The Sony PlayStation hardware engineer known as Masayasu Ito announced his upcoming retirement on October 1.
According to a Bloomberg report, Ito led the team of engineers for both the PS4 and PS5 hardware, although Mark Cerny’s name shines more as he is the lead designer of both consoles.
Ito’s career with Sony lasted for five decades. It started in 1986 with in-vehicle acoustics, and moved to the home console branch in 2000—the same year the PS2 was released. This meant he played a major role in the development of the PS3, but then he led the engineering teams for another two generations of consoles. Ito also had a role in designing the improved PS4 Pro.
Now at the age of 60, Ito has decided to retire and hand in his resignation. Sony released a quick announcement online to confirm his resignation and revealed that Lin Tau will replace Ito as the managing director and executive vice president of the Sony Interactive Entertainment subsidiary. Meanwhile, Kiichiro Urata has been announced as the Director of the Engineering Branch.
It seems that Ito picked a good time to retire. Supply chain issues are only getting resolved recently, which means the PS5 Slim or PS5 Pro might not be coming any time soon. The PlayStation 6 is also a few years away. With his departure at the end of this month, the engineering team has plenty of time to adjust to the situation and plan for what’s next.