Kotaku: PlayStation Boss Wants Change He's Not Willing To Make

[Figments]

PlayStation Boss Wants Change He's Not Willing To Make

The head of PlayStation wants to expand its reach with expensive games on hard-to-get hardware

kotaku.com

Yesterday, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan said he wants his company's games to one day be as prolific as music or movies. He would love to see a world where potentially "hundreds of millions of people" could enjoy them. It's the type of future a lot of gaming executives talk about, but one that Sony seems to have no interest in actually achieving.

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It's an admirable sentiment, especially, as Ryan points out, because of the implications it would have for developers and players, their hobby opening up to a much wider audience. "That's potentially really amazing and really powerful," Ryan said. But it also seems bizarrely at odds with Sony's current strategy around the PS5.

The company hasn't made video game streaming a center piece, nor has it bet big on PS Now the way Microsoft has with Game Pass. It doesn't release many small games, or mobile games. And the company only just started bringing some of its biggest blockbusters to PC—years after they originally came out. It's no fault of Sony's that a pandemic has led to manufacturing shortages and upended global supply chains, but even if you could find a PS5 in stores, it represents the high-end of console gaming when compared to the Xbox Series S, Nintendo Switch, and Switch Lite.

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"Right now, we are narrowing ourselves down into genres and sequels and certain types of games," Shawn Layden, former CEO of SIE Worldwide Studios, told GamesIndustry.biz in July. "Favourites like my own, like Parappa and Vib-Ribbon, those things don't seem to get a chance to come out on stage. That's bad for the industry and for fans. Over time, that leads to a crumbling of the games industry if we just keep talking to the same people and telling the same stories in the same way."

Layden, who abruptly stepped down from Sony in 2019 a few months after Ryan took over, has recently been a critic of burgeoning development budgets, calling for companies to embrace shorter, cheaper games instead. This sentiment has also become a rallying cry for others in the industry. "I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and i'm not kidding," FanByte Media's Jordan Mallory tweeted in June 2020. In August of this year, indie developers answered the call with the "Shorter Games, Worse Graphics" bundle.

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it's interesting to see that jim ryan is trying to talk about achieving something that his own company hasn't even begun to embrace. with PS Now seemingly on the back burner, the scant few PC releases being for games years away from their original launch, and both options of the PS5 being prohibitively expensive when compared to direct and indirect competitors. i kinda think sony should be doing more to go after that "let's have as many people as possible play our games" mentality that jim ryan expresses they want.

regardless, if this has been posted already, nuke from orbit

 

[Multiverse Moo]

I do feel like they were first with the streaming in a big way, but then nothing too big came from it for a while.

It is also likely that they WILL be overhauling things to push streaming and other avenues but since PlayStation is part of Sony and thus a large monolithic entity this stuff takes a LONG time to get moving.

Still, the article makes a good point about the talk vs walk so far and stuff like the game trials coming back with weird timer stuff just comes off as them being out of sync with how certain things should/could work.

 

[Rodelero]

And the author knows this… how?

 

[platocplx]

And the author knows this… how?

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Yeah this is a large large leap here lol. From a single sentence.

 

[Plinkerton]

Wasn't he signalling the changes to strategy that are coming?

Its a weird take to assume they're not willing to make those changes.

 

[vivftp]

And the author knows this… how?

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They don't. Just some boob making assumptions for clicks.

 

[DailyCalmSpirit]

Author (Ethan of course) just wants Sony to do GamePass.

Why should every company have the same business model?

 

[Deleted member 81269]

Absolutely shamless OP.

 

[Meg Cherry]

As always, any statement like 'we want our games to be as mainstream as music or movies' is more about selling investors on potiential audience reach at that current $500 console + $70 game price point, rather than embracing a more accessible model.

 

[Kuro]

They just bought Nixxies for more PC ports and rumors have been circulating about PSNow expansion lol. Kotaku's bad reporting strikes again.

 

[Nightengale]

This is what Jim meant.

 

[Bear]

As always, any statement like 'we want our games to be as mainstream as music or movies' is more about selling investors on potiential audience reach at that current $500 console + $70 game price point, rather than embracing a more accessible model.

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Yeah, this is based on statements to investors. Of course a company is going to say they want to reach everyone.

 

[Hyun Sai]

"Spencer's little helper" ?

 

[Bunzy]

Oh it's a kotaku article, my eyes can't roll any harder. Kotaku has become a terrible site, nothing but hot takes for clicks. Garbage tier

 

[Meg Cherry]

And the author knows this… how?

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I mean, do you really see anything in Sony's current business model that suggests they're moving away from $70 AAA console games, built for high-end boutique hardware? Even their PC initiative is clearly more about selling games to a new audience after the console audience has bought as many copies as possible, so the sequel can have the largest awareness possible.

