Jubenhimer
Member
Jim Ryan is the current President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment (AKA PlayStation). His reception from PlayStation fans has been a bit mixed. While some people feel he's doing a solid job as captain of the PS ship, there also people who seem to think he's doing everything in his power to destroy the PlayStation brand. Now I'll be honest, I think Jim Ryan is fine as a business man, and he's probably a decent guy as well. But PR is certainly NOT one of his strongest skills. Ryan has a bit of a history with nonsensical PR statements and half-truths.
* Like how he explained the lack of PS1 games on PS4 was because "nobody wants to play old games".
* Or how he tried to explain Sony's lack of indie games at future E3s in the later PS3 years as them essentially being filler.
* Or how he laughably tried to damage control Sony's initial stance on cross-play as "Think of the children!"
* Or how he said that he felt cross-gen games were problematic to their goals with PS5... Before eventually revealing the first batch of PS5 titles will mostly be cross-gen.
And then there's some of the events that happened under him, which I don't think will be as bad as some people fear, and given how corporate politics work, aren't entirely his fault.
* PlayStation on PC - Sony's been very clear about their PC strategy with it being simply a marketing vehicle for PlayStation, not a central pillar of the ecosystem like Xbox. All of their PC releases thus far have been PS4 games released 3-4 years after their debut. I think that will remain the same for most titles going forward. In the meantime, Returnal, Demon's Souls, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Appart are all still PS5 exclusive.
* JAPAN Studio closue - JAPAN Studio died for a lot of reasons. It hadn't produced a single decent commercial hit aside from Astro Bot in recent years, the studio itself became an over-bloated mess, and a lot of the talent that made its best games, had already left Sony by that point. It basically became PlayStation's version of Nintendo R&D1. I imagine it was a very tough decision to make between Doucet, Hulst, and Ryan to kill it. But in the end, we got Team Asobi which is already hiring for bigger projects, and hopefully won't be just an Astro Bot factory, and the external production unit of the group was absorbed into XDev, so hopefully franchises like Hot Shots Golf still have a future.
Sony has done some good things under Ryan too don't forget.
* Expanded PlayStation Studios with some key acquisitions
* Nabbed Bungie, a studio that Microsoft used to own to assist with multiplayer development
* Ensured the PS5 had the best possible reveal and launch it could have given the worldwide events at the time
* Gave Yoshida his own personal group to help improve Sony's indie relations.
I think Ryan overall is doing okay running SIE, but I think he needs to at the very least, get a better PR team so that every word out of his mouth doesn't sound like somebody trying to cobble together lazy excuses.
* Like how he explained the lack of PS1 games on PS4 was because "nobody wants to play old games".
* Or how he tried to explain Sony's lack of indie games at future E3s in the later PS3 years as them essentially being filler.
* Or how he laughably tried to damage control Sony's initial stance on cross-play as "Think of the children!"
* Or how he said that he felt cross-gen games were problematic to their goals with PS5... Before eventually revealing the first batch of PS5 titles will mostly be cross-gen.
And then there's some of the events that happened under him, which I don't think will be as bad as some people fear, and given how corporate politics work, aren't entirely his fault.
* PlayStation on PC - Sony's been very clear about their PC strategy with it being simply a marketing vehicle for PlayStation, not a central pillar of the ecosystem like Xbox. All of their PC releases thus far have been PS4 games released 3-4 years after their debut. I think that will remain the same for most titles going forward. In the meantime, Returnal, Demon's Souls, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Appart are all still PS5 exclusive.
* JAPAN Studio closue - JAPAN Studio died for a lot of reasons. It hadn't produced a single decent commercial hit aside from Astro Bot in recent years, the studio itself became an over-bloated mess, and a lot of the talent that made its best games, had already left Sony by that point. It basically became PlayStation's version of Nintendo R&D1. I imagine it was a very tough decision to make between Doucet, Hulst, and Ryan to kill it. But in the end, we got Team Asobi which is already hiring for bigger projects, and hopefully won't be just an Astro Bot factory, and the external production unit of the group was absorbed into XDev, so hopefully franchises like Hot Shots Golf still have a future.
Sony has done some good things under Ryan too don't forget.
* Expanded PlayStation Studios with some key acquisitions
* Nabbed Bungie, a studio that Microsoft used to own to assist with multiplayer development
* Ensured the PS5 had the best possible reveal and launch it could have given the worldwide events at the time
* Gave Yoshida his own personal group to help improve Sony's indie relations.
I think Ryan overall is doing okay running SIE, but I think he needs to at the very least, get a better PR team so that every word out of his mouth doesn't sound like somebody trying to cobble together lazy excuses.
