It seems like there is a bit of culture shock within the company for sure. I think it was clear to most people what was going on when Sony was censoring Japanese titles after moving to progressive California. Now it seems there is a clear power struggle within the company. I think this is the same cancer that is going on within Hollywood right now which ultimately lead to Video Games over taking movies (as they never embraced the cancer). Think could spell long term pain for Sony. I'm sure by now everyone has heard "Get Woke Go Broke." While it may be overused and it's application wrongly applied at times, it has definitely had an effect in entertainment. You can see this with Starwars and Battlefield. The video game market doesn't like the Californication of entertainment. 

Console generations are resets. Success last time doesn't spell success the next time (often it's the opposite). Sony can't rely on its massive user base with PS4 to carry them with PS5. If Sony embraces some of these ideas that have hurt other games and movies, I can't see PS5 being a success. The silver lining is Sony is a Japanese company and they may not take kindly to the California branch if they under perform in their strongest segment. 

It seems like there is a bit of culture shock within the company for sure. I think it was clear to most people what was going on when Sony was censoring Japanese titles after moving to progressive California. Now it seems there is a clear power struggle within the company. I think this is the same cancer that is going on within Hollywood right now which ultimately lead to Video Games over taking movies (as they never embraced the cancer). Think could spell long term pain for Sony. I'm sure by now everyone has heard "Get Woke Go Broke." While it may be overused and it's application wrongly applied at times, it has definitely had an effect in entertainment. You can see this with Starwars and Battlefield. The video game market doesn't like the Californication of entertainment. 

Console generations are resets. Success last time doesn't spell success the next time (often it's the opposite). Sony can't rely on its massive user base with PS4 to carry them with PS5. If Sony embraces some of these ideas that have hurt other games and movies, I can't see PS5 being a success. The silver lining is Sony is a Japanese company and they may not take kindly to the California branch if they under perform in their strongest segment. 

I believe the insinuation is that Jim Ryan was in charge of the censoring initiative, and that Shawn Layden was fighting against it the past 2 years, among other thing. Sadly it appears that Shawn Layden lost that battle. I also hear that Shawn Layden was the one who fought for crossplay with other consoles, while Jim Ryan was against the idea, and that Jim Ryan is very pro-cloud for Sony moving forward, while Shawn likes traditional hardware more. 

Would seem strange since from what have been said Shawn was above Jim. But if it is as you say then you can consider me pissed with how things may go in the future.

I would be curious to see any usage of the phrase "Get Woke Go Broke" that I'd agree with. Seems like something youtube reactionaries say for anything that has women or minorities in it when they deem it shouldn't. 

I believe the insinuation is that Jim Ryan was in charge of the censoring initiative, and that Shawn Layden was fighting against it the past 2 years, among other thing. Sadly it appears that Shawn Layden lost that battle. I also hear that Shawn Layden was the one who fought for crossplay with other consoles, while Jim Ryan was against the idea, and that Jim Ryan is very pro-cloud for Sony moving forward, while Shawn likes traditional hardware more. 

So with the recent cross play news, Shawn sacrificed himself 4 the players ability to "play together", perhaps?

You can disagree with it but I'm using it as it's a term everyone is familiar with. It's clear the the market rejects these types of games (again, see Battlefield). The inclusion of women and minorities often feels hamfisted and not genuine. Like it's done to make a political statement rather than being relevant to the game. In Battlefield's case, it was putting these things into a World War 2 games where fans felt they didn't belong. You may not like the term but its said because it describes a real world effect even if sometime it's over applied. 

So with the recent cross play news, Shawn sacrificed himself 4 the players ability to "play together", perhaps?

You can disagree with it but I'm using it as it's a term everyone is familiar with. It's clear the the market rejects these types of games (again, see Battlefield). The inclusion of women and minorities often feels hamfisted and not genuine. Like it's done to make a political statement rather than being relevant to the game. In Battlefield's case, it was putting these things into a World War 2 games where fans felt they didn't belong. You may not like the term but its said because it describes a real world effect even if sometime it's over applied. 

