Sony’s longtime PlayStation hardware main is retiring connected October 1st. 60-year-old Masayasu Ito, who led the engineering for some the PS4 and PS5, is retiring, as reported by Bloomberg.

According to Sony communications manager Cathy Liu, work for the PlayStation platform, which includes hardware engineering, security, merchandise strategy, and design, among different things, is inactive led by elder vice president Hideaki Nishino. Nishino was promoted to that role successful March 2021, and reports straight to SIE president Jim Ryan. Current manager Lin Tao is taking implicit Ito’s relation arsenic lawman president and typical manager of Sony’s Japan operation. Sony announced the changes successful a brief property release today.

Ito primitively joined Sony successful 1986 earlier moving to the company’s PlayStation part successful 2008 to pb PlayStation hardware engineering. Ito oversaw the engineering for the PlayStation 4, a hugely palmy console that deed lifetime income of 117.2 million arsenic of March. The PS4 adjacent reached a milestone of selling much games than immoderate different console successful past past year.

Ito was besides liable for the instauration of the PSVR headset, the PS4 Pro, and Sony’s latest PS5 console. Sony began enactment connected the PS5 successful 2015, and Ito and his squad spent 5 years designing and processing the console. Ito detailed the PS5 improvement process up of the console’s motorboat successful 2020, revealing that Sony focused connected reducing sound levels and improving cooling capableness successful the PS5, alongside favoring “a good thought out, beautifully designed architecture” wrong the console.

Sony favored a good thought retired architecture wrong the PS5. Image: Ifixit

While the PS5 is the biggest crippled console successful modern history, Sony has been reducing its value successful caller revisions. Sony softly launched a revised PS5 past month, reducing the value by 13 percent from the archetypal motorboat model. The caller PS5 exemplary comes conscionable arsenic Sony hikes the terms for its PS5 consoles extracurricular the US. Sony is expanding its PS5 prices successful the UK, Europe, Japan, China, Australia, Mexico, and Canada. Prices are jumping by 10 percent successful Europe, 21 percent successful Japan, and by astir 6 percent successful the UK arsenic ostentation rates interaction Sony’s gaming business.

Sony archetypal released its PS3 successful 2006, followed by the PS4 7 years aboriginal successful 2013, and the PS5 7 years aft the PS4 successful 2020. Given it took Sony 5 years to program and plan the PS5, if the seven-year signifier holds existent for the next-gen PlayStation (2027?), Sony could beryllium astir to participate the aboriginal readying stages for a caller PlayStation procreation with a caller hardware main astatine the helm.

Correction, September 6th, 12:39PM ET: An earlier mentation of this communicative said Ito’s replacement Lin Tao volition beryllium successful complaint of aboriginal PlayStation generations, Sony says that work is continuing nether elder vice president Hideaki Nishino. We regret the error.