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All jokes aside, how well do you think Jim Ryan is running PlayStation?

How well has Jim Ryan been running PlayStation?

  • He has been running it well

    Votes: 191 42.6%
  • He has been running it poorly

    Votes: 257 57.4%

  • Total voters
    448

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
You know what it means. Phil Spencer thread time.

Master Chief Game GIF by Halo
Dam.. I wish bubble shields were a real thing, i could use them.
 

EekTheKat

Member
All things considered, things could be much, much worse. I don't envy Jim's job of having to lead Playstation through a time where the rest of the world is melting down both economically and literally.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
There’s a reason why Sony is investing heavily into Superhero and third person open world games for example over JRPGS and fighting games.

Outside of Smash, MK, and maybe Street Fighter, nobody gives a shit about fighting games. It’s a niche market in the overall picture, and it doesn’t bring the money in like open world and superhero games.

JRPGs they have no one to make them. They just open the wallet to Square.
 

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
He doesn't have any charisma, but he's making money... I guess it's time to get a new Kevin Butler or something to fill that hole
 
I think it's more of a middle ground. I want the big PlayStation press conferences back. Give me the 2016 show again with new game announcements. But it's also great that under him PS is branching out to PC users. I have no problem with PS games being timed exclusives.
 

spons

Gold Member
Not poorly, but also not in my best interest. He's just a generic suit who has been in the gaming industry for decades yet has not shown he actually plays games.
That's like selling washing machines while doing all the laundry by hand at home.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
In the past when playstation has tried to expand it does not work out to well, the move, playbook, multiplayer games, playstation home.

The three musketeers must be reunited!

5Pccz8f.jpg
 
Outside of Smash, MK, and maybe Street Fighter, nobody gives a shit about fighting games. It’s a niche market in the overall picture, and it doesn’t bring the money in like open world and superhero games.

JRPGs they have no one to make them. They just open the wallet to Square.
I know. I was using fighting games and JRPGs as an example of niche genres. Basically Sony will continue to invest into whatever brings in the money like most companies. If these live service games make them money, they will most likely use that money to create more of them.
 

HercRaato

Member
This poll is flawed. I don't think he's running it portly or we'll. I think he's running it ok, nothing earth shattering but nothing to burn Playstation to the ground either.
 

Three

Member
Phil Spencer ain’t going to be doing presentations to the MS board like ‘good will and relatability is up 400%’

Emoji Increasing GIF by emoji® - The Iconic Brand

I mean they kind of will be in the marketing department. I've never seen so little actual product news from xbox before, like literally nothing in terms of the product this year yet xbox has marketing buzz because spencer gives dumb interviews about empty platitudes or we are discussing some buy out that hasn't produced anything new, or Aaron Greenbergs promotion to Vice Pres or spencers promotion to Head of Gaming instead of xbox, Phils gaming time or whatever. Meanwhile nothing much is actually happening for the product.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I mean they kind of will be in the marketing department. I've never seen so little actual product news from xbox before, like literally nothing in terms of the product this year yet xbox has marketing buzz because spencer gives dumb interviews about empty platitudes or we are discussing some buy out that hasn't produced anything new, or Aaron Greenbergs promotion to Vice Pres or spencers promotion to Head of Gaming instead of xbox, Phils gaming time or whatever. Meanwhile nothing much is actually happening for the product.
Relax fan warrior.

Let me guess. You cherry pick a narrative depending on what year it is.

Where were you last year when MS churned out tons of great games and won publisher of the year from MC having tons of highly rated games? I think their rating was the highest average score ever at 87.
 
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GigaBowser

The bear of bad news
He's awful. The only thing he has on his side is Playstation's unstoppable momentum, but all of his decisions have been laughably bad.

He'll be fired soon they won't let him run PS5 into the ground.
 

Three

Member
Relax fan warrior.

Let me guess. You cherry pick a narrative depending on what year it is.

