While Hisao Koguchi was still caught up in the worry that although the sales of Sega MD remained unchanged as usual, the sales of Dreambox2 were still like taking a train, in the departure hall of the new Tokyo International Airport in Tokyo, Japan, a young man under the age of 30 was quietly waiting for his flight.

The new Tokyo International Airport was later known as Tokyo Narita Airport, which was renamed Narita Airport in 04 in order to distinguish it from Tokyo International Airport, that is, Haneda Airport.

The 29-year-old was previously an assistant to Sony Music's founder, Shigeo Maruyama, but now he has been reassigned to SCEA, the head of marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment's U.S. division, giving him overall responsibility for sales of Sony's upcoming console in North America.

His name is Kazuo Hirai, and now he is just one of thousands of ordinary Sony employees, and if there is anything special about him, it is that he is the kind of person who has a high reputation in the group and is highly valued by the high-level, that is, he has a great future.

It only takes one thing or two to know from the fact that he was appointed as a market at a young age, and that he is also the largest market for Sony Computer Entertainment in the future.

Maruyama Shigeo is one of the 100 veterans who founded Sony with Sony's father Ibukadai and Akio Morita, and his status in the group is extremely high, and Kazuo Hirai was his assistant before, and his esteemed Cheng Dù can naturally be seen.

In addition, Shigeo Maruyama is one of the very few supporters of the argument that Ken Kuta's game consoles will become a pillar industry for Sony in the future, and in the process of establishing SCE, in addition to the strong support of Norio Otaga, Shigeo Maruyama has given him the most support within the group.

And Toshio Ozawa, the originally established president of Sony, had a heart attack after only half a month after serving as the president of Sony Computer Entertainment due to physical reasons. Now that he has been admitted to the hospital, it is impossible for him to hold the position of president any longer, and Kutaragi Ken originally thought that he would be straightened out directly.

However, Sony has always carried forward their tradition of distrust, coupled with Kutaraki Ken's previous unruliness, so he did not succeed in taking over, but Maruyama Shigeo took the initiative to take on this position when he was in a dispute, if it was someone else Kutaragi Ken may be very dissatisfied, but in the face of Maruyama Shigeo's status and prestige is not as good as Ozawa Toshio. Even the elders who were much taller than him, he did not have the slightest dissatisfaction.

Moreover, Jiuta also knew that when he received a lot of ostracism from many people before, it was Maruyama Shigeo who sheltered him.

"Hirai!"

When Kazuo Hirai was quietly sitting in his seat and bowing his head to think about things, a voice called his name came from a distance, and Kazuo Hirai turned his head to look in the direction where the voice came from, and then immediately showed a look of surprise on his face, and quickly stood up. Hurried to meet it.

"A long time ago!"

To Kazuo Hirai's surprise, he could never have imagined that the actual person in charge of the entire PS project, the second person in the entire Sony Computer Entertainment after Shigeo Maruyama. It can also be said that it is his top boss, and Ken Kutaragi will personally come to see him off.

Because the flight was approaching, the two didn't talk too much about work, in fact. During the entire twenty-odd minutes of the meeting, Ken Kutaragi, who has always been known for his strictness, did not even take the initiative to mention anything at work, even. Whenever Kazuo Hirai took the initiative to talk about it, he would always wave his hand and signal not to talk about it yet.

will even further express his apologies, at this time to send the other party to the United States, but it is really because the issue of PS sales is imminent, and the sales channels and markets in North America are still a little unsatisfactory.

One of the reasons why I say this is that Kazuo Hirai just had a child born not long ago, and he hasn't even been in the position for 100 days until now.

Another reason is that Sony has always had a tradition of independent and independent branches.

Sony is large and powerful, but Sony's internal management has always been extremely chaotic, although Sony has always adhered to the concept of Hiroshi Ibuka and Akio Morita Freedom, innovation, and happiness, but the relationship between various companies within Sony is far from being as harmonious as this concept.

As we all know, Sony's family has a big business, and the industries involved are also scattered, but not all of these companies are established and managed by Sony's main company, they feel that most of the time, they are acting as investors or controllers, and most of the management rights fall on the joint ventures, which is why Shigeo Maruyama, a heavy minister, can almost regard Sony Music as his own back garden.

