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PS5 Off to a Stronger Start Than PS4 Says Jim Ryan, “Throwing Money” Won’t Lead to Success

kyoji

Member
By Nathan Birch

Jun 18, 2021 19:00 EDT






PS5 PS4 PlayStation

The PlayStation 5 has been an unqualified success in terms of sales, but there’s been some, shall we say, spirited debate about the system’s early software lineup. Is Sony delivering enough big games fast enough? Should big games like Horizon Forbidden West and Gran Turismo 7 be crossgen? Everyone’s got an opinion, but in a new interview with Axios' Stephen Totilo, PlayStation Studios boss Jim Ryan seemed confident Sony was delivering a better early lineup on PS5 than they did on PS4.
Yes, the output during the PS4 cycle was excellent, but the great majority of those games came in the second half of the cycle. We made a conscious effort to improve on that this time around, and what you've seen thus far shows that we've certainly made progress. In just a few months since the launch of PS5, we have released incredible games and have so much more in the pipeline.
And developers are really just getting started taking advantage of the technology in PS5. I can't wait to see what PlayStation Studios and our third-party partners create for PS5. If games like Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Returnal, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart are examples of what you can achieve in the first six months of PS5, imagine what we will see in year two or three.
Well, it’s easy enough to make the comparison – within roughly its first year, the PS4’s lineup included Killzone: Shadow Fall, Knack, InFamous Second Son, Driveclub, and The Last of Us Remastered, all of which were PS4 exclusives. Meanwhile, PS5 will get Demon’s Souls, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, Returnal, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and (hopefully) Horizon Forbidden West. I’ll let you decide which system has the better lineup.
PS5 System Software Beta Program Announced, Next Big Update Drops “Later This Year”

Elsewhere in the Axios interview, Ryan seemed to indirectly address the recent spending spree of their rivals Microsoft as well as reports Sony is starting to become more conservative about what they’ll greenlight, saying successful development is a matter of creative freedom, not “throwing money at it”…
Nurturing creative talent is not as simple as throwing money at it. You also must give them the freedom to be creative, to take risks and come up with new ideas. Just look at Ghost of Tsushima from Sucker Punch. That was not the game we thought they were going to make, but we are not overly rigid or corporate with our talent. We want them to use our hardware as their creative palette.
What are your thoughts on how the PS5 library is shaping up so far? Do you think it will end up with the more “creative” lineup when all is said and done?


 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
By Nathan Birch

Jun 18, 2021 19:00 EDT






PS5 PS4 PlayStation

The PlayStation 5 has been an unqualified success in terms of sales, but there’s been some, shall we say, spirited debate about the system’s early software lineup. Is Sony delivering enough big games fast enough? Should big games like Horizon Forbidden West and Gran Turismo 7 be crossgen? Everyone’s got an opinion, but in a new interview with Axios' Stephen Totilo, PlayStation Studios boss Jim Ryan seemed confident Sony was delivering a better early lineup on PS5 than they did on PS4.

Well, it’s easy enough to make the comparison – within roughly its first year, the PS4’s lineup included Killzone: Shadow Fall, Knack, InFamous Second Son, Driveclub, and The Last of Us Remastered, all of which were PS4 exclusives. Meanwhile, PS5 will get Demon’s Souls, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, Returnal, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and (hopefully) Horizon Forbidden West. I’ll let you decide which system has the better lineup.
PS5 System Software Beta Program Announced, Next Big Update Drops “Later This Year”

Elsewhere in the Axios interview, Ryan seemed to indirectly address the recent spending spree of their rivals Microsoft as well as reports Sony is starting to become more conservative about what they’ll greenlight, saying successful development is a matter of creative freedom, not “throwing money at it”…

What are your thoughts on how the PS5 library is shaping up so far? Do you think it will end up with the more “creative” lineup when all is said and done?



Money well spent indeed.

tenor.gif


Another generation domination.
 
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ethomaz

Banned
They are doing really great.

It is the best first six month for them in both hardware and software.

Even spoiled PS fans like me needs to take the hat off how good they threatened us until now… even in my dreams I did not expected a so successful start of gen.
 
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Synless

Member
Jim salty about Bethesda purchase?

