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Sony's Jim Ryan to GameIndustry.biz: "We are starting to go multiplatform"

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
It seems Jim Ryan’s plan is clear, stop making consoles and go with a service that can be played on any device essentially eliminating the PlayStation ecosystem.
idiot GIF
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
I can dig it.

Unless some will treat this like their 5 and be short sighted.

Gotta adapt.

Luckily they're exclusives are really strong.
 

PhaseJump

Banned
Gaben is out there trying to get Steam into an idiot-proof, turn-key entry point experience like consoles. The Deck is coming, there was mention on some youtube bullshit I've watched that a Steam console has been rumored or found in the new SteamOS metadata or something.

Playstation fans have been shitting on Xbox for integrating multiplat features, extending the ecosystem to PC hardware, all while ignoring that Playstation has been trying to do the same thing.

Xbox successfully integrates and gets good PR for their services bundle (game pass), buys up game studios because the entire entertainment world is consolidating around huge media brands and their streaming options, while competing for attention & people's spare time; and yet now PS fans are in a panic?

Playstation, the biggest brand in all of gaming, is doomed and going to cease their ecosystem's cheapest hardware entry point, while expanding? Consoles are done entirely, despite Nintendo, despite Xbox, despite demand being larger than ever?!

3590cae148916cd30bd85db5e8abf58c98a310ab.gifv
 
It's not really an illusion though, even Jim Ryan said that they are releasing on rival consoles. It makes sense if you accept that Sony don't see much use to being in the console business any longer.

I mean, we have to think about this strategically. Very specific types of games are probably a safe bet to bring out on other platforms. Sports games, for example, as we're seeing with MLB The Show. And of course Destiny 2 will continue to be multiplat, most likely whatever Bungie's immediate next IP is too (also said to be a GaaS-type).

However I honestly think it's a bit foolish to assume tentpole IP that are seen as marquee to the PS brand like Spiderman, Ghosts of Tsushima, God of War etc. will be coming to Xbox or Switch anytime soon or even into the near future

Unless there's something being worked out between MS and Sony for versions of their subscription streaming services on each other's platforms, but nothing's been said at present to suggest so

Guys, guys


That's because sony has no longer control of the MLB game license. so naturally it's going to be multiplatform. as for destiny, it makes sense as it's a live service title and most probably their new ip as well. you don't cut off an entire user base of a title as huge as destiny. that would be financially unwise, it's by no means an indication that you're suddenly going to be seeing God of war and uncharted on Xbox and switch. PC is most likely, maybe mobile but outside of those no.

Yeah, this. It's a big stretch right now to think he means anything beyond MLB and maybe now-affiliated stuff like Destiny and Bungie's next game, being Xbox & Nintendo-bound. That's definitely not happening here.

To keep it in Sony, look at it this way.

Sony Pictures has the highest grossing movie of 2021 with Spider-Man. It's coming out on Blu-Ray this month. The digital movie will be sold on Apple, Google, Amazon, etc and play on those devices. It's not only being sold on the PlayStation. Likewise the Blu-Ray, which will be produced by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, will play on any Blu-Ray player; not just the players made by Sony.

All well and good examples, but that's also a very different market compared to gaming. I don't think the wider masses have this type of mindset quite yet, in fact I think seeing Sony's stocks drop after the Activision-Blizzard acquisition announcement are proof of this. If even regular investors who probably don't even "game" saw the move as a possibility of Sony losing a massive franchise like COD because a rival platform holder is now purchasing the parent company, what makes you think most gamers in the hobby are ready to view games like films in terms of full platform-agnosticism yet?

Trust me I'd love for that to be the case but as a hobby and industry we definitely aren't there yet. The platform holders can't even decide on a single set of universal APIs that "just work" on any hardware spec without need for lower-end optimization. Even with the advent of cloud streaming opening up the floodgates to platform-agnosticism in practical terms, actual perspectives being changed among gamers on the whole on this stuff will take a lot longer.

Psygnosis released Wipeout on Saturn too even if they were acquired by Sony Electronic Publishing (the current SIE) a couple of years before PS1 was released. And well, before PS1 Sony Imagesoft was a publisher of NES, Game Boy, SNES, Mega Drive, Mega CD or PC games.

Yeah; along with Saturn Wipeout, the N64 got a port in '97 IIRC, not sure if that was done in-house by Psynosis or handled by a porting studio however. I can only assume the reason the Saturn & N64 ports came about (and probably the PC ports, too; if you notice aside from Psynosis games no other PS1 1P games had PC versions) was because Psynosis, being a publisher, already had contracts with Sega & Nintendo to honor.

