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Yair Landau leaves Sony Pictures to do games

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 1 min

landau_yair.jpgYair Landau, the head of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s digital division, is leaving the film studio after two decades to start a video game and animation company.

His departure helps explain why Sony reorganized its game operation yesterday. Sony Online Entertainment, which reported to Landau, will now report to Sony Computer Entertainment chief Kaz Hirai, who runs the PlayStation business.

Sony Pictures said Landau is starting a venture to develop and produce content for use across all media. Landau talked about the convergence of video games and film as the opening speaker at the Dice Summit in 2007.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.