And gamepass too cause it's getting games day 1 that he wanna charge $100 for. Makes him look like a jerk.
There is no way it stays that way. Microsoft can’t keep that up forever. Not as it grows and certainly not without raising the price. I’ll love to be wrong…. Honestly will, but it’s too much like a cable company strategy to lure new buyers to Xbox before the increase. Enjoy all this great day one news now, it won’t last But for rare releases:
 
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Jim salty about Bethesda purchase?

And gamepass too cause it's getting games day 1 that he wanna charge $100 for. Makes him look like a jerk.
Some people prefer tentpole releases and pay for the privilege's. If you enjoy cable tv quality, and like cable TV endlessly scrolling, hey more power to you. I suppose. Gaming is one of my hobby's and pay the price for quality which in the grand scheme of things isn't that much. Like a person who claims to love food yet only has enough budget for a Vegas buffet like an old Chinese lady filling up her plate with crabs to "beat" the system. I am of the mindset, I am passionate about food and will pay for quality. You can enjoy your buffet, ill be in the steakhouse down the street, win win for everyone.
 
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kyoji

Member
Jim salty about Bethesda purchase?

And gamepass too cause it's getting games day 1 that he wanna charge $100 for. Makes him look like a jerk.
Ive yet to see the 3rd party support for GP that you are alluding too, almost all of the GP day 1 games outside of ms own 1st party were from indie devs and are multiplatform with the exception of the money hat'd games with a launch window like stalker 2. I think whats most interesting is GP has been around for several years now and i dont see any major publishers singing praise about it or how its going to set the world on fire. it really only benefits smaller titles to take the money up front to go on the service.

And how about retailers how do they feel about something like this? i expect even more support on that side of things (not that they (playstation) even need it) but GP doesnt exactly encourage you to go to your locals to shop for games. At the end of the day its just a service and services can be replicated at any level by anyone at any time... Its good to have options but i hope playstation doesnt lay all its eggs into that basket like xbox, there are lots of implications when you put thought into what a subscription service requires to be succesful and with games its much harder to do that as they take much longer to make than movies or tv shows. When it will get most interesting for MS is when everything thats already in pre production/devlopement is released and now you are forced to choose between time/quality to keep content flowing, Will triple A's see a significant decrease? or will they be scaled to fit the quota? time will tell
 
Later this year for the next OS update?

So no VRR, no SSD expansion, no DLSS alternative and other notable features missing at release until a year after launch?

What is going on with the OS team? The OS was not stable at launch. It still has issues. Rest mode is a mess. No multitasking. The OS is a downgrade from the PS4 and they’re taking a long time to get it up to par and just get it stable.

I am still haunted by the sound of the disc drive spinning into oblivion in the middle of the night while I slept while the damn thing was in rest mode. Which is fixed now but Christ it should not have shipped to customers with those types of glaring issues.
 
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SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
Sony has had such a strong few years they didn't really need to do much, and they've done a decent job so far.

It's too early for any horserace predictions. Sony came from behind during the PS3/360 gen. And MS has some big guns next year and beyond.

MS has also more convincingly married their PC and console efforts with Game Pass. So even if they aren't moving the hardware units that Sony is, they're essentially growing their ecosystem anyway. If everything they do is multiplatform, including the service itself, they can bring in a lot of people.

I was PS4/PC last gen and that is looking like an even better way to this gen as well.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Eh. Nurturing talent is one thing, giving it enough resources to make games quickly is another. Their games are finally making a shit load of money and their studios are still 100-300 people max. There is a reason Tshushima took six years to make.

Their studios need 500 man teams and multiple teams per studio to get games out in 3 years. Or we will be looking at another gen where SSM, Sony Bend and PD release jyst one game in a 7 year generation.

If it wasn't for insmoniac who he just bought, Sony first party would've had zero games released so far. Bluepoint and Housemarque are not first party studios they nurtured. Neither were insomniacs who did it all their own and were bought out i.e, money was thrown at them. So Clearly he had to throw money at the problem of his first party taking forever to release games.
 

Tschumi

Member
Fun to rewind back a year to when Sony's choice to remain silent on the Ps5 for months and months was considered stupid marketing by many people here, amazing how well it worked, isn't it?

Sony haven't been able to produce or ship as many consoles as usual, it's affected their game releases and which consoles get which games. You have to overlook this reality if you want to be critical of its consequences.
 

