• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Jim Ryan will go unsung for his contributions in keeping Playstation as a platform competitive

I think he's been great. Keeping their first party studios rollin. Expanding the PS+/Now services. Expanding into GAAS without ruining their SP games. Etc

Who cares if he's "not a gamer" as long as his vision is true and he knows we want big AAA blockbusters. Maybe Phil should skip God of War Ragnarok and whip their first party studios into shape. I'd rather get output for a system I purchased than care what some CEO is playing or not playing.
 
Last edited:

SLB1904

Banned
I think he's been great. Keeping their first party studios rollin. Expanding the PS+/Now services. Expanding into GAAS without ruining their SP games. Etc

Who cares if he's "not a gamer" as long as his vision is true and he knows we want big AAA blockbusters. Maybe Phil should skip God of War Ragnarok and whip their first party studios into shape. I'd rather get output for a system I purchased than care what some CEO is playing or not playing.
The fact is. Forum dwellers dont play games anymore. They shit on every game literally. The hype nowadays is on false promises and console wars.

One clear example is call of duty.
Call of duty was use for years as a joke for PlayStation players.
Now that Microsoft is buying became the hottest thing.
For console wars.
Shit is boring at this point.
 
Seems because people worship Phil Spencer lie dispenser and think that's the benchmark. hiding your failures by pretending to be everyone's friend.

Ironically one actually delivers, while the other fails consistently.

I've said it before, Jim's a cunt but he doesn't Pretend not to be. I preferred Andrew house.
 

Shifty

Member
Welp. Another week, another

jerking off sex appeal GIF


thread about the virtues of some platform-holder suit whose prime directive is to leverage you as a money generator.

Y'all need to learn some self respect and stop worshipping these cunts.
 
Last edited:

Unknown?

Member
This guy seems to get non-stop shit from playstation fans and the general gaming media. I think it’s most likely to do with the idea that he doesn’t come off as a ‘gamer’ and for some reason since execs like Shuhei and Phil Spencer started showing games they play and interacting with fans it’s become a pre-requisite to run a company. Now people think in order to run a gaming business you have to have a high gamer score or earn a new platinum trophy every week.

Joining Welcome Home GIF


I think If fans had it their way SIE would only be releasing AAAA blockbuster single player games, 30/30, and half of them would be Japanese games published by Japan Studio or JRPG’s specifically. Playstation would be going the way of Sega, relying on solely the ps5 to sell 5-15m copies of 4 games every year.

Jim Ryan is a big brain that knows exactly where the industry is heading. its heading F2P, services, cloud, multiplayer, shared experience, etc. Sony expanding into PC will pay dividends when inevitably digital becomes even MORE prominent than it is now. It will pay of when people get even more comfortable streaming games, and forgoing hardware in the far future. It’s already paying off now with E-Sports, and evergreen first party titles. It would be absolutely boneheaded for sony to rest on their laurels of 1st party console dominance of last gen while Microsoft slowly monopolize the pc and mobile space.

Not only that but the GAAS initiative. It may as well be a curse word to Sony fans. Fans want single player, single player, single player, but they don’t make a fraction of the money that popular service games do. Even Nintendo’s biggest selling games don’t really bring in the same revenue as popular GAAS titles, it will just never compare. Now that we see the impact that taking COD off sony consoles can have, it makes sense that sony has more than just AAAAA big budget games that sell 10 million copies, to carry them. Sony needs an Apex, Fortnite, GTAO, Warzone, Minecraft, etc…or I really don’t see them having much of a competitive edge in the future. These are the important goals to have, not buying square enix for even more exclusivity to a franchise that sells 7 million copies.

A gaming enthusiast think they can ignore the casual gaming market which is why they hate Jim Ryan because he’s forced to acknowledge the casuals, and less so the enthusiast. The ‘real gamers’ are starting to feel like second class citizens on playstation and they are not coping well with it. they aren’t coping with how no one cares about them because they aren’t spending money on games.

