My guess because the Activision deal is going through, Jimmy wants out while PlayStation is still on top. Once they start declining, he won’t be on the sinking ship. Better for job prospects or you then become Phil Harrison.
Edit: Retiring, but while on top.
I hope whoever takes over takes PlayStation back to taking the JP market seriously again. My biggest issue with the Jim years is PS’s distancing from the market. Though it could be difficult now with Nintendo’s iron grip that they definitely aren’t interested on letting up
There’s multiple reasons to think he’s “stepping down”.
The clown show that has been made from the ABK case
He’s getting a lot of opposition from Playstation Studios and conflict between strategy (heavy live service) and capabilities (studios and structures predominantly function for SP games)
Despite impressive revenue and sales, he’s still not expanding the scope of Playstation enough to raise profitability
There’s reasons to think it’s image-related or performance related. Can’t pinpoint.
Yeah I am seeing the fans definitely putting a lot of hope in that, but I don’t see it happening. GaaS indeed is necessary nowadays.
Follow up here:
https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1707154416615203046?t=HGu0Mcw_I8Kxp9VMAVlysA&s=19
I don’t really like speculating about these things, same goes for when devs leave companies, it’s not always something bad
He’s been there for 30 years so maybe he just wants to retire
While true, it’s always the timing that makes it speculative.
Yes this is also possible, the timing is just interesting.
I
Jim ryan. You will be missed. By xbox fans.
Don’t think GaaS is cancelled. Reminder: they’re in development for a while, so doing so will hurt them financially. It’s not with that one studio with half of the staff gone. They went out of the investment. Here, this is their own resources. Too much to drain out. Bottom line, got to endure it for a while.
Yes, but not this sudden 50% shift, especially from a publisher that enjoyed success with their single player and tied to their brand. From EA, Ubisoft, you expect, but when Playstation does it to that extent, it’s weird. And part of them problem is from them tbh, they conditioned fans to expect only the expensive $200m 5-6 years in development AAA games. I had hoped a better strategy to be to make more Ratchets and Returnals, not make half of your output live service, from studios that don’t know that model any well.
Looks like he is retiring, having served 30 years with Sony. Still, I just have a lingering feeling it’s more than that, but it’s all speculative lol, good for him though.
Wonder if the next person will be someone who is into video games? Could be interesting.
It was very recently that he made it clear that they were going for more GaaS. So it should be interesting to see if they indeed keep that focus or if they change things back a little to how they used to be.
It was like a week ago or so, that recent. I kinda doubt they’d just scrap that now. But it’s anyone’s guess right now.
Wonder if Amazon or Apple will try to get Jim Ryan, or maybe Microsoft will try to get him to help Matt Booty.
I believe people think it’s more than a simple retire since many here associated with past stories such as Bonnie Ross with 343, the former president of Square, and now this. It’s why people are questioned than simply accept the headline as it is. I don’t blame them.
second biggest personnel news of the day
He’s retiring
I dislike him but can’t deny he was huge for Playstation, whether he liked games himself or not, he brought Playstation a lot of growth and money, and they made good stuff because of that. He especially had a role with the importance of localization.