Nothing.
What does it have to do to him? - he's only the President of Sony's Internal Studios network and greenlights / oversees development on all 1st party games.
If he can't manage the studios correctly and stick to schedules, because, you know delays cost substantial amounts of money, then somebody who is actually capable of operating efficiently, and productively should take his place.
Because, in my opinion, he is doing a horrific job so far, with the amount of delays, projects cancelled, and millions just flushed down the toilet.
The highest rated game exclusive to PS4 is Bloodborne, and it's developed by From Software in partnership with Sony Japan studio.
Every sole exclusive released so far has averaged middling scores with the exception of Infamous: Second Son.
That is just not acceptable - I wish Verendus would come in and give some perspective, because at the moment, the release schedule for Holiday 15 is bleak in terms of 1st party content.
Shu is the President of SCE WWS, but his day to day job doesn't involve micro-managing what the studios are up to in the way you imagine. He's not really responsible for the delays you see with Uncharted or Ratchet and Clank etc. WWS is pretty huge. There's like 15 studios or something and over a thousand people. A lot more than a thousand now I think about it since SCEE has about 2000 employees (it's not the exact number now due to certain fluctuations, but it's probably still around there anyway) and about half of those folks are working in WWS in Europe. When we take into account SCEA and SCEJ/A, that number increases a lot. The point is it's a lot of bodies. You have studios in Europe, America, Japan, so it's basically a global presence.
You know yourself that these studios have their own heads/directors/presidents. These are the people who are there to ensure the day to day operations are running smoothly, and overlook the immediate development of games under their care. They'll be involved with a lot of aspects of the game's development, and some of the first to know about what's happening with titles hitting milestones, any difficulties, and various other issues. Then you have people who are involved with other developers from a first party perspective, these can be producers, and the like, but their job is to pretty much manage that relationship. From there, reports, updates, and other things, head up the chain to people like Shu. You're basically talking about higher management since there are others. Consider that long chain. It exists in a lot of different corporate environments. When something does go wrong, or isn't to your liking, it's natural to blame the one on top for everything. I understand. I blame Andrew House all the time.
But it's complex. Sometimes when things go wrong, or aren't going according to plan, or there has to be adjustments made, it's a meeting of the people who are directly involved with some of the people in the position to call the shots, and they come to an agreement after considering several factors. These factors could range from how everything fits into the financial year, budgets, positioning, resource availability, and timing. It's a lot of different things. Those meetings, and business plans, and things of that nature, is what a lot of higher management does. And emails. Lot of emails. Can't forget that. Obviously, from that position, they do bear the brunt of the responsibility because a lot of important decisions do come from there, but when you're managing so many people, it's about having the right managers in the right place, and the work cultures at these studios, their development process, and the talent, is also very important. It's a mix and match of many different things, and it's not always simple. With Ratchet and Clank, you have to consider it's not an internal studio, it's a working relationship between two partners, and it's not just a game we're talking about here. There's a movie too, so things are different. Every situation can present different challenges. Not that I know the ins and outs of everything WWS does, since I don't care anyway. But I'm good with structure, let me tell you. Anyway, it makes no difference to me as long as the end result is good for everyone. That's what you'd want too. That's also what Shu would want.
You can have higher management meddle more, but would everyone really want that? The sink or swim outlook doesn't really work all the time, but if you get the right people in the right positions, it definitely allows diversity, and the ability to create a developer focused atmosphere.
While it's understandable to blame the one on top, it's kind of silly to make a judgment on how he does his job since a lot of people don't really know what his job entails. He does a lot of work unrelated to immediate development, and that can make up the bulk of his day to day job at times. People don't know much about SCE in general, and it's not their fault, since most people don't care about it. It's about the games. Even a lot of people working at Sony couldn't tell you the chain of command since it doesn't matter to most of them. Take a random developer, ask them to tell you about the various key positions, and they'd be clueless. It's just how it is at most companies. The point is that it's complex, and there are a lot of people involved in these projects. Some, who are responsible for titles hitting milestones and general management, who people don't know. The default response is to blame Shu, and while it's fine to blame people, you have to understand their role in things a little more intimately before you think he needs to be replaced. Because then it becomes silly.
You say this now for example, but your attitude could be different by this time next year. You might start thinking things aren't that bad after all. (But l'll be honest, it was kind of a mediocre first year). Look at Gio Corsi. How many people were mocking the fact that he's not getting anything done or whatever? There was a few. I know since I remember talking about it at some point. Attitudes towards him have changed after one event. Just because of Yakuza. Shahid's another one who people laughed at here and there, but most people don't even know about Strategic Content, and what they do. They've accomplished some good things. Spelunky, FEZ, Thomas Was Alone, those guys were responsible for those titles hittng the PS platform. And lots of others. I've seen people say they like Spelunky.
Anyway, I think it's fine to blame people. It comes with the territory. When you're a public figure, and you're in the spotlight, you get the glory, and you get the guillotine. That's how it goes. I'm sure they understand that. But generally, when you start talking about people being incompetent at their jobs, then you need specifics. You can't really use examples of games being delayed as the underlying issue there. You have to think about the bottom line. Facts, and figures. Those are hard to come by. It'd probably be a good thing to get Shu to tell people about the kind of things he does though. Maybe when there's good stuff happening, like TLG is out, and UC4 is out. Good PR opportunity.
I kid.
But seriously. How good is 2016 shaping up to be? So good. We can finally leave the last generation behind.
