Jack Tretton Won't Be Joining Microsoft or Nintendo; Focus on New A.I. Startup

Despite having parted with PlayStation, a company that Jack Tretton has been with since 1995, the former CEO and President of Sony Computer Entertainment America has nothing but good things to say about his former employers. Jack intact talks candidly about the troubles PlayStation faced and calls the PlayStation3 “a great redemption” for the company. While it’s no surprise that Jack has nothing but praise for his former employer, seeing how he left on his own accord, what may surprise fans is where Jack is currently employed and where he won’t be.

From Jack:

I think I’ve done the big company dedicated console experience and I’ve enjoyed it. I have a lot of friends over at Microsoft but I really see myself more in a free agent role and really trying to branch out and smell the fresh air of being able to be platform agnostic and not just dedicated to console gaming; I’ve really been spending more of my time during the last couple months looking into mobile gaming and other forms of entertainment that I haven’t had the time or ability to focus on. I would tend to gravitate away from a traditional big console company and more towards independent gaming companies and other platforms.

According to Jack, he’s not interested in working for rivals Microsoft or Nintendo for that matter though he has grown respect for both companies. Despite some of the struggles from Xbox and more specially Nintendo, Jack still believes that each company will be around for a long time. So why did Jack leave PlayStation? Here is Jack again:

I spent 19 years with Sony and enjoyed it very much, but my original plan was three years and it just continued to get extended as the company was successful and I was successful. It just got to the point, especially with the success of PlayStation 4, that I’d done just about everything I could for them and I really wanted an opportunity to be more of a free agent as opposed to being dedicated to one platform and one company.

So what exactly is he doing with his free time? A lot, it seems. Last week, it was announced that Jack had joined Genotaur’s advisory board but don’t worry if Genotaur doesn’t ring a bell. It seems that the company, unlike Sony and PlayStation, is a small startup, focused on artificial intelligence and human-computer interfaces. Beyond that, we don’t know a lot about the small firm, nor exactly what Jack plans to offer.

If there is one thing to take away from this, it’s that Jack isn’t sitting idle and is continuing to be part of the tech industry. My own personal take? AI and UI is something that surely could benefit Sony. While rivals Microsoft and Apple have a lot of money invested into services like Siri and Cortona, Sony has nothing and would have to rely on Google Now if it ever wanted such a service which currently doesn’t do PlayStation any good.

Much like how Steve Jobs left Apple to form NEXT, only to be bought by them eventually and make the greatest business comeback in history, maybe Jack is the trojan horse that Sony needs if this company makes some headway. Software has never been Sony’s strong suit, be it on PlayStation or their camcorders. The above of course is purely a pipe dream of mine so it should be taken with a truck load of salt, after you’ve had a bowl of salt.