PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan Optimistic on Selling Over 108.4 Million PS5 Units as Sony Reveals Strategy

Today Sony Interactive Entertainment executives including CEO Jim Ryan presented PlayStation's strategy including several interesting details like sales of PlayStation VR2, The Last of Us Part I and Marvel's Spider-Man on PC, and much more.

Ryan also hinted at "fairly interesting and quite aggressive plans" to accelerate the cloud business.

[porkChop]

"The release schedule of live service games for Bungie is 'basically on track' with what was announced before (3 new games by March 2025),"

Wait, what? Bungie has 3 new games coming over the next two years and they're all live service? They already have Destiny. Why do they need 3 more live service games from Bungie?

[Bobertt]

They didn't say all 3 games are live services just that they are working on 3 games. I believe one of them is a to be a mobile game so more like 2.5 games. Maybe one is Destiny 3 and one is the live service game Sony wants. But Sony's plan of 12 new live service games by Q1 2026 is stupid in my opinion. Most of them will fail because live service games are designed to milk the player for as long as possible. Unless all 12 somehow fit in separate niches there will be overlap and there are only so many hours in a day someone can play and when they are being milked by multiple live service games they end up dropping all except 1 or 2.

[porkChop]

It says the release schedule of "live service games". Plural. Then it states, in relation to the release schedule of specifically live service games, that 3 are coming by March 2025. They are literally saying the 3 games are live service.

I do agree though that going all in on 12 live service games over the next 3 years is ridiculously stupid. 90%+ of live service games fail, and players don't want to be engaged with multiple live service games. Sony should be getting all these new studios working on proper singleplayer and multiplayer games.

[dumahim]

Is it 12 now? I thought it was 10.

[P_Bomb]

“Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered sold 1.5 million units on PC by March 2023, while The Last of Us Part I has sold 368,000 units as of April 23, 2023.”

Sony seem fine with the extra $$$, but I was hoping for bigger numbers from the PC crowd. Still, 67 million revenue is 67 million.

[Abriael]

You gotta actually support the PC crowd for the PC crowd to support you. When you launch games that are already old on consoles, and at times they have big problems, can't expect massive sales.

The PC market includes TONS of games, and the taste of many PC gamers is a bit different from what console gamers like (for instance strategy and simulation games are more to our taste) it's not a super-easy market to crack unless you go all in.

[P_Bomb]

True. TLOU bugs have been well documented. Maybe the games were a bit overpriced?

[Abriael]

I don't think it's much a matter of pricing, as much as a matter of hype and genres.

It's hard to be hyped when you're getting a game that was released on consoles a long while ago, which maybe you already played because you also have a PS5.

Even before TLOUp1 was released, I really didn't perceive much hype for the PC version. Same for God of War or Horizon.

And on top of that, the games Sony makes are not the games that are usually biggest on PC, and a lot of PC gamers aren't really happy about Sony being perceived as blocking big third-party games from coming to PC day and date like FFXVI and FFVII remake.

Hard to be seen as an ally by a group that you're actively fu*king over. 😂

It's the overall approach that isn't conducive to making massive splashes on a market that's already very, very crowded. We'll see if the GAAS change that.

[P_Bomb]

“We'll see if the GAAS change that.”

Those I could see as a test run for day and date releases. Or at least within year one.

[Abriael]

Yeah. They already said these will be day 1 and cross platform. But they actually need to be good.

That's the big question. PC has a LOT of GAAS games. Sony needs to have something groundbreaking to break ground. We'll see.

[Vengeance1138]

How about Sony just gives the PC crowd nothing at all next time? Clearly PC audience isn't interested so much better to just not bother.

[Abriael]

@Vengeance1138: considering how much they mention it, looks like they're pretty eager to get a slice of the PC pie. You say it almost like they're doing us a favor. That's a ludicrous take 😂

PC gamers are the customers. It's Sony's responsibility to entice us in if they want our money. So far, they haven't done a great job.

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

Well, as a long-term PC gamer I'm personally glad that PC gamers don't dictate the gaming market. Good single-player games aren't appreciated enough on the platform; they're only interested in time-sinks and Twitch trash.

[blackblades]

Pirates maybe 1%

[DeusFever]

Sales of individual games in general on PC aren’t at the level of console sales. That’s why AAA games are released on console and ported to PC instead of the other way around. If PC gamers want better games, they have ti buy them.

[JackBNimble]

Ya good luck with that if you think selling games 2 or 3 years after release to pc is going to be profitable .

[DoubleTTB22]

Didn't Cyberpunk literally sell over half of its total copies on pc alone.

Sales on PC of triple aaa games on on par with individual consoles at least. Sometime doing worse and sometimes exceeding them depending in the game.

[andy85]

I wouldn't say that's optimistic, more like conservative. It's already out-selling the PS4 which hit 117M, and that's with a massive shortage.

[Abriael]

No, Jim Ryan is optimistic on it. IE: he thinks it can be achieved. That's his comment

[SeTTriP]

Most p.c gamers Don't have the rig to run the games properly anyway (bugs and compatibility issues aside).

Alot of sales Don't get made because p.c gamer setups can't handle it.

I'm not saying it's the main reason why but a contributing factor.might as well just play it on Playstation I say would be my attitude.
But I do agree that p.c gaming tastes are vastly different from console gamers.

[gold_drake]

i always wonder where we'd be if the pandemic wouldnt have hit the world

[TheTony316]

Probably close to 60 million.

[gleepot]

That's weird, because I'm considering getting rid of mine.

[Hypertension140]

Did you feel the need to type this comment to make you feel better with how dominate playstation is?
I know you Xbox guys really thought Microsoft had this generation in the bag.