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Forums - Sony Discussion - JIm Ryan Retiring in March 2024

RolStoppable said:
chakkra said:

So.. we're just gonna keep pretending that this has been a great year for Sony...  Okay..

Oh, btw, I think Phil Spencer had something to do with Xbox´s gamers being able to play MLB The Show on release date on Game Pass, and I think Jim Ryan had something to do with playstation players NOT being able to play MLB The Show on their subscription service.

If you want me to factor in Sony's down year, it's only going to look even worse for Microsoft because they aren't able to capitalize on it. Much of this has to do with the tone that has been set during the first two years of the PS5 and Xbox Series, so finally having something to show with Starfield is too late. It also doesn't help that it's a Bethesda game which is best played on a PC. The Sony list you posted is very short for 2023, but in terms of hardware selling power it still trumps Microsoft's 2023.

As for your second statement, it's a stretch. I don't think that the PS gamers who don't like Ryan view MLB on the subscription service as something of importance. But Xbox gamers certainly do care a lot about Gamepass, so I concede that this example makes Spencer more likeable; the question is if such a little thing can offset the shortcomings of his leadership.

Oh, so it is not about games, it is about sales. This mentality of "hey! we may not have much to play, but at least our console is selling great! HAHA, losers" is a bit bizarre to me, as if something called Brand Power doesn't exist. I mean, if Playstation players are willing to go a year with only two 1st party games (one of which Xbox players are able to play for free) as long as they can keep gloating on those shiny sales charts, then good for them. I'll take the games any day, thank you very much.

As per Jim Ryan (which is supposedly the object of this thread) notice how neither you, nor anyone here, has said anything that actually benefits YOU as a consumer.

Let's recap some of Jim Ryan's accomplishments:

1 - Pioneered the new era of $70 games
2 - Responsible for the slow down of 1st party single-player games output.
3 - Announced (and greenlit) 10 GAAS games to be released in a span of less than three years (which remains to be seen if they will be able to even meet that deadline).
4 - Ushered a new era of consoles having price increases instead of price cuts.
5 - Kept the microtransactions for GT7 hidden until after reviews (has EA and Activision ever done that? I'm not even sure).

You know what? I'm actually a little bit sad to see Jim Ryan go. I really wanted to see how far he could push their customers brand loyalty, and I TRULY hope that whoever replaces him shares his same philosphy and continues his vision.



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Bad Jim Ryan, causing massive inflation and slow down of development during a worldwide pandemic.
But that GAAS nonsense is indeed his doing, and no they won't be ready soon either.

The MTX in GT7 is indeed crap and GT7 got royally panned for it at release. It wasn't so much the MTX that caused most of the outrage, it was nerfing the few races with decent payouts right after release. GT games have always been grindy, yet GT7 made it a pita to collect the legendary cars. It's not its worst offense though, the lack of a proper penalty system online killed the game for me.

The ranking system and penalties worked better in GT Sport and they still can't even get the track boundaries right:

GMP -2023 GT7 eSport Champion 🏆Today at 5:01 AM

How the hell is this not a track limits penalty. Miles off, no contact, position gained.

That's what kills the game for me, not MTX which you can completely ignore. Yet the conversation is always on the always online and MTX crap, never on the state the online racing is in :/ But that's Kaz from PD, not Jim. Jim probably has never played GT in his life...


chakkra said:

Let's recap some of Jim Ryan's accomplishments:

1 - Pioneered the new era of $70 games
2 - Responsible for the slow down of 1st party single-player games output.
3 - Announced (and greenlit) 10 GAAS games to be released in a span of less than three years (which remains to be seen if they will be able to even meet that deadline).
4 - Ushered a new era of consoles having price increases instead of price cuts.
5 - Kept the microtransactions for GT7 hidden until after reviews (has EA and Activision ever done that? I'm not even sure).

You know what? I'm actually a little bit sad to see Jim Ryan go. I really wanted to see how far he could push their customers brand loyalty, and I TRULY hope that whoever replaces him shares his same philosphy and continues his vision.

1. Sucks. But considering how others have followed it seems like they were all just waiting for someone to do. At least it was done at the beginning of a new gen rather than midway though.

2. Is he though? Big budget AAA games are only going to take longer to release. That's the reality of game development. Besides, Herman is the one in charge of 1st party development.

3. Not sure what the issue is with this besides the obvious disdain for gaas games in a time when live service games are among the most popular, if not the most popular, games being played today.

4. Sucks too. But he's a numbers guys. Part of the reason why PS has been so dominant in EU since PS1 is because of him.

5. Sucks. A lot of publishers have done this before. Not sure why this is a Ryan issue though. 



RolStoppable said:
chakkra said:

So.. we're just gonna keep pretending that this has been a great year for Sony...  Okay..