Sony maybe could've payed up to have the contracts cancelled, but the expenses likely weren't worth it. As well, those particular ports weren't necessarily done under the PlayStation branding. It also somewhat helped that they occurred just around when Sony were still establishing themselves in the console market, before the PS brand started to solidify. So there weren't certain expectations from gamers and the media at large that'd of had them looking at certain Sony 1P games going to PC and even Saturn, N64 as "weird" moves.

Today, though, those "certain expectations" absolutely exist and the brand is firmly entrenched, but both gamers and the media have a long history of being trained to see a platform holder publishing their games on another holder's consoles as a sign of the former exiting the market as a platform holder. That link of expectation exists even today, so of course companies like Sony are aware of this (as are Microsoft; that's why Minecraft's continued to exist basically as its own brand, and the current Zenimax games on PlayStation still being released are either ports of older games or the isolated game that had terms set prior to the acquisition to release on PlayStation, and MS didn't want to pay the costs out to Sony to terminate those agreements).

That's why the only 1P games we'll likely see from them natively on MS and Nintendo systems are sports games like MLB The Show, and potentially whatever Bungie has cooking up next aside from Destiny. They don't even publish MLB on anything but PlayStation, and the Bungie stuff will be affiliated with Bungie's brand, not PlayStation's. IMO the only chance for other 1P Sony games to go to Xbox and Nintendo is as part of some version of Spartacus on those systems, and as cloud streaming-only versions at that.

Even if that happens, though, it's still years off. Probably further off than whatever furthered PC plans they have, honestly.
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
People are awefully hasty to suggest "PS5 and PC" 🤭
because it is, but then i can foresee MTX games like destiny on Xbox .

Sony is not going to relealse GOW or Horizon on Xbox while Microsoft acquiring publishers left and right.

Lets not mention their competitor has a superior subscription service, its suicide to do that.
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
I think this is the biggest worry for the future. That cost effective box is going to be harder and harder to find/make in the future. It's going to be expensive powerful or cheap potato.
OR take your time with scraps found online to build your own. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned the death of PC gaming and I think they are correct.
I don't see any reason to believe that it will be harder to find hardware to play games in the future. Supply will catch up at some point. PC is probably the bigger concern because of crypto mining. GPU makers probably like never having to lower their prices. But I have to think at some point they'll be able to make enough for everyone. It sucks right now if you like building your own PC's.
 
Playstation, the biggest brand in all of gaming, is doomed and going to cease their ecosystem's cheapest hardware entry point, while expanding? Consoles are done entirely, despite Nintendo, despite Xbox, despite demand being larger than ever?!
I don't think hardware is going away. I do however think 'consoles' ( as defined as a platform that takes a percentage from the game makers to put the game on platform) is going away.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
People think Sony is going to start releasing their games on Xbox. LOL.

Slow down.

Xbox fans thought Nintendo games were going to appear on Xbox 3 years ago just because they allowed crossplay.
 

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Great. Wonder if Ratchet & Clank will appear on Nintendo Switch soon.

Also, one step closer to Horizon: Zero Dawn, God of War etc on Game Pass. These games works great with Xbox controller on PC, so I hope my Xbox brethren will get to try these games that way too.
 

SilentUser

Member
PC and mobile are the obvious ones rn. Plus, pretty sure they will also expand the streaming services to TVs. The era of the consoles as we know is quickly coming to it's end.
 
I think consoles will stay but the cycle of consoles with hard to acquire hardware and chip shortages will become less and less of a focus for Sony and they will go after PC as much as possible.
hopefully the VR headset works on PC too.
I don’t see ourselves buying consoles in 15 years. They will be a service everywhere that you could play in your smart TV
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
It's not just PC.

It's mobile.

And cloud.

But Sony is smart and isn't just assuming cloud is going take over and everyone will be streaming gaas games to their phone in 2030, they are going to also do mobile ports of their GAAS games.

They want that Genshin money.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
This is so dumb. If they want to go multiplatform they can leave the console business.

Which is probably what they are planning to do.

And everyone who thinks he’s talking about pc is just in denial. Like come on guys how much more clearer can’t he be.


Maybe Phil just acquired take 2 and Sony realizes they can’t survive without cod and gta, and will exit the console business but it is a bad idea. Sony make great consoles and a world where only Microsoft is making consoles is going to be a grim one.

Regardless, this moron was hired to be the CEO of PlayStation and he’s hell bent on going multiplatform. Singlehandedly Killing the most successful console maker across the last five generations. I’ve never quite seen anything like this. They lost just one generation. Man Up and fight. Nintendo survived without cod and gta, so can You. Ffs.
 
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Loxus

Member
are you serious ? sources? just Google it is written everywhere
i said total ....PS3 generation Sony lost money...a lots of it
First of all.
Xbox 360 and PS3 losses total $8 billion, ex-Sony employee paints grim future
Xbox 360 and PS3 have cost Microsoft and Sony a combined total of $8 billion, according to a new article penned by industry veteran Ben Cousins.
According to Cousins' report on Kotaku, Microsoft has spent some $2.996bn on Xbox 360 since it launched in 2005, while Sony has fared worse, spending $4.951 billion on PS3. Both figures are a loss.