Where were you last year when MS churned out tons of great games and won publisher of the year from MC having tons of highly rated games? I think their rating was the highest average score ever at 87.
I just don't bring up dick measuring contests from a while back like you when you feel your plastic box is slighted. I'm talking about marketing actually being something they have relied on this year . Metacritic scores for the likes of Psychonauts 2 and FS2020 in 2021 were not even something I was talking about when I clearly mentioned this year, 2022.
 
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Relax fan warrior.

Let me guess. You cherry pick a narrative depending on what year it is.

Where were you last year when MS churned out tons of great games and won publisher of the year from MC having tons of highly rated games? I think their rating was the highest average score ever at 87.
People believe what they want especially about a platform they don't like.

Jim Ryan is doing what he's supposed to and that's make money for Sony Corp. He's raised prices for games and systems and while some fans don't like that stock holders do. Sony has had pretty consistent releases even with some delays and Sony single player games are good.

I am not a huge fan of how they've handled game upgrades and I don't like paid cloud saves and no retail sales of digital games but PlayStation will continue to be successful and hopefully they will get some real competition this generation to get them to compete for our business.
 

Barrico82

Banned
As a Fan he is doing horrible, Especially in the communication side, The problem most of the time the no-communication or lack of marketing is towards something good or even excellent like the backward compatibility in the PS5, Or now with the efforts on the TLOU remake, I dont get what the PS as a Whole is trying to achieve from this strategy

From business side, No doubt he is doing great, Even as a Look to the future, the PS brand seems to have a Bright future
 

Stare-Bear

Banned
People complaining about lack of console units on shelves. There’s a semiconductor shortage which we are just getting out of. ALL HARDWARE has massive delays.

I work in IT and Dell is giving us 18-24 month lead times on their servers. We are buying monitors off of Amazon because Dell can’t supply them.
 

Hoppa

Member
Horrible. We’re living off rumours and speculation and they just drop shit out of the blue like the PSVR2 announcement in a PS Blog post. The lead up to PS5 was also a massive question mark all the way up until the announcement stream and they opened preorders at random. $70 games, convoluted upgrade paths, console price hike. Hoping things get better as COVID clears up but so far it’s been bad imo
 
He's running it 100% like a business man tasked with managing something he doesn't really like, enjoy or get. He's focused on numbers but is clearly a good manager all things considered. Under his reign and because people under him want to please him some draconian stuff is taking place (more expensive games, hiking the price of a console past the launch price, disregard for the costumer satisfaction) not directly all on him but consequence of his clear focus. There's also a counter balance internally that he doesn't shut off completely, which means he at least listens/understands how that can be useful for him, but the compromises that he does are very small.

He clearly doesn't want to be unpopular, but he'll never be popular, that leads to some olive branches like the Sony Play at Home initiative, and backtracking on turning off the online system on PS3/PSVita. Again, those don't cost a lot, so that's clearly where he draws the line.

All in all, I think it won't get better though, 10 years of Jim Ryan will have diminishing returns, with time the internal counter balance will tone down because he'll seldom listens to them, and by then he'll be surounded by yes men who want to go even further than he would.

I just hope one of his apprentices don't replace him.
 
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KiteGr

Member
Poorly...
Just because they won the last generation (by doing nothing) they've become arogant.

  • Offer of aditional censorship to games, mostly Japanese, discouraging many users and the entire Japanese market of choosing it as their "default console".
  • Few note worthy PS5 games to justify the console.
  • Further discouraging the Japanese market and the influx of quality games by closing Japan studio.
  • Big PS5 shortages at the most crucial period.
  • Making the entire japanese market jump ship with the recent price increases.
I would say that at least he is doing worse than the previews.
 

Mowcno

Member
Ask me in another couple of years. Phil Spencer was joke during his first years but I think opinion on him has gotten a lot better now he's been given more time.
 

Dorago

Member
There are no PS5s in stores. There are no 1st part games that make me want to find one. I've seen an XB1S in real life but it has no games either. I want to play a few games on Switch but its out of stock and costs $350!? That's why I put in my request for a Steam Deck.
 

FunkMiller

Member
Poorly.