Oh, btw, I think Phil Spencer had something to do with Xbox´s gamers being able to play MLB The Show on release date on Game Pass, and I think Jim Ryan had something to do with playstation players NOT being able to play MLB The Show on their subscription service.

If you want me to factor in Sony's down year, it's only going to look even worse for Microsoft because they aren't able to capitalize on it. Much of this has to do with the tone that has been set during the first two years of the PS5 and Xbox Series, so finally having something to show with Starfield is too late. It also doesn't help that it's a Bethesda game which is best played on a PC. The Sony list you posted is very short for 2023, but in terms of hardware selling power it still trumps Microsoft's 2023.

As for your second statement, it's a stretch. I don't think that the PS gamers who don't like Ryan view MLB on the subscription service as something of importance. But Xbox gamers certainly do care a lot about Gamepass, so I concede that this example makes Spencer more likeable; the question is if such a little thing can offset the shortcomings of his leadership.

zero129 said:

His post is clearly a pretty bad take Xbone tracked ahead of X360 at the same time. Look how that turned out..

XSeries is tracking about or ahead of where x360 was without even most of their biggest games launching, coming out from covid, and we still have not even seen the sales effect of Starfield and forza at the end of the year. Going into next year we are looking at Hellblade 2, Avowed and another number of big Console exclusives.

Honestly i think his point is pointless since it can and is going to be seen that all the fruits of Phils labour when it comes to xbox is now only starting to hit and they are going to be hitting hard from here on out imo.

Rol should be more worried about how so many Japenese gamers are embracing PC now imo. even more so with PC's getting smaller and smaller.....

When Xbox One tracked ahead of the 360, I told people that it will not only be impossible for the Xbox One to stay ahead, but also not possible to come reasonably close in lifetime sales. A snapshot in time can be very misleading, hence why it's important to understand how sales momentum works.

That's why Xbox Series tracking ahead of the 360 means just as little as it meant for the Xbox One to track ahead of the 360. The 360 had a poor first year and was only able to pick up momentum because the PS3 was an even bigger blunder and caused third parties to make their games multiplatform from which the 360 greatly benefited. The Xbox Series has no such unexpected advantage on this scale, because it was already clear at the time of its reveal that it would get lots of major third party games. A few Xbox first party games can never have the level of effect that dozens of AAA third party games had for the Xbox 360.

2023 is not the year where Xbox Series sales should be down notably year over year when you are aiming for a successful generation. Even if both Starfield and Forza turn out to be big for Xbox, they'll likely only manage to make the full year of 2023 flat in comparison to the whole of 2022. That is still not a promising result for sales going forward.

As for Japan and PCs, one has to do nothing more than look at Japanese software sales charts. Of Japan's current top 20 most popular gaming IPs, almost all of them are exclusive to Nintendo. But because of this final statement of yours, I am willing to amend my previous statement that "the Xbox fans in question seemingly have no clue about anything." You can scratch the word "seemingly" from it.

Its good to know your riding high off a successful Switch gen Rol, Enjoy my pal.

I enjoy Nintendo too much as my fav company to really want to fire back at you so we just leave it at this. To me your take on xbox is weak and mains nothing as you are leaving out so many differences under your comparison its not even funny.



the-pi-guy said:

Hiku said:

I can't be sure. But considering how games like TLOU2 reportedly cost $220 Million dollars to make, sums like that have the ability to impact the direction of the entire company if invested poorly. (See Square Enix, etc)
So in that sense I can imagine it having to cross his desk.

At least that's the sentiment I keep seeing.
But again, I don't know for sure.

I am probably wrong. 

I have to imagine to some extent, that the big publishers have an entire team to greenlight, and seek out projects. 

Moreso it probably isn't in the hands of any one person. Maybe Jim Ryan and Hermen Hulst are two of 10 people that give feedback on projects.  

Yeah, I'm sure he'd be one of several people that have final say on big budget projects.

zero129 said:
RolStoppable said:

-Snip-

Its good to know your riding high off a successful Switch gen Rol, Enjoy my pal.

I enjoy Nintendo too much as my fav company to really want to fire back at you so we just leave it at this. To me your take on xbox is weak and mains nothing as you are leaving out so many differences under your comparison its not even funny.

@zero129 

Well it's not really "leaving it at this" when you also add the portion about their opinion being weak.
But without explaining why, you leave them nothing to work with other than unnecesarily asking you to clarify.

It's for this reason the forum rules/guidelines state that people should explain how/why. Not just say that something is bad.

Last edited by Hiku - on 01 October 2023

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Hiku said:
the-pi-guy said:

I am probably wrong. 

I have to imagine to some extent, that the big publishers have an entire team to greenlight, and seek out projects. 

Moreso it probably isn't in the hands of any one person. Maybe Jim Ryan and Hermen Hulst are two of 10 people that give feedback on projects.  

