), said in a statement.

Earlier this week Sony reported PlayStation 3 sales of 9.24 million units for the financial year to the end of March, short of its target of 9.5 million units. PlayStation Portable shipments came in ahead of target at 13.89 million units. Sony has been anticipating shipments of only 13 million consoles in the year.

PlayStation 3 software shipments more than tripled to 57.9 million units, while PlayStation Portable game shipments rose just 1 percent to 55.5 million units.