He’s available soon.
Kidding, kidding.
Or am I?
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The one thing I liked about Ryan is he was an old school gaming exec. Like a late 90’s early 00’s one. As in detached, pops up to say something nutty then goes back away.
In a way that is quite refreshing in a world where these people are in some cases treated like minor celebrities.
It’s an interesting crossroads for Sony now. Do they stick with trying to capture increasing amounts of a flat at best, probably about to decline market, or take some risks and make a bet on the future.
I’m expecting them to take some risks and make a play now. We’ve seen enough in the leaks to know that a traditional console business is not sustainable in the long run and I think given Xbox and its position there isn’t much growth left for PlayStation now.
Xbox has something better: the rewards system. They’ve even recently changed the layout on the Xbox dashboard so that the reward points total sits alongside the achievement total. It works as well, i.e. when I’m playing a Gamepass title, I’ll redeem the 50 points reward when an achievement pops just to see the number go up.
In fact those rewards (which translate into real money to spend in the store) drive my engagement way more than achievements & trophies do, i.e. whenever I recently tried playing a PlayStation game on my old PS4 (over the last couple of years), I’ve felt like the trophies are so redundant & pointless now by comparison, whereas back in the mid-2010’s I was pretty addicted to them.
I think the MS rewards have sort of replaced trophies/achievements as my ‘go to’ source of engagement (aka addiction). Even though I still enjoy hunting down difficulty related achievements & the rare ones (which pop with a diamond).
I just hope whoever they get next is actually a ‘gamer’. It’s always seemed that he was more of a exec and disconnected from the actual consumer (compared to Phil)…
Maybe I’m wrong and he’s retired so he can play Starfield 
.
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I mean yes and no. There won’t be many 50 year old ish guys who are at the exec level who play video games avidly…probably will be soon I guess as demographics shift and whatever but right now I imagine it’s a bit of a rarity still.
But if I was being uncharitable I’d say that Phil is absolutely a gamer who gets it but that doesn’t mean he gets what is needed to run a massive gaming business……I mean Phil does…but someone else might be a gamer and not really know how to translate that into effective product and content….
Business wise Ryan has probably had an easier job but he’s also run a fairly tight ship with little in the way of shooting themselves in the foot. The same probably can’t be said of Xbox under Phil ‘s reign and whilst he’s an absolute legend who saved Xbox there are things that aren’t perfect.
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I don’t really have a response. Overall i think both companies are a let down. He made some bad choices. I’m not even sure i know what a walking simulator is. Openly the CEO on our side has apologised and also increased prices. I don’t think anyone is really winning (other than nintendo) and i guess secondly PlayStation. I believe that was said, Not that i care about popularity.
I just can’t seem to get my head caring about a CEO. I miss the days where they weren’t even known.
Now I’m supposed to care about Gates, Musk, Bezos, Spencer, Ryan.
It would be like if people back in the day were talking about henry ford when they drove their car.
No they didn’t, they didn’t care that he was a fan of the Nazis. They just drove the model T and never said a thing.
Hahaha.
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I whole heartedly agree.
Who cares, I’m not in the business of knowing who runs what.
He seemed to have decent successes while there good for him. I don’t care about these rich guys pretending to be apart of the common man’s realm.
It’s not about the man, it’s about his decisions (& the business agenda he implemented).
If the new Sony PlayStation CEO reduces console prices (back to their release date prices in Europe, aka 399 euros for the digital PS5), orders a PS5 Slim redesign (black, preferably) & stops with the console warring bullsh*t which encapsulated Ryan’s reign (mostly his comical obstructionism during the Activision deal), then as a consumer, it’ll be positive change for me & would at least think about jumping back into the PS ecosystem.
He refused to sign the deal to get all Activision games to finally be left with just COD. I think that was his biggest mistake that led him to this.
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Ken Kutaragi & Kaz Hirai did actually have a cult status back in the day, so this isn’t new (the 2006 Sony E3 conference is legendary because of Hirai’s on stage antics, i.e. RIIIDGE RAAACERRR!)
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You don’t have to tell me, I have game pass ‘for free’ thanks to the rewards.
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The importance of various leaders and especially the CEO of an organization, while possibly not interesting to some externally is still pretty significant. They clearly aren’t the one who comes up with all the initiatives and ideas, but they do have significant impact on the tone that is conveyed to employees and partners, they are responsible for approving or denying initiatives, and in organizations like Playstation and Xbox where they report to parent companies, they are responsible for justifying making specific decisions regarding what level of risk they take, etc. It may not be as interesting to some, and I can totally respect that, but it is still very important to organizations and to the way they conduct operations.
I’ve worked under 3 CEOs at my current employer and there have been very noticeable changes about where the organization spent it’s efforts and what we cared about even though externally people likely thought nothing had changed. It doesn’t have to be about the celebrity of an individual (though that often is overrated) to still be of note and worth watching.
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LOL that reply by Wacky is true, but still funny.
It sure has been a couple weeks of juicy news!
I bought Resident Evil 4 ‘full price’ for only 15 euros… thanks to the rewards covering the rest. It’s a really underrated feature on Xbox. I’m now saving up for Lords of the Fallen.
So far I don’t see what’s worse about the PS5 than the PS4, PS5 had a much better launch and first 2 year lineup than 4 by a mile lol
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He’s going to receive a face turn from diehards, isn’t he…
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It’s ugly & it costs more compared to the PS4.
Also, 2015 had Bloodborne. The equivalent on the PS5 hasn’t happened yet.
What we’re not about to do is rewrite history.
First 2 years of the ps4 lifecycle was DRY. PS5’s blows it out of the water.
Don’t think these things matter that much once you get the console and set it.