Yeah, I'm sure he'd be one of several people that have final say on big budget projects.

zero129 said:

Its good to know your riding high off a successful Switch gen Rol, Enjoy my pal.

I enjoy Nintendo too much as my fav company to really want to fire back at you so we just leave it at this. To me your take on xbox is weak and mains nothing as you are leaving out so many differences under your comparison its not even funny.

@zero129 

Well it's not really "leaving it at this" when you also add the portion about their opinion being weak.
But without explaining why, you leave them nothing to work with other than unnecesarily asking you to clarify.

It's for this reason the forum rules/guidelines state that people should explain how/why. Not just say that something is bad.

I already did explain why i feel his argument is weak in another post. I honestly dont really feel like i need to be repeating myself if it isnt adding anything to the discussion. But once again as i explained his comparison to the XOne is weak. He is leaving out of his discussion how much of the xbox big hitters have not even hit yet, but they are going to be now. He totally ignores covid. The is a number of other points but im having a drink right now and would just sooner not get into arguments with Rol when i think very highly of him and Nintendo is my fav company so i would sooner just leave it at that. Like i said i made my point in another post already.

Plus this Article isnt even about Phil or Xbox so imo i think it should be getting steered back to the OP this thread is about Ryan..

I am pretty sure the is also rules about going off topic in a thread etc. So lets get this thread back on topic if Rol wants to continue this we can do so in another thread if he wants to make one or in PM.



twintail said:
chakkra said:

Let's recap some of Jim Ryan's accomplishments:

1 - Pioneered the new era of $70 games
2 - Responsible for the slow down of 1st party single-player games output.
3 - Announced (and greenlit) 10 GAAS games to be released in a span of less than three years (which remains to be seen if they will be able to even meet that deadline).
4 - Ushered a new era of consoles having price increases instead of price cuts.
5 - Kept the microtransactions for GT7 hidden until after reviews (has EA and Activision ever done that? I'm not even sure).

You know what? I'm actually a little bit sad to see Jim Ryan go. I really wanted to see how far he could push their customers brand loyalty, and I TRULY hope that whoever replaces him shares his same philosphy and continues his vision.

1. Sucks. But considering how others have followed it seems like they were all just waiting for someone to do. At least it was done at the beginning of a new gen rather than midway though.

2. Is he though? Big budget AAA games are only going to take longer to release. That's the reality of game development. Besides, Herman is the one in charge of 1st party development.

3. Not sure what the issue is with this besides the obvious disdain for gaas games in a time when live service games are among the most popular, if not the most popular, games being played today.

4. Sucks too. But he's a numbers guys. Part of the reason why PS has been so dominant in EU since PS1 is because of him.

5. Sucks. A lot of publishers have done this before. Not sure why this is a Ryan issue though. 

1 - Yeah, it sucks. One has to wonder if the others would have dared to do it first, but hey, there is no way for us to find that out, so I guess we can forgive him for that one.

3 - You know, I actually have zero issues with GAAS games; I only brought it up cuz Sony has always been praised for their "narrative driven single-player experiences" while Microsoft has always been attacked for their GAAS games; but I can see people are already changing their perception of GAAS games, which is a good thing, seeing people here acting like single-player games are inherently better than multiplayer ones has always been cringe to watch.

4 - Yeah, it sucks; but you know what? I will concede that he never actually messed up to the point of tarnishing the brand (as evidenced by the fact that Playstation keeps having record sales on a year with only one 1st party exclusive) but y'all out here acting like he wasn't toying with the line; which is why I'm a bit sad to him go; I really wanted to see how far he could push the boundaries of his customer's loyalty.

5 - Yeah, it sucks. I mean, if that was not his idea then buckle up, because whoever did that is bound to do it again.



chakkra said:
RolStoppable said:

If you want me to factor in Sony's down year, it's only going to look even worse for Microsoft because they aren't able to capitalize on it. Much of this has to do with the tone that has been set during the first two years of the PS5 and Xbox Series, so finally having something to show with Starfield is too late. It also doesn't help that it's a Bethesda game which is best played on a PC. The Sony list you posted is very short for 2023, but in terms of hardware selling power it still trumps Microsoft's 2023.

As for your second statement, it's a stretch. I don't think that the PS gamers who don't like Ryan view MLB on the subscription service as something of importance. But Xbox gamers certainly do care a lot about Gamepass, so I concede that this example makes Spencer more likeable; the question is if such a little thing can offset the shortcomings of his leadership.

Oh, so it is not about games, it is about sales. This mentality of "hey! we may not have much to play, but at least our console is selling great! HAHA, losers" is a bit bizarre to me, as if something called Brand Power doesn't exist. I mean, if Playstation players are willing to go a year with only two 1st party games (one of which Xbox players are able to play for free) as long as they can keep gloating on those shiny sales charts, then good for them. I'll take the games any day, thank you very much.