Communications have tanked.

There have been several instances of price gouging and greed - some of which they’ve rowed back on, most of which they haven’t.

The debacle with Japan studio was idiotic.

The reputation that Sony fostered during the PS4 gen under House and Layden is long gone.
 
Poorly...
Just because they won the last generation (by doing nothing) they've become arogant.

  • Offer of aditional censorship to games, mostly Japanese, discouraging many users and the entire Japanese market of choosing it as their "default console".

Wait, i thought it was said Jim Ryan rolled that back from the Shu days?
 

Neofire

Member
Poorly is an understatement. His "anything for a dollar" strategy he's been doing is watering down the Playstation brand. Putting out ports on other platforms but leaving their own platforms version a half assed update is tragic.

I liked how Andrew House, Shawn Layden and Jack Tretton's were helming things in their respective times.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
I wonder why we hardly ever hear from Hermen Hulst these days, when Shawn Lauden was head of playstation studios he did PR regularly.
 
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Eh, I mean I’m not sure it’s his fault but I thought Sony would be better, with the “we believe in generations” talk specifically - I expect Sony to be at the cutting edge console wise - and they kind of are but I guess I expected more than they delivered
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Eh, I mean I’m not sure it’s his fault but I thought Sony would be better, with the “we believe in generations” talk specifically - I expect Sony to be at the cutting edge console wise - and they kind of are but I guess I expected more than they delivered

The Devs are probably scared shirtless of the amount of expectations, work involved and the Pandora's box that is next gen hardware. I think the first generation of current gen have essentially built with last gen tools.
 
The Devs are probably scared shirtless of the amount of expectations, work involved and the Pandora's box that is next gen hardware. I think the first generation of current gen have essentially built with last gen tools.
Or it's an incremental upgrade for the most part so most developers were able to repurpose what they were doing previously while increasing the detail.

There are always next gen tools, but sometimes proven and tested is just better.
 

KXVXII9X

Member
All I can say is I no longer recognize the company anymore and was a HUGE PS fan up until 2020 and my view on Sony is slowly tanking which is sad because I loved their strong library of games. They weren't afraid to heavily invest in their games and still had a strong focus on single player content when everyone was going towards multiplayer. I think the first real gut punches were the disbanding of Japan Studios which helped make a lot of my favorite games and them backtracking on believing in generations. Aside from the haptic triggers and a few next gen titles, it feels like an upgraded PS4, which the PS4 Pro was supposed to be.

My biggest issue now is the lack of communication. Past Sony was really good at getting people excited for future projects and constantly updating us on games coming out soon. They had great marketing and were heavily present at Expos and such. Now it is almost radio silent. God of War Ragnarok, a game supposed to come out this year, has barely shown any new footage, let alone a release date. I am thinking it is due to them not being exactly sure and don't want to overpromise, but I am really hating this slow trickle of information.

I am not sure if all of this falls on Jim Ryan. I have just noticed my love of the PlayStation brand decreasing since the start of the PS5. PlayStation has started to feel like another Western focused console to me. I LOVE their cinematic games, but I also love their quirky Japanese games as well. I am also worried about them heading more and more into live service. It feels like they are more concerned with profit than ever before. They are now expanding their games outside into movie releases and feels like they want to create massive revenue streams instead of a variety of cool, new experiences.

I would say I'm not favorable towards Jim Ryan due to the lack of communication alone. The PS5's future seems directionless.
 

Ladioss

Member
Poorly.
My major gripe with current Sony is their major focus on AAA action-adventure narrative experiences. For the moment it works for them, but hyper specialization is almost always a poor economic choice on the long run.
I would like to see more diversity in their big exclusives titles. I liked Sony best when it was the platform of choice for weird, idiosyncratic AA japanese games - the Siren, Popolocrois, Ico games and everything like that.

Just because they won the last generation (by doing nothing) they've become arogant.

That's part of the problem, yes - it's especially noticeable since the move of HQ to California, unsurprisingly.
 