That's money lost from selling the PS3 at a lost.
But when looking at overall revenue, Sony was looking at $72 billion.

Sony's first profit in five years, no thanks to PlayStation
Overall, Sony posted revenues of 6.8 trillion yen ($72.3 billion), up 4.7 percent year-over-year, and profits of 43.0 billion yen ($435.7 million), compared to losses of 456.7 billion yen ($4.6 billion) year-over-year.

And saw a 7 billion revenue in fiscal year 2013.
For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013, Sony's PlayStation business saw revenues of 707.1 billion yen ($7.2 billion), down 12.2 percent year-over-year.

I don't even know why you bringing up PS3, when PS4/PS5 is much better.

Clearly, at the end of the day.
The more consoles you sell, the more digital content revenue you generate.
SOQEYRp.jpg
 

Vagswarm

Member
Some people need to read what he actually said in the interview.



1. He says Destiny will remain on the platforms it is currently on, which means Xbox. He's not saying they're pulling the game off Xbox to make it just PC/PlayStation.
2. He says that same approach will apply to Bungie's future games.
Seems pretty clear from the initial quote. He's not only talking about Bungie.

The fact that Game Pass is hugely successful and still expanding, with PC and console simultaneous releases is going to push Sony to do something similar. Not to mention the success Sony has had on the PC with just a few titles already.
 
they see the writing on the wall. microsoft is getting just too big, with gamepass and all their studios. in the future, to compete, they will have to sell their software on microsoft platforms (windows,xbox,cloud)

Microsoft cant even “sell” their own software on their platforms
 
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  • Triggered
Reactions: M16
A future where Sony is a 3rd party pub without hardware honestly makes sense / selling straight software is much more profitable than having to balance that with physical hardware R&D , manufacturing, shipping, storage , retail partners ect. Not to mention the massive hardware requirements in the form of servers ect.

They make good first party software that’s their strength. Best lean into that in a world where silicon is NOT getting cheaper but in fact more expensive.

Don’t believe me check out Microsoft’s published documents on the cost of silicon while building the Series Consoles.
 

01011001

Banned
People think Sony is going to start releasing their games on Xbox. LOL.

Slow down.

Xbox fans thought Nintendo games were going to appear on Xbox 3 years ago just because they allowed crossplay.

Sony is releasing the games of at least 2 publishers on Xbox now and 1 on Switch.
Bungie already confirmed that every planned future game they are currently working on (most likely Destiny 3) will come to Xbox and PC. MLB the Show is also on Xbox and Switch.

so they already started releasing games on Xbox and Switch, as well as PC.

not all of them of course, but a select few... who knows? Destiny 2 on Switch next? honestly the game should run on it... it still uses the Halo Reach engine at its core and isn't really that crazy looking either
 
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FStubbs

Member
If Sony was rolling in money from console sales, they wouldn't be making mulitplatform moves like this. Whatever though, time will tell.
I can't speak to why they're doing multiplatform sales, but the numbers show that they've made hand over fist on every console except PS3.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
A future where Sony is a 3rd party pub without hardware honestly makes sense / selling straight software is much more profitable than having to balance that with physical hardware R&D , manufacturing, shipping, storage , retail partners ect. Not to mention the massive hardware requirements in the form of servers ect.

Sony makes more money from MTX than anything else, and their games don't really even have them..

It's ridiculous to think Sony wants to somehow ditch the Playstation platform.

Corporations exist to grow.. Sony and others have known for years that the actual userbase of console owners, while incredibly lucrative, and getting more lucrative w/ digital taking over + MTX, that there is also that much more room to grow on PC/Mobile.

They also likely have data suggesting releasing on PC/mobile doesn't significantly effect console sales.

NONE of this has anything to do with abandoning the incredibly lucrative console + having a STORE on a console business.
 
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//DEVIL//

Member
Honestly. I made the right call to sell my PS5 for profit and just go PC route.

I can wait for some of the exclusive of PlayStation to hit the PC. It will play better and I do not have to pay sony a cent for their online services.

I did the same for Xbox too. so it's not like I am taking sides or anything.

of course, the drawback is the PC no matter what is more expensive than the console. so if you can afford it.. you are in gaming heaven.
 

Little Chicken

Gold Member
Sounds like Jim Ryan has been dumpster diving at Microsoft HQ for 6 year old print outs of roadmaps covered in coffee stains.

🚮
 
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Honestly. I made the right call to sell my PS5 for profit and just go PC route.

I can wait for some of the exclusive of PlayStation to hit the PC. It will play better and I do not have to pay sony a cent for their online services.

