Jim Ryan appointed president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment

The Sony Corporation has announced that Jim Ryan will be assuming the role of president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment beginning April 1.

Jim Ryan has been serving as deputy president of Sony Interactive Entertainment since January 2018. John (Tsuyoshi) Kodera, the current president and CEO of the division, will become deputy president of SIE.

Jim Ryan will report directly to Sony Corporation president and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida.

"Based on extensive discussions with John [Kodera], I have decided to change the management structure of SIE to ensure sustainable evolution of the PlayStation platform and further growth of the network area," said Yoshida.

Ryan has spent 25 years at the company, first joining Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe (then SCEE) in 1994. European readers may know him from his time as president of SIEE, and the face of the company at various European, and UK events.

More recently, Ryan made the infamous "Why would anybody play this?" comment on backwards compatibility. "When we’ve dabbled with backwards compatibility, I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much," he said at the time.