 

[JCmasta]

I'm pretty sure Sony has a lot of different things in the works regarding cloud streaming, PS gamepass, etc, it's just that they're keeping things close to the vest in regard to their future plans.

Like, of course when Ryan says "We want to reach hundreds of millions of gamers" and his hopes for gaming to be as ubiquitous as movies and music, he means putting playstation games on mobile, PC, and using cloud gaming solutions as a way to achieve that end.

I really don't like the super angsty vibes coming from Kotaku lately, it seems forced and counterproductive.

 

[DoofTroop]

I don't understand, how does the author know this? These companies plan shit out years in advance, and don't do things within weeks or months. Playstation is clearly making moves in this direction, but its probably going to take an entire console generation (or more) to actually happen.

 

[Servbot24]

If PS had already achieved their vision for the far future, then they wouldn't be saying they hope for it in the future.

Desperately falling over eachother to criticize anything Jim Ryan says is so 2020.

 

[Sydle]

Ryan's words seemed like they were more about long-term ambitions. I fully expect them to revitalize their streaming initiative before the generation is over.

 

[Deleted member 81269]

"Spencer's little helper" ?

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No shame, no honour. Also wrote the Xbox OT but you know.

 

[mojo]

this guy makes people act weird lol

 

[Ombala]

Spencer's little helper, omg priceless

 

[Majora's Mask]

I mean, he is not saying anything that isn't true. Why are people getting so defensive about it?

 

[Pai Pai Master]

I knew this article would get a thread here the moment I saw the tweet lol

 

[Figments]

This is what Jim meant.

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more of a mobile push would be excellent, but i think more than that there needs to be more visible investment into streaming and PC ports. the purchase of nixes was a good start, but things need to come of it. hopefully they will in relatively short order. while i don't think taking the entire console generation to live up to those words is a good idea—and, in fact, sony shouldn't be doing that as they've already got PS Now—they should 100% try to get it right, however long that takes.

 

[ByWatterson]

LOL, more Kotaku nonsense.

Clearly he's hinting a streaming future (or perhaps one with different console consumption models). But he also loves the integrity of the art form. All of this was evident from his very frank interview. But wanting a future where the art is unconstrained by the realities of hardware is different from saying that future is ready. For a whole host of reasons, it's not.

But Playstation is as well-positioned as anyone to make it happen, and be there to adapt to it. They were first console manufacturer to do a major push! Right now, though, it hurts the art to stream games - the quality, the latency, etc. I love PS Now, but only to try out games. More often than not, I stream, then buy one if I like it. I see it as a demo service.

We'll get there, probably, but we're not there yet, and that's literally all Jim Ryan is saying.

 

[Figments]

"Spencer's little helper" ?

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Spencer's little helper, omg priceless

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huh?

you can check my post history if you want, lmao. i only got that tag because i've been working on the xbox OTs since the beginning. i rarely post otherwise.

 

[Zep]

Seems like people are literally waiting for him to say Playstation are copying gamepass 1:1 in each of these conversations. IMO it's not happening.

 

[Antrax]

I do feel like they were first with the streaming in a big way, but then nothing too big came from it for a while.

It is also likely that they WILL be overhauling things to push streaming and other avenues but since PlayStation is part of Sony and thus a large monolithic entity this stuff takes a LONG time to get moving.

Still, the article makes a good point about the talk vs walk so far and stuff like the game trials coming back with weird timer stuff just comes off as them being out of sync with how certain things should/could work.

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PS Now was built originally as a demo/rental/BC solution so it makes sense that it's not exactly scratching that itch for the current market of people open to alternative business models.

Honestly, Game Pass and PC revenue is just too good of a deal to ignore though. So I assume Sony will continue to open up, especially as older execs who are wedded to "sell $500 box to sell $70 game, no exceptions" retire.

 

[Rover_]

Jim Ryan means mobile.

i'm more than willing to give Jim Ryan a fair run because he is there from day one and launched the most succesful console of Sony's history but i'm not holding my breath for a company that charges for upgrades and charges 70$ for games.
no, Sony will not put their games on smartvs and cloud or a gamepass-like service.

 

[Deleted member 16876]

Didn't he say they were working on something in response to game pass?

That being said, they already have PS Now which does allow everyone to play Sony's games. Unless Kotaku thinks PS5 is never coming.

What they need to work on is making these games playable without needing a DS4 or DS.

The big difference compared to MS is that they are making games like movies. Premium sale then they get put on PS Now after a few years like movies go on dvds/vhs after a while.

 

[Venom.]

This is an opinion piece where the author, Ethan Each, hasn't got many well thought out opinions.