As per Jim Ryan (which is supposedly the object of this thread) notice how neither you, nor anyone here, has said anything that actually benefits YOU as a consumer.

Let's recap some of Jim Ryan's accomplishments:

1 - Pioneered the new era of $70 games
2 - Responsible for the slow down of 1st party single-player games output.
3 - Announced (and greenlit) 10 GAAS games to be released in a span of less than three years (which remains to be seen if they will be able to even meet that deadline).
4 - Ushered a new era of consoles having price increases instead of price cuts.
5 - Kept the microtransactions for GT7 hidden until after reviews (has EA and Activision ever done that? I'm not even sure).

You know what? I'm actually a little bit sad to see Jim Ryan go. I really wanted to see how far he could push their customers brand loyalty, and I TRULY hope that whoever replaces him shares his same philosphy and continues his vision.

Is this a race to the bottom? He already explained clearly that he's not impressed by neither Jim nor Phil.

Many shared a similar sentiment and explained why they expected better and want better from the next one, this thread is understandably negative on Jim despite the impressive PS5 start, but no, that's not enough, apparently, we have to submit to your rich CEO of choice? 

Your point about testing customer loyalty is a cheap shot non-argument and it's honestly hilarious and doesn't serve you well at all as it can be easily applied across the board, If what you listed are examples of brand loyalty tests, then please hold a mirror up because you know that a lot of it was immediately copied by the competitor in question, and according to your own logic, Jim isn't the only one in the room testing limits here. 

On a similar note, only Nintendo got punished for their most recent blunder while SONY/MS got away with Xbone and PS3 eras.



LurkerJ said:
chakkra said:

Oh, so it is not about games, it is about sales. This mentality of "hey! we may not have much to play, but at least our console is selling great! HAHA, losers" is a bit bizarre to me, as if something called Brand Power doesn't exist. I mean, if Playstation players are willing to go a year with only two 1st party games (one of which Xbox players are able to play for free) as long as they can keep gloating on those shiny sales charts, then good for them. I'll take the games any day, thank you very much.

As per Jim Ryan (which is supposedly the object of this thread) notice how neither you, nor anyone here, has said anything that actually benefits YOU as a consumer.

Let's recap some of Jim Ryan's accomplishments:

1 - Pioneered the new era of $70 games
2 - Responsible for the slow down of 1st party single-player games output.
3 - Announced (and greenlit) 10 GAAS games to be released in a span of less than three years (which remains to be seen if they will be able to even meet that deadline).
4 - Ushered a new era of consoles having price increases instead of price cuts.
5 - Kept the microtransactions for GT7 hidden until after reviews (has EA and Activision ever done that? I'm not even sure).

You know what? I'm actually a little bit sad to see Jim Ryan go. I really wanted to see how far he could push their customers brand loyalty, and I TRULY hope that whoever replaces him shares his same philosphy and continues his vision.

Is this a race to the bottom? He already explained clearly that he's not impressed by neither Jim nor Phil.

Many shared a similar sentiment and explained why they expected better and want better from the next one, this thread is understandably negative on Jim despite the impressive PS5 start, but no, that's not enough, apparently, we have to submit to your rich CEO of choice? 

Your point about testing customer loyalty is a cheap shot non-argument and it's honestly hilarious and doesn't serve you well at all as it can be easily applied across the board, If what you listed are examples of brand loyalty tests, then please hold a mirror up because you know that a lot of it was immediately copied by the competitor in question, and according to your own logic, Jim isn't the only one in the room testing limits here. 

On a similar note, only Nintendo got punished for their most recent blunder while SONY/MS got away with Xbone and PS3 eras.

They did? Nintendo turned that blunder around to launch one of their most and one of the most successful consoles in history. I wouldnt exactly call that getting punished.



zero129 said:
LurkerJ said:

Is this a race to the bottom? He already explained clearly that he's not impressed by neither Jim nor Phil.

Many shared a similar sentiment and explained why they expected better and want better from the next one, this thread is understandably negative on Jim despite the impressive PS5 start, but no, that's not enough, apparently, we have to submit to your rich CEO of choice? 

Your point about testing customer loyalty is a cheap shot non-argument and it's honestly hilarious and doesn't serve you well at all as it can be easily applied across the board, If what you listed are examples of brand loyalty tests, then please hold a mirror up because you know that a lot of it was immediately copied by the competitor in question, and according to your own logic, Jim isn't the only one in the room testing limits here. 

On a similar note, only Nintendo got punished for their most recent blunder while SONY/MS got away with Xbone and PS3 eras.

They did? Nintendo turned that blunder around to launch one of their most and one of the most successful consoles in history. I wouldnt exactly call that getting punished.

In the sense that the Wii U didn't get by the way PS3/X1 did despite their mediocrity throughout their lifecycle.