Kazuo Hirai
Age: 42
Title: President and CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA)
Office location: Foster City, Calif.
Ethnicity: Japanese American
Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
Current Favorite game: Given that I love cars, the Gran Turismo series.
Kazuo Hirai has been standing by the Sony PlayStation console since its inception into the American market. Now eight years later, the 42-year-old Japanese American CEO runs the most popular video game console company in the world.
“I had been working for Sony Music Japan in 1995 when I got a phone call from one of the executives who asked me if I knew about PlayStation. I said, “No, not really,” and before you knew it, I was leading the launch of [the PlayStation],” Tokyo-born Hirai says.
Promoted from chief operating officer to CEO in August this year, Hirai worked hard to get to where he is. “Although I knew that Sony was aggressively trying to shift from the traditional Japanese system of rewarding seniority to a system where promotions are made based on merit regardless of age.
“I knew that it was going to be a huge challenge to be successful, but I also knew from the start that I was going to have fun doing it; after all, we are in the entertainment industry … if the people in it are not having fun, how can you expect the consumers to have fun with your products?” he says.
Hirai has helped lead the introduction of an entirely revolutionary form of entertainment to the North American market with the original PlayStation in 1995 and the PlayStation 2 in 2000. With nearly 23 million consumers in North America owning a PlayStation 2, the company announced Dec. 17, an earning of more than half a billion dollars in total videogame sales for the month of November.
The PlayStation 2 has undoubtedly brought the video game industry into a newfound light in the eyes of the mainstream, creating an industry that makes well over $6.4 billion, topping Hollywood box office sales.
Inspiration to drive the evolution of an industry once frivolously thought to be child’s play doesn’t come easy, and Hirai modestly attributes this success to the combination of solid products and a dedicated team. “I knew from the beginning that we had a very innovative product with the original PlayStation, and that it had unlimited potential,” Hirai says. “I worked hard to bring [SCEA] to the same level, that is, trying to unleash the untapped potential of the people that work at the company.”
Prior to joining SCEA, Hirai worked with CBS/Sony Inc. (now Sony Music Entertainment Japan), creating initiatives to market international music in Japan. Hirai then moved on to Sony Music Japan’s New York office coordinating the marketing of Sony Music Japan artists in the United States. He attributes his work in the music industry as the model for bringing all forms of entertainment together — from music to games to movies.
Though video games surfaced in the early ’80s, only recently have they matured and evolved to their current level of realism and detail. Hirai proudly admits that growing up, board games were his form of entertainment. “You name it, I’ve played it — Life, Monopoly, Battleship, Scrabble.”
Hirai’s father worked for Mitsui Bank (now SMBC), taking the family back and forth between Japan and North America, from New York, to Toronto and San Francisco. It was during these moves that Hirai was able to learn English, and he now recognizes that “being bilingual and bicultural has helped me in my career immensely.”
At the same time, becoming one of the few Asian Pacific-American CEOs is rare, but to that, Hirai says, “I honestly do not think that my ethnic background has helped or hurt my career, except to say that it is always a challenge to have people spell and/or pronounce my name right the first time around.”
It is likely Hirai’s confidence helped him move to the top. Asked what video game character he would most want to be, and Hirai says, “I know this sounds cocky, but the only character I would want to play in a game or in real life would be me!”