Departing PlayStation Chief Jim Ryan Reveals the Biggest Challenges of His 30-Year Career

The departing Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO shares his favorite PlayStation games, proudest achievement and future plans.

[Jin_Sakai]

I’d say the hardest challenge was trying to push live service games on all the first party developers and have it fail miserably. All you need was Helldivers 2 all along. Acquiring Arrowhead Game Studios would have been a much better investment than spending $3.5 billion on Bungie.

[solideagle]

this generation is very underwhelming. This is the only time I bought a console at launch, usually, I wait 2-3 years. It's all about Remakes and Remasters. For me

PS2 > PS3 > PS1 > PS4 > PS5

[Harkins1721]

I never got to play older games so remakes and remasters are good for me personally.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I don't mind remakes and remasters, but some of them have been horribly unneeded or underwhelming, especially The Last of Us remakes and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, as well as a lack of variety in new games. This is the first gen where I have not purchased a Playstation console/handheld, I've even purchased the PSP/Vita.

For me, it's PS1 > PS2 > PS4 > PS3 > PS5.

[DarXyde]

For Jimbo, the sense I get is that his biggest challenge was getting up to do a press conference when he's a guy that looks like he suffers from daily hangovers.

I don't think he's done any press conferences during his tenure, so we know he's lost that battle.

[CrimsonWing69]

Well, with the success of Helldivers 2 they now will hella push the GaaS initiative. So, I guess Jimbo was right all along then…

[solideagle]

not sure if HellDivers2 is making money off of some microtransactions? does it have micros?

[CrimsonWing69]

@solideagle

I'm not sure what GaaS game doesn't have in app purchases... I mean, that's kind of the point of the model is to make recurring revenue throughout its life-time, but searching the add-ons for the game I see the following:

- HELLDIVERS 2: 1000 Super Credits for 9.99
- HELLDIVERS 2: 150 Super Credits for 1.99
- HELLDIVERS 2: 2100 Super Credits for 19.99
- HELLDIVERS 2: 375 Super Credits for 4.99

So, yea... I'm assuming they're making money off the micro-transactions. It's GaaS and its successful, so here's to a GaaSsy future!

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I feel like Helldivers 2 was one of the least predatory GaaS games i've seen in a while, at least it's not going to fail like the majority of GaaS games have lately.

[phoenixwing]

He did OK. But made one blunder. He focused too much on making studios do live service games.

[The_Hooligan]

I miss Jack Tretton. I remember his 2013 E3 conference when he talked about PS4 being able to play used copies and the audience went crazy lol. I personally think he was the most likable Sony executive in past 10-15 years, outside of Shuhei of course.

[RhinoGamer88]

Ryan said "Convincing customers the PS5 could play 4K at 60fps, when we knew it rarely would, was stellar team Playstation effort."