Jim Ryan: PlayStation Games 'Could Suffer' If They Were to Release Day One on PS Plus - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 29 March 2022 / 2,884 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment today announced following months of rumors that it is launching an all-new version of PlayStation Plus in June that will be available in three tiers - Essential, Extra, and Premium.
Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan in an interview with GamesIndustry was asked about adding new first-party titles to the service at launch and he said it isn't something they are planning.
"We feel like we are in a good virtuous cycle with the studios, where the investment delivers success, which enables yet more investment, which delivers yet more success. We like that cycle and we think our gamers like that cycle," said Ryan.
"[In terms of] putting our own games into this service, or any of our services, upon their release... as you well know, this is not a road that we've gone down in the past. And it's not a road that we're going to go down with this new service."
He believes adding first-party titles to the new PlayStation Plus at launch will effect the quality of games they release.
"We feel if we were to do that with the games that we make at PlayStation Studios, that virtuous cycle will be broken," he said. "The level of investment that we need to make in our studios would not be possible, and we think the knock-on effect on the quality of the games that we make would not be something that gamers want."
This is in contrast to Microsoft that releases all first-party titles on its Xbox Game Pass subscription service at launch. Having games day one on a subscription service has the potential to widen the number of players on a game and the game would still earn revenue via DLC and microtransactions.
Ryan did say his current position could change in the future as things keep changing in the industry and around the world.
"The way the world is changing so very quickly at the moment, nothing is forever," said Ryan. "Who would have said even four years ago that you would see AAA PlayStation IP being published on PC? We started that last year with Horizon Zero Dawn, then Days Gone, and now God of War -- a hugely polished and accomplished PC version of that game.
"[We've had] great critical success and great commercial success, and everybody has made their peace with that happening and is completely at ease with it. I look back four years and think nobody would have seen that coming.
"So I don't want to cast anything in stone at this stage. All I'm talking to today is the approach we're taking in the short term. The way our publishing model works right now, it doesn't make any sense. But things can change very quickly in this industry, as we all know."
The subscription model in the video game industry has been growing for years as Microsoft's own service, Xbox Game Pass, has surpassed 25 million subscribers.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Just like the 70 dollar price hike was to avoid micro transactions in your retail games as dev costs increase?
Sony could do what makes sense to Sony. All I could say that as a gamer, I'm more inclined to go for the service that has the new releases on day 1.
Y'know. On some level I actually agree with him...to some extent.
Sony invests heavily in their 1st party AAA studios and having those titles offered day 1 for free... well, I could see these studios losing some of the passion and drive to make their products on that next level.
It may sound like a bit of a "cop out" but various gaming studio heads have come out over the years in defense of their position against things like Gamepass. This is not a new controversy. I mean, how many articles have we seen from developers complaining about Gamepass? Quite a few.
In terms of gamers that may not be something they want to hear but if the people who are making these games aren't satisfied then ultimately gamers will suffer in the quality of the products being released as the drive to go the extra distance will be compromised in their minds on some level.
That being said, having a competitor in the way of Microsoft not flinching at the prospect of offering new titles day 1 is going to be the biggest hurdle Sony has to competing in the subscription service based model.
In terms of offering another alternative to PSplus I think these tiers are a good move for Sony but I don't think it is one that is going to suddenly draw in a flood of new users or have the same kind of impact that Gamepass has.
-DAY 1 RELEASE CONTROVERSY NINJA APPROVED-
MS offers more GAAS games, which by nature can be more sustainable on DLC and MTX. Now what would Sony make to profit from let's say HFW day one on the service? No DLC, MTX or whatnot available, would they have to cut content or change the model to make it? I rather not.
Most of their upcoming releases are single player games though. Sure some games are GAAS like Sea of Thieves and Halo Infinite's multiplayer along with maybe a few other titles, but there's not much more than that. Game Pass still has a ton of indie games and AAA 3rd party releases that aren't GAAS. I don't know why so many get the notion that all Game Pass is or ever will be is a GAAS hell hole. I'm personally interested mostly in the single player games in development.
Even Sony has 9 more GAAS titles in development now that GT7 is confirmed as a GAAS by Polyphony, which I do wonder if they'll be on Sony's new service day 1 since the whole point of them is to get as many players as possible.
They really want to drill into people's heads that budget=quality. The thing is, I'm willing to bet that Days Gone and The Order 1886's budgets were higher than those of ZBOTW, It Takes Two, Hades, Ori and Disco Elysium, just to name a few examples. And he also speaks as if they didn't just release a $70 priced game with more Microtransactions than a free to play game, and they didnt need it to be released Day 1 in a service to do that.
