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In your honest opinion, who is the better gaming company leader? Phil Spencer or Jim Ryan?
- Thread starter Eddie-Griffin
- Start date
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
You might want to look at Jim Ryan's 3 year plan if you're a fan of multiplayer games. PlayStations entire identity is about to change.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Spencer's a tremendous front-man. Excellent at delivering PR and generally representing Xbox.
Problem is he's not especially effective in a business sense. Under his tenure expenses for the division have sky-rocketed without any drastic uptick in competitive performance.
Xbox is still 3rd in a field of 3 and the only response seems to be throwing even more money at the problem.
Ryan on the other hand might not be nearly so likeable or charismatic a figure but under him Playstation has gone from strength to strength. He's a very steady hand.
Problem is he's not especially effective in a business sense. Under his tenure expenses for the division have sky-rocketed without any drastic uptick in competitive performance.
Xbox is still 3rd in a field of 3 and the only response seems to be throwing even more money at the problem.
Ryan on the other hand might not be nearly so likeable or charismatic a figure but under him Playstation has gone from strength to strength. He's a very steady hand.
Little Chicken
Member
Is this really necessary...
Topher
Gold Member
Nope. Every thread is 100% optional.
bentanchorbolt
Banned
I'm tracking what they are doing with GAAS but its tough to get interested when nothing has really been announced. I'm mostly excited to see what Bungie brings to the table. Was never the biggest fan of Destiny and I am hoping they pivot towards something different. After putting a ton of time into the Division 1 and 2, I'm pretty burnt out on looter shooters so Sony better not be planning one of those lol.
Kacho
Member
Can't say I'm a fan of either.
Phil Spencer is fun to meme but he's a bottomless pit of bullshit. Lot's of saying the right things and rarely delivering the goods. He inherited a pile of shit and we're still waiting for that to get cleaned up. Too much focus on Game Pass and xCloud. He does deserve credit for green lighting games like Avowed, Perfect Dark and Fable. But, whether those games deliver remains to be seen.
Jim Ryan inherited a well-oiled Sony so it's hard to say what, if anything, he's delivered on that's good. It will probably be a few more years before we can truly rate how good he is. His PR game has been atrocious though, that's for sure. Also, Sony sounds like they will be shifting to more online/GaaS experiences in the coming years and that's not a move that appeals to me.
Doug Bowser is basically invisible while Nintendo quietly delivers appealing software. He gets my vote here.
Phil Spencer is fun to meme but he's a bottomless pit of bullshit. Lot's of saying the right things and rarely delivering the goods. He inherited a pile of shit and we're still waiting for that to get cleaned up. Too much focus on Game Pass and xCloud. He does deserve credit for green lighting games like Avowed, Perfect Dark and Fable. But, whether those games deliver remains to be seen.
Jim Ryan inherited a well-oiled Sony so it's hard to say what, if anything, he's delivered on that's good. It will probably be a few more years before we can truly rate how good he is. His PR game has been atrocious though, that's for sure. Also, Sony sounds like they will be shifting to more online/GaaS experiences in the coming years and that's not a move that appeals to me.
Doug Bowser is basically invisible while Nintendo quietly delivers appealing software. He gets my vote here.
SoraNoKuni
Member
Phil has it easy, talking like a corporate populist and saying just what people want to hear, while behind closed doors...
Jim's work is a lot harder even when you are the market leader, Sony has to adapt and has a lot to lose if they mess it up, while MS just throws money and tries to sound as consumer friendly they can.
Jim's work is a lot harder even when you are the market leader, Sony has to adapt and has a lot to lose if they mess it up, while MS just throws money and tries to sound as consumer friendly they can.
James Sawyer Ford
Member
All Phil seems to care about is GamePass and buying his way out of a first party mess rather than fixing the root problems that ail the way they manage game development. Talks in doublespeak all the time and comes across as completely dishonest, like a used car salesman
Jim Ryan isn’t a likeable guy. He comes across as a marketing man that wants to nickel and dime his fanbase. So far, however, he hasn’t shown signs of screwing up the game development side of things. Seems to understand the importance of AAA, while balancing this strategy with innovative technologies like PSVR2 or GaaS. I hope he’s successful on the last few points because that could really bolster the way we think of Sony’s AAA games as being more well rounded.
Jim could have easily canned PSVR2 because it may not be highly profitable, but he’s sticking with it to broaden the industry and try and continually push the envelope in VR, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt until Sony has any huge missteps.
To summarize: I don’t give a damn about services that allow people to play games cheaply. I care about playing great games.