Enthusiast like to pretend they’re the ones that shake things up and move the culture forward but they’re not. Most of you don’t even buy games brand new you wait until they are discounted and put on service, or whine about how its too expensive and then cry about Japan Studio closing down cause their entire generation of ps3 and ps4 game sold the equivalent to a week of fortnite MTX.

Jim Ryan is the hero you deserve.
Physical hardware and software is what keeps me gaming. I know the future doesn't hold that but I won't game if I'm bound to some company's TOS.
 

jumpship

Member
Agreed 100%. I know he's not popular amongst some PlayStation fans but from a business point of view I think he's doing a great job. He's made some steal balls decisions some fans don't like but PlayStation is much better for it financially and better positioned for big growth in the future (Games, off console, brand and VR growth).

Also the heavy reinvestment back into first-party studios, great strategic acquisitions like Bungie (GAAS experience). I don't care that he's doesn't pretend to be down with the kids trying to win a ceo popularity contest, fuck that, I'm more than happy he sits behind a desk does his job well and letting the games (and future growth) do the talking.

Also he's doing this despite covid and with a huge 2 trillion dollar elephant in the room, run no where near as well but able to pull the rug from under him at any time. Jim so far has made some smart decisions and I suspect he's taking PlayStation on its own path.
 

ManaByte

Member
Are you lacking in games? Tell me how awesome we're the PlayStation 4 first 3 years? Letd just not go back to the ps3 era
If you had a couple of decent games you were lucky.

The first 3 years of the PS4? Really?

Bloodborne
The Last Guardian
Infamous Second Son & First Light
The Order 1886
Ratchet & Clank
Until Dawn
DriveClub
Killzone: Shadofall
KNACK
 
Oh for sure. I just scratch my head where this disappointment is coming from. Playstation is better than ever been when comes to content and I'm not just talking about 1st party games Loads of awesome 3rd parties like a lot of games .
So yeah
I enjoyed Demons Souls. I regretted buying Miles M. I love Sifu but don't think being a roguelike helps. I didnt like Returnal, and think its very overpriced. Had the system since Nov 2020
 

FUBARx89

Member
The only issue with Jim is his public statements. Lets him be a business guy. Give the PR job to someone else.

The return of Kevin Butler?!

I don't get why people are slamming him. The only questionable things he's done are 70 quid games and the upgrade fee?

Everyone goes on about how he's a shitty person & that cause of the email talking about cats. But really he's just an awkward bastard with saying he didn't any strife in the workplace it.
 

JimmyRustler

Gold Member
This guy seems to get non-stop shit from playstation fans and the general gaming media. I think it’s most likely to do with the idea that he doesn’t come off as a ‘gamer’ and for some reason since execs like Shuhei and Phil Spencer started showing games they play and interacting with fans it’s become a pre-requisite to run a company. Now people think in order to run a gaming business you have to have a high gamer score or earn a new platinum trophy every week.

Joining Welcome Home GIF


I think If fans had it their way SIE would only be releasing AAAA blockbuster single player games, 30/30, and half of them would be Japanese games published by Japan Studio or JRPG’s specifically. Playstation would be going the way of Sega, relying on solely the ps5 to sell 5-15m copies of 4 games every year.

Jim Ryan is a big brain that knows exactly where the industry is heading. its heading F2P, services, cloud, multiplayer, shared experience, etc. Sony expanding into PC will pay dividends when inevitably digital becomes even MORE prominent than it is now. It will pay of when people get even more comfortable streaming games, and forgoing hardware in the far future. It’s already paying off now with E-Sports, and evergreen first party titles. It would be absolutely boneheaded for sony to rest on their laurels of 1st party console dominance of last gen while Microsoft slowly monopolize the pc and mobile space.