He wants to be contrary and get the hits, that's fine but he needs to do more than just waffle using Shawn Layden's comments about different product types as the crux of an argument that Sony has got it all wrong. He makes one good point that GamesIndustry.biz's Christopher Dring didn't ask many industry related questions such as Sony's thoughts on game preservation but perhaps that was part of pre-agreed terms of the interview. So why didn't Gach get an interview with Jim Ryan? If there are other Kotaku staff who behave unprofessionally, get into spats on twitter or on forums or write blog-rants it's not only going to reflect on that one specific author but the entire team. I watched an interview with Kotaku's new editor in chief Patricia Hernandez and she expressed her goal for the website to cover more serious issues but that goal will be undermined if a big part of Kotaku's content is edge-lord sweary headlines and articles that's only goal is to prove the authors' are superior to a mainstream audience.

 

[Shairi]

I mean, do you really see anything in Sony's current business model that suggests they're moving away from $70 AAA console games, built for high-end boutique hardware? Even their PC initiative is clearly more about selling games to a new audience after the console audience has bought as many copies as possible, so the sequel can have the largest awareness possible.

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• Jim Ryan said not long ago we're going to see their mobile efforts sooner than we think
• They are planning changes to PS Now
• Sony Corp said they are going to invest big money in gaming and mobile
• Sony hired the former head of content at Apple Arcarde to be VP, Head of Mobile for PlayStation studios recently

They are not going to move away from their 70$ AAA console games, but they will build their mobile initiative on top of that.

Sometimes it's just a matter of patience to see what these CEO's are talking about. They know the pipeline. We don't.

 

[Ovvv]

Jim Ryan means mobile.

i'm more than willing to give Jim Ryan a fair run because he is there from day one and launched the most succesful console of Sony's history but i'm not holding my breath for a company that charges for upgrades and charges 70$ for games.
no, Sony won't put their games on smartvs and cloud or a gamepass-like service.

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Bingo. He's talking about mobile.

 

[gofreak]

I think that's a pretty short term analysis of what was long term commentary from Ryan.

He was talking about a number of trends converging, some of which are obviously long term and Sony has no real short term control over (e.g. demographics, the evolution of tech).

But they're not, in the shorter term, going to leave money on the table or give up incumbent advantages with changes that would be nibbling around the edges of issues like access because of factors that simply need time to change. To put it another way, if streaming was suddenly a viable gaming proposition globally tomorrow, and Sony tomorrow put all its games day and date on streaming behind a fixed rate sub, it's very questionable they'd actually reach the type of ubiquity Ryan is talking about. He was talking about more than changes like that, or changes Kotaku might reckon would be putting his money where his mouth is. I''m sure he'll be completely willing to make those changes when they have the chance to make the impact they'd want out of them, and some of those might come soon enough.

 

[ty_hot]

Yeah let's complain that Sony is not putting their PS5s in data centers so people can pay 5 dollars a month to play games and is instead selling those 400-500 machines to customers who will later buy 70 dollar games instead.

 

[Diarrhea Day-Lewis]

Sony doesn't release many small games? Ugh that seems like a bad take.
Overall for how much google, Xbox, Sony, Amazon talk about streaming and reaching more players, you'd think they'd have been more aggressive.

 

[Ser Ignatius]

It will be very nice if PS is able to improve their cloud service in the future. I haven't been able to get a next gen console yet so being able to play Series X versions of games on xcloud has been awesome. I wish PS had a similar offering. Hearing that they plan on expanding and evolving is very nice but they'll only get the praise once they've done it same as anyone else.

 

[Aeroucn]

I mean it was clearly obvious that Jim Ryan was talking about long term plans, idk how the author can get to that conclusion when they just launched a home console less than a year ago

 

[Rover_]

Sony doesn't release many small games? Ugh that seems like a bad take.
Overall for how much google, Xbox, Sony, Amazon talk about streaming and reaching more players, you'd think they'd have been more aggressive.

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isanely pretty avatar. congratz.

 

[Rosebud]

Sony doesn't release many small games? Ugh that seems like a bad take.

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People forget their small games because they don't care about small games.

 

[Onlywantsapples]

I feel like at this point, Sony is just waiting to see where the market hits before it commits to cloud in the same way Microsoft has.

Love gamepass, and my Series X and everything, but if there's one part of Microsoft's strategy I remain very very skeptical of, it's this notion that millions of people who have never touched a controller in their life, and the only game they've played is candy crush are going to suddenly download an Xbox app, and stream hellblade to their phones or smart TVs.

could it happen? sure, but I'm not particularly convinced, and that's something Microsoft has to actually prove long term, and I think until such a thing is proven true, I don't see why Sony should try chasing after something that might not pan out.

for Sony, expansion into PC absolutely makes sense and I think will slowly happen. Cloud is a wait and see. They have the content, to make a really compelling cloud gaming service if they wanted to, I just don't think they feel there's a particular need for it atm.

