Sony names Andrew House as head of games unit

NEW YORK — Still reeling from a series of high-profile hacker attacks, Sony has named Andrew House as the president and group CEO of its video game unit, Sony Computer Entertainment.

House, who's been heading Sony's games business in Europe, replaces Kazuo Hirai, who will now serve as chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment.

Sony Corp. said on Wednesday that Akira Sato, the chairman of its games unit, will retire at the end of August.

Sony says House joined Sony in 1990 and was instrumental in launching the first PlayStation video game system.

Sony has been trying to recover from a slew of embarrassing hacker attacks since April. In the biggest breach, hackers compromised the security of 100 million credit card-backed accounts on the PlayStation Network.