I did the same for Xbox too. so it's not like I am taking sides or anything.

of course, the drawback is the PC no matter what is more expensive than the console. so if you can afford it.. you are in gaming heaven.
It's still a small percentage of games, all of which have come to PC long after their PS4 release.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
Sony is releasing the games of at least 2 publishers on Xbox now and 1 on Switch.
Bungie already confirmed that every planned future game they are currently working on (most likely Destiny 3) will come to Xbox and PC. MLB the Show is also on Xbox and Switch.

so they already started releasing games on Xbox and Switch, as well as PC.

not all of them of course, but a select few... who knows? Destiny 2 on Switch next? honestly the game should run on it... it still uses the Halo Reach engine at its core and isn't really that crazy looking either

MLB releasing on Xbox and Switch was part of the contract agreement with MLB.

Bungie releasing their games on Xbox is part of the agreement they had with Sony.
 
He is a terrible, TERRIBLE CEO who only thinks about money and make horrible decisions.
I hope he leaves soon. He is the Don Matrick of Playstation.

He is terrible. He's worse than Don Matrick, at least Don never inherited all the privileges of PlayStation. Here we have Jim Ryan, inherited an iconic brand, a huge fanbase, a huge Japanese base, and yet he's doing everything he can to do undo all those privileges. He's not a good match for PlayStattion and yet many Sony fanboys here are too blind to see it. They're going to defend him no matter what...

PS5 has to fail for him to get fired, and I hope that's what going to happen
 
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I think at this point Microsoft is willing to lose money YoY for the next decade if they have to. They think owning the market is worth it. Could be.
The last thing Microsoft wants is for Sony or Nintendo to exit the industry. If that happened, the door would open for Apple or Google to step in and then the spending would really get out of control.
 

01011001

Banned
MLB releasing on Xbox and Switch was part of the contract agreement with MLB.

Bungie releasing their games on Xbox is part of the agreement they had with Sony.

so in conclusion... Sony is going multi platform 🤷‍♂️ Capcom is also multi platform. that doesn't mean every game is on all systems
 
Sony makes more money from MTX than anything else, and their games don't really even have them..

It's ridiculous to think Sony wants to somehow ditch the Playstation platform.

Corporations exist to grow.. Sony and others have known for years that the actual userbase of console owners, while incredibly lucrative, and getting more lucrative w/ digital taking over + MTX, that there is also that much more room to grow on PC/Mobile.

They also likely have data suggesting releasing on PC/mobile doesn't significantly effect console sales.

NONE of this has anything to do with abandoning the incredibly lucrative console + having a STORE on a console business.
The have your cake (Store) and eat it too (money from games on other platforms).
Your probly right on the nose here.
Everything just seems like end of gaming as we know it world.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
so in conclusion... Sony is going multi platform 🤷‍♂️ Capcom is also multi platform. that doesn't mean every game is on all systems

PC is another platform. That doesn't mean it's going to release on Xbox or Switch.

Not to say it will not happen, but people are using MLB and Destiny as proof when that wasn't based on Sony's decision. Anyone buys Take 2 or EA, then their sports games are going to remain multiplatform.

Until further notice, the only things we have seen so far are that multiplatform are PlayStation, Mobile, Cloud, and PC.
 

Shmunter

Member
I’d love to see the math between what a person is worth within the eco system Vs an individual game sale on another platform.

Being within an eco system is about reoccurring revenue, peripheral sales of 3rd party games, dlc, accessories, etc. a game sale on another platform is 70% revenue of an individual sale and little else.

Exclusivity has forever been a driving force to capture users with the eco system. What’s the balance?
 
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Roxkis_ii

Member
Reading some of the post in this thread boggles my mind. Xbox fans try so hard to try to make Sony like Xbox, like Sony ain't been winning just being Sony. Come on now.


On topic: Didn't Street fighter 5 come out on PlayStation and pc day and date? Seems to just a continuation of Sony's previous strategy. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
He is terrible. He's worse than Don Matrick, at least Don never inherited all the privileges of PlayStation. Here we have Jim Ryan, inherited an iconic brand, a huge fanbase, a huge Japanese base, and yet he's doing everything he can to do undo all those privileges. He's not a good match for PlayStattion and yet many Sony fanboys here are too blind to see it. They're going to defend him no matter what...

PS5 has to fail for him to get fired, and I hope that's what going to happen
Going to Fail? The man just signed ps5s death warrant. He’s killing PlayStation as we speak and after this comment and yesterday’s bungie acquisition this is no hyperbole. He let them be third party because eventually everyone at ps is going to be third party.

His words. I wish i was making this up. There is no assumptions being made here. And the directive is coming from Tokyo. He’s not doing this on his own. Tokyo is leaving the console business.
 
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