Early on the morning of January 26, 2015, Sony announced that they would be merging two of their subsidiary companies; Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment, to form a new corporate entity.  The merged companies will now be known as ‘Sony Interactive Entertainment, LLC’ (SIE).

According to Sony, the headquarters of the new company will be housed in the United States, in San Mateo, California.  The headquarters will oversee all of the R&D and sales for their PlayStation platform.  Sony Interactive Entertainment will also be in charge of hardware, software, network services, and other content.

Andrew House, president and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, released an official statement saying, “By integrating the strengths of PlayStation’s hardware, software, content and network operations, SIE will become an even stronger entity, with a clear objective to further accelerate the growth of the PlayStation business.  Along with our business partners, SIE will develop pioneering services and products that will continue to inspire consumers’ imaginations and lead the market.  We will work hard to maximize corporate value by coordinating global business operations across San Mateo, Tokyo, and London by leveraging local expertise”.

In a blog post by the president & CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, Shawn Layden stated that this move will “power the next 20 years of PlayStation innovation”.  He also mentioned that there will be an even bigger emphasis on developing pioneering platforms like PS4 & PlayStation VR, “world-class games” from World Wide Studios dev teams, and “innovative network services” like PlayStation Vue.

The merger is scheduled to occur on April 1^st, 2016 (no, really), at the beginning of the Japanese fiscal year.  At that time, according to Kotaku.com, both Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment will cease to exist as separate entities and will be replaced by the newly-formed SIE.

What do you all think of the merger?  How do you all feel it might affect PlayStation?  Let us know in the comments if you think this will be a good step for Sony!