And when these companies are on the track and on the right track, these branches can even further set up subsidiaries to operate independently, and the mountain is far away, and the Sony headquarters is almost beyond the reach of these enterprises that are almost in the form of "sub-sealing", and each branch for its own interests, its competition is fierce, even no less than the competition with other non-Sony companies, and even more than that.

That's the thick departmental wall that Sony employees often talk about.

This situation is at least so far powerless to change, or to put it another way, the vast majority of Sony's rulers are unwilling to carry out reforms, because such reforms are like hurting their own interests, and this pathological and deformed situation will not change until Sony, a behemoth, is terminally ill and will completely die out if it does not change.

That's the story of a Sony head who came to be a Sony.

Kutaragi Ken and Hirai Kazuo talked more about life problems, and Hirai Kazuo also replied with a smile, his character is gentle and elegant, not good at arguing with others, and Kuda Ragi Ken is very different, but he admires Kuda Ragi Ken very much, when Kuta was ostracized by others, and he could only gain a foothold in the group under the protection of his boss Maruyama Shigeo's predecessors, he was like this.

And this time he was awarded such a crowd, although it required him to leave his beloved wife and newborn child for a long time, but he still did not hesitate, and even now Kazuo Hirai can recall his own first instant reaction when his boss Maruyama Shigeo asked him if he wanted to go to the United States in the conference room.

It's ecstasy.

Without the slightest hesitation, worry, or anything else, some were just ecstasy, and when he heard Maruyama Shigeo's senior ask in an inquiring tone that he was not far away in North America as the head of the marketing and sales department of Sony Computer Entertainment, he couldn't wait to jump three feet high to vent his excitement at that time.

Then, of course, he agreed without hesitation.

Kutaragi Ken has been sending Hirai Kazuo on the plane, in fact, this is not the first time he has come to see off his subordinates, when Kato Yu was appointed as the head of Sony Computer Entertainment in Europe, Kutaragi Ken also came to see him off in person, and it was in the cold wind in the middle of the night, and Kato Yu, who was directly moved by Kazuo Hirai, who was not a few years older than Hirai Kazuo, burst into tears.

There is a sense that a soldier dies as a confidant.

Sony Computer Entertainment's appointment of Kazuo Hirai is very low-key, and like their previous appointment of Yu Kato, it has hardly caused much news in the industry, even compared to the previous time when Sega appointed Hisao Oguchi, at least Hisao Koguchi's appointment caused some controversy in the industry.

The reason for the quarrel is whether someone who has only been in charge of software development can also do a good job in marketing.

Although Hisao Koguchi's initial strategy greatly increased the sales of Sega MD, this strategy of reducing sales prices did not get the approval of those opponents, because this increase in sales did not bring profits to Sega, and profits are the most important.

However, those who support Hisao Oguchi also believe that temporary benefits are not important, what matters is market share, and now even if there are many losses, when the number of machines is large enough, these losses can be perfectly reversed by relying on the released games.

Now the supporters of these two factions are comparable, although it seems to be very reasonable to support Hisao Koguchi, but because there have been Nintendo's failures before, many people still have a cautious wait-and-see view, at least disagree.

Sony, and Sony Computer Entertainment in particular, have also discussed this topic internally.

In general, there are both those who support and those who do not, and the difference from the opposition dominated by Nintendo outside is that within Sony Computer Entertainment, Hisao Koguchi's strategy is extremely appreciated.

Especially Ken Kutaragi, he even publicly called Hisao Koguchi's plan at an internal meeting, which gave him great inspiration, very, very, very, very much, they used it for reference when PS was released, in this sentence, Ken Kutaragi used three very in a row to express his importance to Hisao Koguchi's sales strategy.

And Kutaragi Ken's words were also supported by Maruyama Shigeo.

At that time, Shigeo Maruyama had not succeeded Toshio Ozawa as president of Sony Computer Entertainment, but even so, Shigeo Maruyama continued to openly express his support for Ken Kutaragi in public as he had done in the past, as he had done when Ken Kutaragi had been ostracized.

And Kazuo Hirai, who is Shigeo Maruyama, is of course not far behind.

When the plane took off, Kazuo Hirai, who was sitting in the first class, looked down from the porthole of the plane and looked at the lights of Tokyo, which was constantly being pulled away, but the lights were still brilliant, and he thought about what he was going to do in North America, and an indescribable feeling suddenly came to his mind. (To be continued......) R1292