Jim Ryan isn’t a likeable guy. He comes across as a marketing man that wants to nickel and dime his fanbase. So far, however, he hasn’t shown signs of screwing up the game development side of things. Seems to understand the importance of AAA, while balancing this strategy with innovative technologies like PSVR2 or GaaS. I hope he’s successful on the last few points because that could really bolster the way we think of Sony’s AAA games as being more well rounded.
Jim could have easily canned PSVR2 because it may not be highly profitable, but he’s sticking with it to broaden the industry and try and continually push the envelope in VR, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt until Sony has any huge missteps.
To summarize: I don’t give a damn about services that allow people to play games cheaply. I care about playing great games.
mansoor1980
Gold Member
Swift_Star
Banned
Jim Ryan is delivering actual games.
Phil Spencer lies and delivers promises.
Easy to see who is the better one.
Phil Spencer lies and delivers promises.
Easy to see who is the better one.
bxrz
Member
Jim isn't delivering games. He inherited games that Shawn Layden greenlit and put in development.
Swift_Star
Banned
He’s delivering games.
Phil is delivering promises.
I’d rather have games than empty promises.
Facts.
James Sawyer Ford
Member
At the President level, these guys are not making decisions regarding game development other than to facilitate resources to help assist, or dramatically shake up things if they aren’t working. Jim Ryan did re-org SCEJ, we won’t know if that was a good move until we see how Asobi evolves. Most decisions are being run through Hulst
Phil in comparison hasn’t significant re-orged their game dev process. Matt Booty is a failure that needs to go. He needs to get outside help that knows how to manage studios
It ain’t exactly a difficult call to green light GoWR
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bxrz
Member
You didn't read a word I said...
OmegaSupreme
advanced basic bitch
The 50 year old guy who wears the gamer shirts
bentanchorbolt
Banned
I don't know if its been covered but tbh I'm glad that Phil and Jim operate differently. I don't want parity between Xbox and PlayStation, that sounds lame from my perspective and because Jim and Phil approach gaming differently, it gives most people a solid reason to own both systems this generation. If what you care about are games from Japanese studios and if you really like high quality Marvel-esqe game types, then Sony has you covered and them some. With MS, you get Game Pass which IMO has changed the way I play games because I am far more willing to give a title a chance when I don't have to sink an upfront cost in the game. I know what I like and have no issue buying a game I know that I will love, but there are some games out there like Rocket League (before it was f2p), The Gunk, etc... that I never would have paid a dime for because those titles aren't worth my money at the time, but I try them and fall in love. Without Game Pass I'd have never played Rocket League, my most played game of this generation and last generation.
bxrz
Member
Then the notion that one CEO is "delivering games" and the other isn't is invalid. Everything game related is on Herman Hulst/Matt Booty
Acquisitions is something the CEOs do. And overall strategy. Thats what they should be graded on
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bentanchorbolt
Banned
Jim has been with PlayStation since Day 1. You don't have to like him but to push all the credit solely onto the last guy is pretty disingenuous.
bxrz
Member
He wasn't in charge of games. From what I know, he was running a division in Playstation Europe.
To give him credit for things he didn't do is disingenuous to the people that actually deserve that credit
The_Mike
I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
I agree with everything you say except the last part.
What were Sony Pro consumer with at the beginning of ps4?
bentanchorbolt
Banned
I think we need to be more broad when we talk about stuff like this. It seems for successes and failures, we put those entirely on the shoulders of Jim and Phil, when its really a team effort -- but that said, both of these men is where the buck stops and if either one of them were bad at their job then neither would be having the kind of success they are having right now. Xbox is doing better than they ever have at any point of the brand existing, while Sony is full-steam ahead with zero missteps and a concrete plan for the future fallowing last generation. Jim has secured a lot of marketing rights and empowered support studios which help Sony release games in a timely manner. There is more to this than "the last guy greenlit all these big games so fuck off Jim" (paraphrasing).
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Shawn Layden couldn't finish off an XBox with 5 studios to its name. A fact that has come back to hurt PlayStation immensely. He will go down as a worse leader than Don Matrick when all is said and done.
remember_spinal
Banned
Phil Spencer wears sneakers
James Sawyer Ford
Member
it still is their responsibility to make the big changes if they are necessary
You don’t need to do anything with SSM, you know they deliver
Phil is responsible for Booty. Booty has done a very poor job. Why is he still employed? That’s on Phil. He has continued to let him flounder. That’s poor strategy and leadership
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MiguelItUp
Member
I honestly just appreciate Phil's presence a lot more. The way he talks about his past, you can tell he comes from a place that really enjoyed playing video games, and still has love for it. I'd want someone that gets the job done, but can also relate in a number of ways. That being said, he's far from perfect, but I dig him the most out of the 3.
