(Update: The rumor is that Harrison is heading over to floundering publisher Atari. Weird one.)

Sony just sent out a press release announcing Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios president Phil Harrison, who has been involved in the PlayStation brand since its inception, will resign as of the 29th. No specific reason for the move was given, not even something as general as “pursuing other interests.”

What is interesting is that Harrison was reported to have been a bit annoyed at Sony’s Japanese operations, for being so slow to see the social gaming bandwagon coming, despite his warnings.

“It’s a very interesting and frustrating thing for me to experience because I have been banging the drum about social gaming for a long time” he said during GDC. “Our Japanese colleagues said that there is no such thing as social gaming in Japan–people do not play games on the same sofa together in each other’s homes. It will never happen. And then out comes the Wii.”

Presumably, Harrison–who has been called on more than one occasion Sony’s most affable public face–would not have been quite that open if he had not already planned on taking leave of Sony. It may be that incidents such as this contributed to his decision to move on; we’ve all heard the reports of Sony Japan moving so slowly on the Grand Theft Auto timed exclusivity that Microsoft was able to lock in a simultaneous release.

For what it’s worth, Harrison always seemed like a pretty stand-up guy to me. I’ll be curious to see if he sticks around in the industry. It would certainly be bizarre for him to end up at another publisher after fifteen years alongside Kutaragi.

Tags: phil harrison, resignations, sluggishness, sony

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 2:07 am and is filed under news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.