Not only that but the GAAS initiative. It may as well be a curse word to Sony fans. Fans want single player, single player, single player, but they don’t make a fraction of the money that popular service games do. Even Nintendo’s biggest selling games don’t really bring in the same revenue as popular GAAS titles, it will just never compare. Now that we see the impact that taking COD off sony consoles can have, it makes sense that sony has more than just AAAAA big budget games that sell 10 million copies, to carry them. Sony needs an Apex, Fortnite, GTAO, Warzone, Minecraft, etc…or I really don’t see them having much of a competitive edge in the future. These are the important goals to have, not buying square enix for even more exclusivity to a franchise that sells 7 million copies.

A gaming enthusiast think they can ignore the casual gaming market which is why they hate Jim Ryan because he’s forced to acknowledge the casuals, and less so the enthusiast. The ‘real gamers’ are starting to feel like second class citizens on playstation and they are not coping well with it. they aren’t coping with how no one cares about them because they aren’t spending money on games.

Enthusiast like to pretend they’re the ones that shake things up and move the culture forward but they’re not. Most of you don’t even buy games brand new you wait until they are discounted and put on service, or whine about how its too expensive and then cry about Japan Studio closing down cause their entire generation of ps3 and ps4 game sold the equivalent to a week of fortnite MTX.

Jim Ryan is the hero you deserve.
It didn‘t always use to be all for money you know. Even back in the PS2 days devs and publishers knew which kind of games sold best, yet not everyone was desperately trying to tap into that market - and all of us were grateful for it. But somehow today we have to understand that everyone is chasing the same dollars...
 

BreakOut

Member
What I want with a PlayStation is no JRPG games or games published in Japan.
Yeah. That’s why I chose a Japanese system. Jim Ryan might understand the direction of the market but he’s ignoring the market that put Sony ahead to begin with. Know what YOUR players like. He’s made some great contributions but he’s oblivious to the criticism and ignores it when he shouldn’t. Feels hard to be heard these days.
 

Woggleman

Member
It didn‘t always use to be all for money you know. Even back in the PS2 days devs and publishers knew which kind of games sold best, yet not everyone was desperately trying to tap into that market - and all of us were grateful for it. But somehow today we have to understand that everyone is chasing the same dollars...
That is because in the PS2 days the audience was different. The audience was mainly there for SP when these days MTX are the big money maker. Now I hate MTX but a large portion of the public don't seem to agree.

Catering to hardcore gamers is all good and well but just like in many other things the hardcore and niche audience tends to spend the least and they are very fickle.
 

Alebrije

Member
Jim kept PS5. Competitive Even againts the evil Gamepass disease.

No other Sony director had to face Microsoft 's money brute force, Gamepass, Bethesda , Activision.

We don't deserve Jim , he could be happy enjojing weekends with his family on a Nice shore while drinking margaritas but instead he's commanding the mother of all wars.
 

Three

Member
Pentiment, As Dusk Falls, Psychonauts 2. You can disagree with me if you want, but a lot of the studios they have are not major studios like inXile. They're going to be putting out unusual niche content that may not even work financially without sub services funding it. I think that's at least interesting as a consumer. A lot of homegenization in the industry.

I hated Returnal and don't think any roguelike should be $70. Housemarque is a super talented dev team though and I've liked their stuff in the past.
Pentiment isn't even out and looks terrible. I'm sorry but £20 for that game is a rip off.

 

Kagey K

Banned
Threads a bit premature. Going to have to wait a few years to really see the results of his influence.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
The return of Kevin Butler?!

I don't get why people are slamming him. The only questionable things he's done are 70 quid games and the upgrade fee?

Everyone goes on about how he's a shitty person & that cause of the email talking about cats. But really he's just an awkward bastard with saying he didn't any strife in the workplace it.

He has just some dumb shit, "the children" "who wants to play PS1"

I think hes doing a good job, the only thing I disagree with him on is I think they should focus there studios on epic single player content, they are looking at the figures for MP which is why they are doing some MP stuff, but I think there place in the market would be more secure if they capitalise on what they are so good at.
 
