Jim Ryan talks about the beginnings of PlayStation.
Well yes, even the boss of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Jim Ryan, he has had to do something in the past that rarely fits the description of a company executive.
In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, Ryan talked about his career. During the discussion, he was asked about his early days with the company and what he did for PlayStation at the time.
Ryan joined the company in 1994, shortly before the launch of the first PlayStation. At that time, he was given the task of creating PlayStation companies in Europe. His duties included finding office space in continental Europe, hiring new recruits and organizing distribution, among other things. This assignment lasted a few years, and during that time Ryan took PlayStation’s roots in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Austria and Scandinavia.
While this lengthy process obviously required a hands-on approach, Ryan shared an anecdote from a time when he literally had to “use his hands” to open an office in Frankfurt. “I rented an office in Frankfurt and realized that there were no desks or chairs in there“, he said. “So there wasn’t much money at the time because we hadn’t sold anything. So there was no cash. So we ended up going to Ikea and buying the desks, and then we tried to figure out if we could pay someone to assemble them, or if we should do it ourselves.“.
Although Ryan was not against the idea of doing it himself, he eventually managed to find the funds to get someone else to fix the desks for the office. Those desks apparently served the Frankfurt office for a number of years and made Ryan an Ikea fan: “Ikea, I would recommend it to anyone“.
Source: Thegamer.