I don't get that vibe from from Doug or Jim. But I got that vibe from different leaders in the past for both companies for sure.
I don't get that vibe from from Doug or Jim. But I got that vibe from different leaders in the past for both companies for sure.
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Represent.
Represent(ative) of bad opinions
Both are terrible, but Jim less so. His system actually releases games.
I honestly think I could do a better job than both. I would have PS5 at 200 million sold at the end of this gen.
I honestly think I could do a better job than both. I would have PS5 at 200 million sold at the end of this gen.
Putonahappyface
Member
Where is the neither option?
Topher
Gold Member
bxrz
Member
It wasn't up to Shawn Layden to "finish off Xbox". The only ones that can do that is Microsoft.
Topher
Gold Member
Represent.
Represent(ative) of bad opinions
Lmaoo
I’d probably legit mandate a 30fps cap for all single player cinematic games. If your game looks like last gen trash it’s not releasing.
Top studios would have a minimum of 500 people
Shorter games that release every 2-3 years instead of 5-6
Actually revive and make use of sleeping IPs
PROPER marketing
Game Themed consoles
No Microtransactions
More unique experiences and different types of games
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
When the sleeping giant known as MICROSOFT is in a coma, leaderships job is to put a pillow over their face.
Shawn Layden didn't have the killer instinct needed. Jim Ryan is a natural leader. Layden eats Twinkies.
Techno_Inked
Member
Its interesting u say this.
Whats more impressive, being given a well oiled machine with countless great leaders before Jim Ryan himself and still able to make significant improvements to every single area of the company against a goliath of a company with very limited funds while navigating through a global pandemic and economic crisis.
Or being given a sunken ship of a shit show and then making visible improvements with the biggest war chest u can ever hope for?
As for ur argument of Jim Ryan not doing much, what proof can u show in regards to how much is or isn't from his own initiative and management? None of us will be able to come up with that material.
The fact is he's running it right now and he's been running it since the global pandemic and economic crisis against a competitor who's never been as ferocious as right now.
makaveli60
Member
Yes, it’s actually incredible to me how acceptable are ps fans with this guy, he’s (and the current execs) are terrible
Eddie-Griffin
Banned
Layden couldn't do anything. Xbox One finished not far from PS5 in their strongest countries, Xbox was hurt enough to finish them off and they did enough later on to keep consoles sales at least stagnant for Xbox One with many players still using their consoles. It's only outside of major consoles sales hubs where Xbox really dropped the ball but they were still strong otherwise despite being behind PS4.
Jim Ryan ended up reacting to Microsoft with various Sony changes, and now is doing Xboxes model, infact expanding on it, by pushing to remove PlayStation from the central machine, going off in an interview last year that he wants things to be like the movie industry where you buy a BR or DVD and put it in any machine.
poodaddy
Member
Choosing Jim Ryan immediately exposes you as a console warrior, which is just sad and weird. I have and love both consoles, but come on man, Phil has done incredible work on Xbox's public image the world over, whereas Ryan is just pushing the gold loaded sled further. Ryan should thank goodness that the sled was preloaded for him.
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JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
They both have their strengths and their weaknesses. Phil is more likeable, while Jim is a jackass. But Jim is far better at delivering games in a timely fashion. Phil has been pretty terrible in delivering a steady stream of first party exclusives. With all the studios and talent MS has, they should be delivering about 1-3 big exclusives per year like Sony. No excuses.
remember_spinal
Banned
Jim Ryan and Hermen have made some great acquisitions sony desperately needed, nixxes, bungie, Valkyrie, firesprite, housemarque, bluepoint, etc.
no Matter what, can’t discount jim ryan expanding the sony ecosystem and investing more money into their current studios. Not to mention overhauling PS Plus and their indie, china, japan, and Korean game initiative.
And i see more and more people complaining about sonys single player games so i think they’re starting the multiplayer initiative at just the right time. If anyone was on auto-pilot I’d say it was Layden, he barely made any big initiatives outside of what the first party studios were doing. Nothing to expand the PS Brand or firepower at all.
All these studios are just now becoming multi-game studios an entire generation later thanks to Jim Ryan. A lot of those studios were also run like complete shit last generation, Naughty Dog being the most notable one. extreme levels of crunch and mismanagement, now they have a proper work flow and can actually work on multipale games at once
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ZehDon
Gold Member
You need to re-join reality if you want to have this discussion. None of Ryan's "improvements" have been remotely "significant" by any quantitative we have. For example, his changes to PSN tiers shed a million and change subscribers, but it did increase revenue by 20%+. Great for shareholders, not so great for gamers who can't afford to continue with the service. Is that an "improvement", and would you call it "significant"? His "limited funds" is actually record-breaking profits, and the "goliath" of a company... actually ignored its gaming division for close to a decade, leaving it wither until about eighteen months ago. Ryan is running the most dominant player in the history of video games.
Spencer made visible improvements about eight years ago, when he took over and ditched Kinect pretty much immediately to get the price down. He's continued to make visible improvements all the way up till today. If not for those visible improvements - keeping Xbox on life support with a box of scraps for most of the Xbone generation - he wouldn't have been able to convince Microsoft's new CEO to invest. You're trying to re-write extremely well documented history, and you're doing it poorly.
Simple: time. Massive ships like PlayStation take time, a year at least, to change course. Video games take years to develop. So, based on time, we know most of Sony's games - like the recently released GoWR - began development long before Ryan. Most of the PS5;s launch initiatives were therefore started before Ryan, and he simply carried them to market. So, right about now timewise would be when we would start to see Ryan's initiatives coming through. PSN tiers? Likely all Ryan. Buying Bungie to go all in on GaaS? Also, likely Ryan.
Techno_Inked
Member
You need to rejoin reality if you want to have this discussion if you think increasing 20% revenue but losing 1+ million subs is anything short of significant.
The number of subscribers mean jack shit. He's the CEO and chairman of Playstation, you think he cares more about the number of subscribers than money?
If you are the CEO of a company and you choose to have subscriber base of 1 billion and making 1 dollar off each of them, over making 1 trillion dollars off of 1 player, than you'd failed miserably.
If Phil had the opportunity of making more money and he chose for more subscribers instead, Satya Nadela would boot his ass before you can even blink.
The title of this thread is:
In your honest opinion, who is the better gaming company leader? Phil Spencer or Jim Ryan?
And not who do you think is the most charitable leader for us poor gamers my dude.
Oh yeah and you only chose one aspect out of all the areas I've listed as improvements, good ol cherry picker.
Oh yeah and Jim didn't make any improvements before. He's just a pleb who the stakeholders chose to run the company. I mean Jim Ryan has only started working at Sony since 1994.
But anyways back to your 'point'. No matter how you look at it, it's always easier to show signs of improvement if before it was total shit. Especially when Xbox was in despereation mode and begged daddy Microsoft for help. You need not look any further than Xbox fans themselves. When shit was grim for Xbox, Xbox fans would be happy with any shitty exclusive that came along. Because there's nothing else to look forward to. If there's even a tiny diamond in a turd, the diamond would be what catches people's eyes. But if there's a billion diamonds it's tough to find the biggest and brightest one.
Having the pressure of inherting a successful business and turn it into an even more successful company with limited funds is way tougher than begging daddy for help and stick a diamond in a turd to get people's attention.
The Xbox 360 days are a great success for Xbox. Satya Nadela saw that. He also saw that the Xbox almost got ran to the ground with 1 dumb ass presentation. Satya knows he has awar chest. And he knows, just like many people do that if you can't win the game then you need to change the game. You ain't so bright if you think that's a genius idea from Phil. If you've got the money, changing the game you can't win at before is a relatively simple task compared to normal situations.
Indeed time is simple but you don't seem to get it. Jim Ryan joined Sony back in 1994. You think he made no meaningful contributions? You think the stakeholders will choose a charitable nice pleb over someone who has consistently shown a good business mindset and delivered consistent results in the form of big ass numbers with flying colors at the bottom line?
Indeed projects like developing games take time. But climbing up the corporate ladder of this magnitude takes a lot more time and effort. 36 Years to be exact.
Wether you can publicly find Jim Ryan's contributions or not, stakeholders dont take the CEO position likely. Its their money they're betting with. Betting on someone who has no visible contributions while before it was ran by many succesful leaders is the last thing any stakeholder would do.
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Ozrimandias
Member
Phil Spencer, Gabe Newell.
Both have a long-term business vision, they have tried to innovate and test new formats, in addition to having an integrated "Ecosystem" that respects games as an intergenerational product, that trascends "machines" that last 6-7 years.
I have never had an Xbox console, I am not a PC Gamer either, my only console has been the Playstation for 20 years. That's why I rightly say that Sony lacks the vision of Gabe and Phil.
Both have a long-term business vision, they have tried to innovate and test new formats, in addition to having an integrated "Ecosystem" that respects games as an intergenerational product, that trascends "machines" that last 6-7 years.
I have never had an Xbox console, I am not a PC Gamer either, my only console has been the Playstation for 20 years. That's why I rightly say that Sony lacks the vision of Gabe and Phil.
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