Seven Years Later, Sony's CEO Doesn't Mind All the Memes

From five-hundred ninety-nine U.S. dollars and Riiiiiiidge Racer seven years ago to more flattering presentations today, Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai has been one of the gaming industry’s most .gif-able and meme-able public figures. Hirai wants you to know he’s cool with that.

Of course, Hirai might be sanguine because Microsoft is gettin’ toe up about as bad as he was after E3 2006, when he was running Sony Computer Entertainment America. In an interview with SGNL, Sony’s YouTube video magazine on gaming and entertainment, Hirai was asked what he thought of being the subject of so many Internet memes. Hirai offered this:

https://lastchance.cc/as-expected-francis-is-not-happy-at-all-about-todays-511819938%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Well, you know, I think that especially with the PlayStation business, I used to get that a lot, as well, even when I was running the PlayStation business in the U.S., whether it’s YouTube or just other websites. And, you know, obviously the gaming world has a tendency of really enjoying that. And I’ve come to also, you know, look at it from a perspective of ‘That’s really creative.’ So I enjoy some of the stuff that folks have done. I like to think that the visibility that I get is not a visibility of me personally but in fact a representation of the visibility that Sony gets worldwide so I’m more positive about it.

Hirai may have stepped on a couple of rakes at E3 2006, and it certainly felt like a disaster at the time. But if you can laugh at yourself and, more importantly, not repeat those mistakes, yesterday’s keystone kop can still become today’s action movie hero.