Jim Ryan has been riding the waves of his predecessors.
My thought too. The PS4 was already quite safe in regards to games. Big Budget and now and then some controversial writing/content but nothing really experimental and genre expanding. The HW was very okay until XBox One X was the superior one, but overall it was succesful because MS fucked up and the momentum built with late PS3 and Plus was there.
Now they have some blockbusters but practically all are third person over the shoulder. Even coming Helldivers 2 and arcade specialist Housemarque needed to fit that mould. I guess they were not forced by Sony suits, but in the greenlight process Sony suits should have asked for more variety and keeping some lower budget games in the line up. I am not even against these games, but almost everything?
Where are FPS? Firewall Ultra? Is that going to be also non-VR? And actually good, without VR? Those GaaS better have some SP content too... and be able to replace CoD...
Where is a WRPG? The Decima engine should work for that just fine. Especially after the MS acquisitions they need a team for that.
Where is a horror game? Beside RE those don't sell bonkers, but still there must be someone in the their teams who wants to do one. On a lower budget. Kojima?
Where is a Forza Horizon like arcade racer? Driveclub failed, but built on the GT engine it should be an easy cash grab. Bikes...
Where is a Mario Kart like racer? LBP Karting/Modnation Racer done by Sumo Digital with PS stars branding.
Where is a Smash Bros like fighter? Also give it to Sumo Digital. Just because the first one was not immediately competing with the numbers of Nintendo's juggernauts, people have to associate your brand with those games before the numbers get there.
Where are regular ass MP games, which are necessary foundation before trying to do GaaS? Fat Princess or maybe other obscure niche games should accompany the big blockbuster games.
Where are puzzlegames like Echochrome?
Have maybe an entire "Sony Junior" publisher label for smaller titles that don't align with the grand PS Studios branding.
And where are fucking VR games for that new platform that was sent out to die? Does Sony have a team porting VR1 games? Does Sony have a team making unofficial PC ports of shooters official in cooperation with the IP owners?
Crystal & Eidos would have been a fine fit for their third person fetish.
I guess Remedy and IO want to be independant for now but they should make sure that they provide all their games to PS which already failed with IO.
Sumo Digital would have been a good get for several genres.
Quantic Dream, Supermassive, Dontnod, Deck Nine whatever, buy or built one team for such games.
Buying Kyloton, Milestone, Kunos Simulazioni for either supporting GT or do arcade racers for them might be a cheap investment.
Gearbox would have been a decent get for those GaaS plans, at least cheaper than Bungie.
Insomniac was a perfect buy, but they let some affordable fitting studios slip.
Betting on some "new" successful stuff, the current fad, is fine, but 10 GaaS? Especially weird after dropping H1Z1, Planetside, SW Galaxies and Everquest, their Sony Online Entertainment arm. And now everything else should come from third parties while having cut fat left and right and almost doing only one type of game just with different skins?
First Party is supposed to have the best games, showing off the limits of the platform, but that requires more variety to really shine.
I dislike MS, but if and once they get their obvious mismanagement in order their variety seems much better.
Sony has GT, Sackboy, Astrobot, MLB, (Dreams) sure but not much else. They should invest in true variety and don't focus entirely on just cinematic experiences and GaaS whale hunting.