 

[Meg Cherry]

• Jim Ryan said not long ago we're going to see their mobile efforts sooner than we think
• They are planning changes to PS Now
• Sony Corp said they are going to invest big money in gaming and mobile
• Sony hired the former head of content at Apple Arcarde to be VP, Head of Mobile for PlayStation studios recently

They are not going to move away from their 70$ AAA console games, but they will build their mobile initiative on top of that.

Sometimes it's just a matter of patience to see what these CEO's are talking about. They know the pipeline. We don't.

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All I can honestly see coming out of that mobile initiative is something on par with Nintendo's mobile efforts - ie, here's a gacha version of some of our mainline franchises that hopefully funnels you into the real thing. See the Wipeout mobile game, or Alloy's appearance in Genshin Impact.

Efforts like that aren't making their proper development efforts more accessible - it's just a form of brand marketing that generates side profit.

As for PS Now - as far as I'm concerned, they would obviously say big changes are in the works - but until they at least add games for their current generation console to the service, I'm not going to flatter the notion that it's a legitimate business tentpole.

 

[Doc Kelso]

I don't understand how this is a controversial take unless you're a Playstation console soldier.

Sony has shown that they're leaning deeper into the exclusive, $70, AAA realm and we've seen no hard evidence that they have plans on doing otherwise. Even Returnal was fucking expensive despite being an "indie" title.

Hell, they're practically Nintendo-esque outside of the few (poor) PC ports that they've released over the last year or so. They want you in their ecosystem and that means buying a Playstation console. Maybe they'll expand PSNow, but the current situation is that people either overlook it or don't like what it's offering.

 

[Quasi]

It's a silly article obviously meant to get clicks, but he does have a point about PS Now. Despite Sony being pretty much the first party with a streaming service theirs is currently by far the worst one. They should really improve the quality of both the streaming itself and the library. It has a lot of potential and it's a real shame it's not getting the improvements it needs.

 

[thomasmahler]

I'd also love to see a future where hundreds of millions of players have access to everything... but that's not how the console business works at the moment.

Imagine the movie industry would do what's happening in the console space. Disney releases some new Avengers film, but you're only able to watch it on this particular 500$ Disney BluRay Player or on these particular Disney TVs and nothing else.

If we want that kinda future, access and comfort is everything. Games are art and art should be accessible to everyone. If you want to be in the hardware business, make better hardware than everyone else. I'm a bit skeptical of exclusivity at this point.

Not being able to play Bloodborne at 60fps on my PC is a damn crime.

 

[Shairi]

All I can honestly see coming out of that mobile initiative is something on par with Nintendo's mobile efforts - ie, here's a gacha version of some of our mainline franchises that hopefully funnels you into the real thing. See the Wipeout mobile game, or Alloy's appearance in Genshin Impact.

Efforts like that aren't making their proper development efforts more accessible - it's just a form of brand marketing that generates side profit.

As for PS Now - as far as I'm concerned, they would obviously say big changes are in the works - but until they at least add games for their current generation console to the service, I'm not going to flatter the notion that it's a legitimate business tentpole.

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In general, I don't see xcloud or PSNow being successful in attracting 100 million new players who want to play AAA console games on their mobile devices.

Both Microsoft and Sony will try it, but imo both will fail.

The native mobile games based on existing IPs are the ones that have a chance to become successful.

 

[Liquid]

I'd also love to see a future where hundreds of millions of players have access to everything... but that's not how the console business works at the moment.

Imagine the movie industry would do what's happening in the console space. Disney releases some new Avengers film, but you're only able to watch it on this particular 500$ Disney BluRay Player or on these particular Disney TVs and nothing else.

If we want that kinda future, access and comfort is everything. Games are art and art should be accessible to everyone. If you want to be in the hardware business, make better hardware than everyone else. I'm a bit skeptical of exclusivity at this point.

Not being able to play Bloodborne at 60fps on my PC is a damn crime.

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It's a crime for me that I can't play Ori 1 and 2 on my Playstation with DualSense features too.

 

[Diarrhea Day-Lewis]

People forget their small games because they don't care about small games.

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Yeah I'm not against the idea that they could do more, but I feel like we're going to have an onslaught of smaller Sony games next year when PSVR2 ships

 

[Liliana]

Absolutely shamless OP.

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No shame, no honour. Also wrote the Xbox OT but you know.

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Console warring and accusations of shilling because of his title? Jesus Christ, some people...