Ken Kuturagi, the chief architect of Sony’s PlayStation console just stepped down as the company is struggling to defend their once dominance in the video game industry. The former 56 year old Sony Computer Entertainment’s chairman and group chief executive will be replaced by Kazuo Hirai. Kuturagi was released a year ago from responsibilities as president but remained as acting chairman and chief executive. Now he will remain as an advisor at the gaming unit according to official Sayoka Henmi.

Ken Kuturagi is an icon among gamers and his departure is considered as the end of an era for Sony. It was a period that was synonym with video game industry domination thanks to the PlayStation consoles. Unfortunately recent events also have to be linked with the departure. Sony sure had a lot of problems in the videogame console department and it is facing huge competition from Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii console. Sony’s PlayStation 3 is considered too expensive and although the company is currently thinking about how much to reduce the price, the current $600 tag is quite a lot for gamers. Not even promo marketing like free video games or different gimmicks have paid off. The new Sony era now begins and maybe changes will occur but this is really not that likely to happen.