I don't know exactly who was trying to do what to be honest. Maybe Shawn Layden was the hero who wanted to make sure we have big boobies in our goofy Japanese titles. I will add that (as someone else pointed out) is how little fanfare this had. It was just a tweet and he's out. Compare that to Reggie who had a who video about his time working at Nintendo and he announced it well in advance. It seems to speak to the power struggle going on in the company. 

More like shikamaru317 has it backwards.  If there was a power struggle, the guy who gets ousted doesn't have his policies all of a sudden put in place.

Sometimes it is over applied.  I mean sometimes it does happen where the offender goes broke.  Like a comic store that refused to let a right-leaning customer shop there anymore, they eventually closed down because all the right-leaning customers, and those of other political beliefs who thought it was wrong, stopped going there.  And really a lot of comics are getting cancelled as the industry seems to be trying to get woke.  Of course, in most cases it's more "get woke, then underperform," especially for larger brands that decide to go down that path.  Gilette has seen sales drop thanks to their woke ads.  Battlefield V saw much lower sales than the previous game, and many of the sales they did get came thanks to a steep price cut shortly after its release.  Mass Effect Andromeda hired much of its staff based on diversity instead of skill/experience, and the game performed poorly both gameplay-wise, with many glitches and wonky animations, and sales-wise.  TLJ greatly underperformed to analysts expectations, $1.33B vs $1.8B+ and a big drop in merch sales.

 Mass Effect Andromeda hired much of its staff based on diversity instead of skill/experience, and the game performed poorly both gameplay-wise, with many glitches and wonky animations, and sales-wise.

More like shikamaru317 has it backwards.  If there was a power struggle, the guy who gets ousted doesn't have his policies all of a sudden put in place.

Wouldn't make much sense =] for me it seems more like Shawn was hoarding power and putting his policies in place, to the point Japan got pissed and tossed him out, now we are seeing changes, perhaps b PS5 censoring will be gone as well.

Yes seems like he got it backward.

This is false. The issues of ME:A are significantly more complex than a single problem that coincidentally seems to fit a certain narrative. The game had an incredibly turbulent, backbreaking development cycle with multiple reboots etc. and we usually know the fate of such games, such as Duke Nukem Forever (which, according to your perspective, should have been an incredibly successful product), Final Fantasy XV etc.

https://kotaku.com/the-story-behind-mass-effect-andromedas-troubled-five-1795886428

OT - this has long term effects on Sony's mid and long term market strategies, from what I've seen. Jim Ryan is far more focused on the concept of closed platform and streaming being the future... in fact somewhat aligning himself with what Epic, Microsoft, Google, Disney etc. are doing nowadays.

I challenge you to back that up with facts.

1. That BioWare hired their staff on diversity rather than skill/experience.

2. That it directly led to the problems of gameplay, performance and sales.

It could have gone down that way possibly.

I was basing it off of what was said about Shawn fighting for cross play. If there was a power struggle in general, and cross play wasn't going to happen if he couldn't get his way, if he is the type of person who has to have full control or nothing, or is contemplating retiring or moving on anyway, maybe both, he could have made a deal to have cross play become the norm across the platform, in exchange for his leaving and getting out of the way peacefully. Assuming cross play wouldn't be seen as a major loss to the business, and only a minor one, if at all of course. It could always be revoked when PS5 launches, and only remains on PS4 if the new leadership doesn't really want it, however they try to spin how and why they couldn't or wouldn't do it for next gen.

This would allow him to go out on a high note on his part, even though it's not something PS would really want to explain to the public. It's the kind of thing we would find out in an interview 10 years down the road, like how they opened up about PS3 and it's troubles after all these years. It would partially explain these news events coming out so close together, and the lack of explanation as to Shawn's departure.

Who knows?