If you agree the future of PlayStation is subscriptions and GaaS, then he's doing a grand job.

not really about agreeing its inevitable. all gaming is heading in the direction where the money is. The mobile market games are outselling entire casinos.

stuff like Ghost of Tsushima is small fries compared to something like genshin or COD Mobile
 
It didn‘t always use to be all for money you know. Even back in the PS2 days devs and publishers knew which kind of games sold best, yet not everyone was desperately trying to tap into that market - and all of us were grateful for it. But somehow today we have to understand that everyone is chasing the same dollars...

the market has become far more hostile now that its expanded. Games were still toys back then, they are now consumer electronics with the potential for mass market data collection and ad placements. Big Tech and big foreign financial conglomerates have too much invested now.
 
Jim kept PS5. Competitive Even againts the evil Gamepass disease.

No other Sony director had to face Microsoft 's money brute force, Gamepass, Bethesda , Activision.

We don't deserve Jim , he could be happy enjojing weekends with his family on a Nice shore while drinking margaritas but instead he's commanding the mother of all wars.


Captain America Running GIF by Marvel Studios
 
Case in point:



Microsoft isn’t in the gaming business, they are using it for cloud/azure adoption where they can sell data to the US Government and 3rd parties. Microsoft doesn’t give a shit about making a few billion dollars selling games.

They didn’t spend 70 billion dollars to beat playstation in entertainment, they are trying to beat apple, google, amazon, in expanding their global reach as a whole. Xbox means absolutely nothing to them other than a jumping off point for getting to 3 trillion dollars.

Nintendo and Playstation will just be casualties along the way. Thats why this FTC investigation is a much bigger deal than it is for Bungie. The same thing is happening with Facebook and their acquisitions. They are all fighting for the same shit, that has nothing to do with making games.
 
Last edited:

Elios83

Member
While the tone of the OP is a bit too dramatic :messenger_grinning_sweat: :messenger_tears_of_joy: the substance is absolutely true.
Jim is a great business man that is driving the company through a deep and necessary trasformation (acquiring many studios and expanding existing ones, making their services much more competitive, expanding to other profitable genres and platforms) and all this with the extra hurdles of a global pandemic disrupting both the hardware supply and game development chain. On top of that they now have competitors that are buying whole publishers for 70 billion dollars instead of releasing products like Wii U and Xbox One 👀
Basically Jim is playing at Sekiro difficulty level and succeeding. Only Kaz Hirai came close with what he did to turn around the whole Sony group.

His weak point is that he doesn't pretend to be the good guy that spends his time listening to fans on twitter instead of doing his job so he won't be loved by certain people but who cares.
 
Last edited:

Masterri

Member
Ryan is a visionary.
He knew far in advance that thanks to Putin there was going to be a GaaS shortage across the globe, so he invested more than half of the PlayStation budget on them.
BASED JIMBO
 

JimmyRustler

Gold Member
That is because in the PS2 days the audience was different. The audience was mainly there for SP when these days MTX are the big money maker. Now I hate MTX but a large portion of the public don't seem to agree.

Catering to hardcore gamers is all good and well but just like in many other things the hardcore and niche audience tends to spend the least and they are very fickle.
You don't understand what I'm saying.... Back then everyone knew that GTA type games, racing games etc. were where the money's at, yet not everyone jumped on the bandwagon.

What I think is the big change today compared to 10+ years ago is that publishers put a huge bulk of their budget on tentpole titles with which they try to generate as much profit as possible with just this one or those handful games, whereas pubs in the old days used to spread the budget to many more titles and then accumulate the profit piece by piece.

Hence for me what is done today is the absolute definition of a business with only money generation in mind and nothing else. Of course everyone wanted to make money in the PS2 days as well but not to a degree like we see today.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Ryan is a visionary.
He knew far in advance that thanks to Putin there was going to be a GaaS shortage across the globe, so he invested more than half of the PlayStation budget on them.
BASED JIMBO
Great marketer too.