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There are no PS5s in stores. There are no 1st part games that make me want to find one. I've seen an XB1S in real life but it has no games either. I want to play a few games on Switch but its out of stock and costs $350!? That's why I put in my request for a Steam Deck.

Switch is $299, only the OLED cost that much.


Say what you will about Don Matrick, but he was lot like the PS execs. He invested in Respawn when EA was cancelling their first game after Sony passed on it. He signed Insomniac, Platinum Games and Crytek to make exclusives. He formed coalition games to make a new IP. Forza 4, Forza Horizon 2, Dead Rising 3, Ryse, Killer Instict, Titanfall and Sunset Overdrive in the first year alone. We havent seen a lineup like that since.

I posted the studio comparison lists in the Phil Spencer thread, but as much as Don messed things up betting on Kinect, he did dee where things were going and did try to swap out the Kinect studios and signed deals before he left as you said, though Phil disbanded several of those studios, and by late 2017 he only had about 5 studios or so, then he brought Ninja Theory, Obsidian, InXile, and a couple others, external studios that didn't already know the culture and hardware, he could have kept some of those studios and revamped them but instead he closed them and then brought studios hoping the games would be ready for fast roi and instead the have been delayed. Same when he brought Zenimax.
 

deathsaber

Member
He fucking sucks. He's the same as the guy who is in charge of Disney now. Laser focused on nothing but making more money, at the expense of pleasing fans. Both placed in charge of existing mega-successful companies and currently coasting on the existing success and banked up goodwill, but eventually all the bullshit will catch up to them and they'll find they are no longer leading things as they used to as competition keepings destroying them in terms of PR, price, value, etc.
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
He commited minor mistakes IMO.. So he has been doing a decent job.
 
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yurinka

Member
I wonder why we hardly ever hear from Hermen Hulst these days, when Shawn Lauden was head of playstation studios he did PR regularly.
Instead of making interviews he's busy making his job, which is not to make interviews/PR: it's to manages PS Studios and make games and acquisitions.

Hermen is working in more games at the same time and making more acquisitions than anyone else who worked there before him.

Eh, I mean I’m not sure it’s his fault but I thought Sony would be better, with the “we believe in generations” talk specifically - I expect Sony to be at the cutting edge console wise - and they kind of are but I guess I expected more than they delivered
They are doing exactly what they did that were going to do in the 'we believe in generations' talk: to keep supporting PS4 during several years after the PS5 launch because the PS4 active userbase is way higher than usual at this point of its lifetime and most of this people will take years to move to PS5.

Games are also using in PS5 its new features like adaptative feedback, 3D audio, super fast loading, haptic feedback etc. as Jimbo said he wanted to see.

Wait, i thought it was said Jim Ryan rolled that back from the Shu days?
Nobody rolled that because it doesn't exist: they are all lies.
 
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Nobody rolled that because it doesn't exist: they are all lies.

No, I recall there being fans upset about censorship in the pre-Jim Ryan years, so I wouldn't say that's fake, though I think the censorship itself might have been less than what the fans raged about. Like a slightly longer shirt or something lol.
 
The Devs are probably scared shirtless of the amount of expectations, work involved and the Pandora's box that is next gen hardware. I think the first generation of current gen have essentially built with last gen tools.
I’m hoping you’re correct and we’ll see a vast improvement
Instead of making interviews he's busy making his job, which is not to make interviews/PR: it's to manages PS Studios and make games and acquisitions.

Hermen is working in more games at the same time and making more acquisitions than anyone else who worked there before him.


They are doing exactly what they did that were going to do in the 'we believe in generations' talk: to keep supporting PS4 during several years after the PS5 launch because the PS4 active userbase is way higher than usual at this point of its lifetime and most of this people will take years to move to PS5.

Games are also using in PS5 its new features like adaptative feedback, 3D audio, super fast loading, haptic feedback etc. as Jimbo said he wanted to see.


Nobody rolled that because it doesn't exist: they are all lies.
why 2 years in? The ps3 didn’t have ps2s install base either
 
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