Jimbo didn't lie. The quote had nothing to do with cross-gen games and PS5 exclusive games, it was about features and experiences. He was very clear in what he was talking about there. Sure it was conveniently timed with MS's statements at the time, but again, he was very clear in his quote. The fact that internet folks ran with it as some sort of "gotcha" when Sonys cross gen plans were revealed has caused me to facepalm many times cause no one takes the time to look at the original quote to see what he was actually talking about.
Nah come on, SIE knew what they were doing when they wrote that script for him (I doubt he wrote it himself).
Everyone on GAF was like "
YAAAASSS!" when he said "we believe in generations" and then later everyone who isn't excessively forgiving remembered it when a bunch of titles ended up being cross-gen. As proof, just look at their very first "future of gaming" show:
Miles Morales: title credits "captured on PS5" - no mention of whether it would be PS5 exclusive or not.
Gran Turismo 7: ... nothing. No mention of any platforms.
Ratchet & Clank: "Built from the ground up for PS5" .. but no mention of whether or not it would be PS5 exclusive
Project Athia (Forspoken): nothing, no mention of platforms.
Stray: no mention of platforms.
Returnal: "this new franchise, c
oming exclusively to PS5"
Sackboy Adventure: no mention of platforms.
Destruction AllStars: no mention of platforms.
Kena Bridge of Spirits: no mention of platforms.
Goodbye Volcano High: lol
Oddworld Soulstorm: no mention of platforms (but we already knew it was coming to PC so meh)
Ghostwire Tokyo: no mention of platforms.
(I'll skip some of the filler garbage)
Demons Souls: no mention of platforms.
RE Village: no mention of platforms.
Pragmata: no mention of platforms.
Horizon FW: no mention of platforms.
closing statement from Jim Ryan:
.."and you've seen games that can only be enjoyed with the full range of Playstation 5's features and power"
.." we want you to enjoy the unique benefits of moving from one generation to the next"..
So first thing I would say is that (
with the sole exception of Returnal for some reason) they were intentionally vague about what games would come to what platforms because they already knew the vast majority were cross-gen and it would make them look like hypocrites... so they choose not to say anything and then we saw all the gaming media outlets trying to catch out SIE's PR people to actually get that information.
New games announced at PS5 Showcase, including Final Fantasy XVI, Hogwarts Legacy, and a new God of War title
blog.playstation.com
Sony had their Future of gaming showcase in June 2020 but didn't reveal that Miles Morales, Sackboy, and Horizon FW would be cross-gen until
three months later in September 2020. Assuming they didn't just pull those PS4 versions out of a hat, they knew full-well they'd be coming and chose not to say anything at first.
Additionally, we know that the PS4 community will transition to PS5 at different times, and we’re happy to announce PS4 versions of some of our exclusives. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Sackboy A Big Adventure, and Horizon Forbidden West will also launch on PS4. While these three games were designed to take advantage of PS5 and its unique next-gen features like the ultra-high-speed SSD and DualSense controller, PS4 owners will also be able to enjoy these experiences when they launch.
Strange... they didn't seem overly eager to announce PS4 versions during the initial showcase.
Second thing is that when Jim said "games that can only be enjoyed with the full range of PS5 power" he essentially just meant Ratchet & Clank, Returnal, and Demons Souls remake, right? That's a tiny fraction of the games shown and yet he didnt say "a few games" or "some games" he just said "games". That was absolutely intentional.
On top of that, "we want you to enjoy the unique benefits of moving from one generation to the next".. in the end it wasn't
really much different from the Xbox Series X launch, right?
Jimbo didn't lie but he sure as hell chose his words
extremely carefully and SIE left out details (mainly which games would be cross-gen) that didn't suit them at the time. In hindsight, Xbox was actually far more honest and upfront.