Dr Bass

Member
BotW is probably my favorite launch game of all time (and one of my favorite games), but I don't think I've ever had such a great experience with a "launch window" as I have with the PS5. And I'm not even a PS guy really. But Demon's Souls, Returnal, and R&C have all been 10/10 experiences for me, and Spiderman MM was solid. And of course the upgrade Ghosts of Tsushima (saved it to play on the 5) was fantastic.

I honestly couldn't ask for much more. Even if no games come out for the rest of 2021 I am more than satisfied. And of course I'll have Switch games and XSX games to play. Way more games than time for me. Things are great right now.
 
Some people prefer tentpole releases and pay for the privilege's. If you enjoy cable tv quality, and like cable TV endlessly scrolling, hey more power to you. I suppose. Gaming is one of my hobby's and pay the price for quality which in the grand scheme of things isn't that much. Like a person who claims to love food yet only has enough budget for a Vegas buffet like an old Chinese lady filling up her plate with crabs to "beat" the system. I am of the mindset, I am passionate about food and will pay for quality. You can enjoy your buffet, ill be in the steakhouse down the street, win win for everyone.

Enlighten us with the names of these buffets in Vegas you can access 24/7 for 15 dollars a month.
 

Dr Bass

Member
Eh. Nurturing talent is one thing, giving it enough resources to make games quickly is another. Their games are finally making a shit load of money and their studios are still 100-300 people max. There is a reason Tshushima took six years to make.

Their studios need 500 man teams and multiple teams per studio to get games out in 3 years. Or we will be looking at another gen where SSM, Sony Bend and PD release jyst one game in a 7 year generation.

If it wasn't for insmoniac who he just bought, Sony first party would've had zero games released so far. Bluepoint and Housemarque are not first party studios they nurtured. Neither were insomniacs who did it all their own and were bought out i.e, money was thrown at them. So Clearly he had to throw money at the problem of his first party taking forever to release games.
They've already said they have 26 games in the works currently right? And half are brand new IPs?

Demon's Souls and Returnal are first party games, because Sony paid for them to be developed. Insomniac is also first party (as you know) and has released two games in less than twelve months, and you can bet their next games are already in development.

Ryan is also absolutely right about throwing money at a software problem. It never works. Classic books like "The Mythical Man Month" discuss this, and it's obvious when you look at what has happened with 343i (it's also obvious if you just work in software like I do). How much money has that studio burned? It's about software engineering talent and execution. Large software projects are incredibly hard to manage. You can't just say "hey let's bring in more people!" for a whole host of reasons.

It's so funny this keeps coming up as Sony keeps setting record after record and releasing multiple hits. What is with that? None of this journalism matches up with reality, but I guess writing "Sony and Nintendo are mowing down the industry" doesn't generate clicks or sell ads.
 
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Dr Bass

Member
With all the bleeding it's causing...
Expect it to be ugly when the carpet is pulled out from under all of the current $15 a month subscribers.
I dunno. I think the goal might be to have a whole lotta games that depend on MTX and focusing on GaaS type stuff in the future and GP will just get you on board. If that's the case I don't think the price will go up. We will see.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
They've already said they have 26 games in the works currently right? And half are brand new IPs?

Demon's Souls and Returnal are first party games, because Sony paid for them to be developed. Insomniac is also first party (as you know) and has released two games in less than twelve months, and you can bet their next games are already in development.

Ryan is also absolutely right about throwing money at a software problem. It never works. Classic books like "The Mythical Man Month" discuss this, and it's obvious when you look at what has happened with 343i (it's also obvious if you just work in software like I do). How much money has that studio burned? It's about software engineering talent and execution. Large software projects are incredibly hard to manage. You can't just say "hey let's bring in more people for a whole host of reasons."

It's so funny this keeps coming up as Sony keeps setting record after record and releasing multiple hits. What is with that? None of this journalism matches up with reality, but I guess writing "Sony and Nintendo are mowing down the industry" doesn't generate clicks or sell ads.
Nope. That's not first party. They literally threw money at third party developers, devs for hire, to make games for them. They threw money at insmoniac when they hired them to make ratchet and Spiderman, and again when they acquired them last year.

Their nurturing has led to a lot of success but they need to show what's coming next. A lot of their studios released just one game last gen and if that trend holds this gen, all the nurturing in the world isn't going to mean anything.

Maybe less time nurturing media molecule and more resources to help them make games faster.

I am going to believe the bit about 25 games when i see it. They weren't at e3 but they should be holding a conference son so we will see what his word is worth.
 
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