SCE Worldwide Studios President Phil Harrison Resigns

http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/080225e.html

He might be going to Atari apparently:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=33463

Not many people know who he is or even care, but he was probably one of the only likable guys at SCEI (out of the high ranking people anyway). He seemed frustrated with Sony Japan last week (posted this in the GDC thread), so maybe he was at odds with the way they were running things (actually, seemed like this opinions didn't always match up with what SCEI did). If you didn't read that, I think it basically boils down to them disagreeing with how Sony should make a push for casual gamers (SCEJ didn't think there was any reason to do so, but Harrison now knows this isn't true given the Wii's success). Definitely a big blow to Sony IMO.

Now if only I could understand why he'd go to Atari...

 

I wouldn't think those things would cause him to resign. In his position, I would think he would just make changes to any plans concerning those products, which they sort of did IIRC. After F1, Sony dropped the F1 license since it was too expensive to really bother putting out a game (probably regardless of F1's sales...I'm not even sure if it had subpar sales actually, although certainly not enough to warrant keeping the license). Harrison never seemed all that enthusiastic about Lair (even prior to its release), and Sony as a whole has seemed to back away from their relationship with Factor 5.

Maybe his comment about SCEJ wasn't far from the truth regarding any reasons for resigning. Could have just been frustration in the company not putting much stock into his ideas (particularly about the casual market), despite him being at the top of the chain on the software side of things. Or maybe something else, who knows.

Here's a nice retrospective piece on Harrison done by Eurogamer:
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=93413