Before PS5 launched he was all about generations making it sound like games would be PS5 only.

PS5 launches and you still got cross plat games with PS4 even now into 2022.

And for the new PS+ tiers, the biggest change to them is rearranging the bundled offers into 3 options where legacy PS1-PS3-portable games are the biggest feature.
 
Last edited:
PS5 seems to be doing as well, if not better than PS4. From that point of view, he's overseeing the organization in a growth cycle and the business prospects for the next 5 years for Playstation look bright.

Not sure how much influence Ryan had on PS5 prior to taking over as CEO, but there seemed to be some kind of unpublicized power struggle happen a few years back, resulting in Ryan going from head honcho in Europe, to head honcho of the entire global business. There was some shady business with corporate restructuring, Shawn Levy leaving/ being pushed out when he was clearly on the way up, and Ryan swooping in, and Shuhei getting put on indies.

He understands the business, clearly. So for PS players, that's a good thing. He's not going to make some massive pivot and move away from the types of games that made PS4 what it was.
 
Last edited:
Oprah Winfrey GIF


F2P GaaS is the future and there's no denying that - those who do are living in the past.
That's like saying mobile games are the future. There's still plenty of room for real, quality games, even while trash like F2P, GAAS, and mobile trash that lives off of whales thrives.
 
Great marketer too.

Before PS5 launched he was all about generations making it sound like games would be PS5 only.

PS5 launches and you still got cross plat games with PS4 even now into 2022.

And for the new PS+ tiers, the biggest change to them is rearranging the bundled offers into 3 options where legacy PS1-PS3-portable games are the biggest feature.
In all fairness, the business has changed a heck of a lot in the last 2-3 years. Prior to the current generation that began at the end of 2020, console cycles were clearly defined and the install base reset at zero, and there was no carry-over of your entire library, beyond backward compatibility. His remarks that you're referring to were made as all of these various factors were changing, people's expectations of what should happen were changing, and he got caught with a comment that didn't age well. 5 years ago his comment would have been something that wouldn't have even been a question, because why would a console maker release their big new games for their old, obsolete system?
 
Last edited:

MikeM

Member
I like Phil’s personality better, but Jim hired Cerny, right? Cerny has turned out to be an absolute gem for Sony.

Sony’s PR tho is pretty bad. But I can excuse it because their first party IP delivers and the Dualsense is amazing.
 

Three

Member
Case in point:



Microsoft isn’t in the gaming business, they are using it for cloud/azure adoption where they can sell data to the US Government and 3rd parties. Microsoft doesn’t give a shit about making a few billion dollars selling games.

They didn’t spend 70 billion dollars to beat playstation in entertainment, they are trying to beat apple, google, amazon, in expanding their global reach as a whole. Xbox means absolutely nothing to them other than a jumping off point for getting to 3 trillion dollars.

Nintendo and Playstation will just be casualties along the way. Thats why this FTC investigation is a much bigger deal than it is for Bungie. The same thing is happening with Facebook and their acquisitions. They are all fighting for the same shit, that has nothing to do with making games.

This is only because xcloud pretty much didn't exist this time last year and got Fortnite this year. small numbers see huge percentage increases but are still small numbers. MS has explicitly mentioned there is lower player engagement this year compared to last. MS does care about data collection and reach but I wouldn't pay too much attention to that "1800%" being a sign of anything. It's like those PS3 headlines in Japan.
 

Zok310

Banned
Jim is a true leader, the type that grabs you by the head and drags you to where you need to be, where he wants you to be.
Then he uses his hands and rip you eye lids apart and show you what he wants you to see. Then he whispers in your ears while you cry from happiness after witnessing all the amazing shit he just revealed, “you dumb fuck, this is the shit i do for you”.
He then kicks off the edge of the cliff.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom