I can remember them months ago, when he announced that a lot of the PS5 titles would be cross-gen. We had a lot of "lyin' Jim Ryan" memes, and people were none too pleased. More recently, there have been probably a dozen threads complaining about him. I avoided those threads, because I don't like all that negativity in my diet, but I know some of the issues involved studio closures, the MLB issue, and shutting down the PS3 store. I can't give a complete list, but I'm sure there are plenty of other people who could, or you could just dig into those threads yourself. But even without knowing all the details, it was clear to me, just from all the thread titles and posts, that Jim Ryan was going over like a turd in a punchbowl. Arguably, things are worse right now than they have been in the past, but it's been going on for a while.
I think the main issue with Jim is he's a suit, regardless if he's been with Sony for a long time. He doesn't come from the same cloth as Scott Rohde or Shawn Layden. And even though those guys are also in similar management positions, they have a background in game software.
Ryan has a background in sales for overall Sony. Not a bad thing when it comes to making smart business decisions. Similar to others who came before him, but almost everyone that came before had a better idea of Playstation because of their close relationships with specific people within the division.
Jim Ryan comes off as someone who worked close with Kodera, and to an extent KAZ. But in terms of interactions with teams, people like Shue or Scott rohde on a long term playing games basis, thats a big no.
I mean he knows the business, he knows Playstation as a brand, where his hate comes from is the way he comes off as tone deaf to the hardcore crowd. And I dont mean that he isn't making smart decisions that will benefit the brand. I Mean as in communicating what those decisions are and what they will shape for consumers in the future.
The whole "he killed PS3/VITA" store is utter none sense, it was in the cards in 2016. Gio Corsi I believe knew about this stuff. Which is why he left in 2016 or around there. He was the VITA/PSP guy you saw at E3/PSX. All Jim ryan is doing is stream lining more.
Now will that be bad or good for long term? Who knows. But I believe they have weighed the impact of having internal AA teams vs contracting indie to take up that space. It seems more cost effective to do a deal with a developer for a couple million on a game like Kena, then to have Pixelopus make it internally which might cost more long term.
Less risk involved. ANd also keeps shue super busy. He's literally flying all around the world or contacting these developers who he thinks are making things that would fit well on Playstation.
It sucks the days of smaller AA games are kind of a thing of the past like Journey. But look at how many indies are making games like that? The pathless is fantastic. Would Sony have made more money or less making that internally?
I mean when we see a Don mattrick response from Jim, then you can siren the alarm. But I dont think that will happen. And honestly once we hear from them this summer I think a lot of the fear mongering will be silenced. Bend is in no danger of closing, sky isn't falling.
Sometimes things dont work out or go as planned. And with all the hits from all their Developers they've had, one game didn't hit the mark 100%, and another studio that was created didn't seem to get off the ground on the right footing. And people should be happy Hermen is the man he is, he seems to know workflows for studios. So they intervened very early, meaning instead of making a game for 4-5 years to have it fail or close the studio.
I think Jason puts too much emphasis on things that are basically a natural environment in Video game development. Which is things can change in a moments notice. Not everything goes according to plan, not every vertical or proof of concept sometimes makes it out the door.
AdjudicatorHead
has already answered your question,
ArtHands
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