MS was the highest critically acclaimed publisher last year, get out mate.
What about releasing PlayStation games on PC on Day 1? :D
“It’s not what gamers want”
Yeah, those gamers are called shills. They’re the same people who argued that locking Fortnite accounts to PlayStation was fine, that blocking cross play was beneficial to PS users, that cross gen was terrible until Sony was also doing it, that GT7 gutting earnings and pushing people to MTX was just fine. These gamers are going to quote your company line no matter what.
Sony will come around. They’re just late to the party, per usual.
Well there's two sides to Crossplay. It's thankfully an option on PS. So it can always remained turned off. Great in theory if you want to have a few games with someone on Xbox or PC. But for competitive gaming, the option is a godsend, and I feel bad for Xbox players who have no option and are exposed to PC.
I don't know of any competitive games on Xbox where it isn't optional. Maybe Gears or something has it, idk I don't play that. Nothing I play forces me to play with PC players.
Not sure how you missed that. Call Of Duty: Warzone and Halo Infinite. There's been plenty of anger in the community over it, and articles published in the media. Battlefield added it post launch to Xbox after complaints. Sea Of Thieves patched it in later. PS has no such issues, all games have the option, directly because of Sonys earlier stance.
I missed CoD because I don’t play it. Also the fact that you can disable it on PS and not Xbox shows it’s either an Activision thing or part of Sonys paid deal with Activision. Either way now that MS is set to buy Activision and CoD, they’ll need to give Xbox users the same option or Phil will be a hypocrite.
Halo I always set it to match me with controller players. I don’t care about playing PC users if they are on a controller.
Unfortunately there's a host of 3rd party keyboards that register as a controller. So you're not just playing against PC players with a controller.
It has nothing to do with payment. Sony didn't initially accept crossplay, then added the caveat of PS players needing the option for disabling it. Xbox wanted a larger online userbase to fill lobbies and to distinguish less between platforms, to strengthen their business. Xbox owners who initially campaigned for it, it became a situation of be careful what you wish for.
Yeah nah, you are sorely mistaken if you think Xbox needs to “fill lobbies” in games like Halo or Warzone LOL. Also I have never felt cheated in Halo while playing in controller lobbies.
So in CoD they allow PS users to disable crossplay but actively block it on Xbox. You can opt out of cross play in every Xbox game in your system settings but if you have that disabled, CoD makes you turn it on. Again, an Activision issue. I’m sure it’ll be fixed.
Have no idea how many times he will have to repeat it before and after the fusion of the services before people understand that this wasn't part of the plan for the service no matter how much "rumors" want to make you believe otherwise.
All I've wanted since the end of the PS3 lifecycle, was for Sony to support the games that I already paid for on newer hardware. They did it in the past with the PS2 and launch PS3, I loved having an existing library for the new system just ready to go. The PS5 has helped keep PS4 titles selling, since you can still play them on the PS5.
Arrogant Sony is back and unfortunately it's going to take a couple years of Microsoft gaining ground for them to change their tune.
I think he's absolutely right. The current model is working perfectly, whereas the game pass model is still unproven in the long run. We'll have to see how things shape up for both Sony and Microsoft.
Lets be frank. Sony wants the biggest possible profits on software. While MS trying something different with massive appeal and is helping grow their userbase. I personally believe a subscription service could absolutely fund major AAA games.
Of course it could. Just think of all the money they (and MS) are just printing with ease just by requiring a fee for online play. I'd imagine this creates tons of revenue which is fed back into the games. Another subscription tier on top of that just means more money.
You are correct too about Sony wanting as much profit on software as possible. That's why we see $70 titles and they supposedly don't allow retailers to discount their games as freely as they did last gen. For example all new games are about $10 off at retail at Walmart and sometimes Best Buy but Sony games never have this applied and it seemed to start this generation. Even Nintendo allows it.
Can't believe anyone would believe Ryan's Claim.
1st off he is a non stop liar - Like most of them......and So what, I'm supposed to trust him now all of a sudden. That's Funny.
2nd. Xbox has already proven that Day 1 Rental options are a success. I point directly to Forza Horizon 5, where over 1 million players pre-ordered the game to play early, and that doesn't even count Forza's; Sales, subscription's, ongoing subscription to keep playing the game, DLC's, Car Packs......your also seeing play time and engagement get a massive upswing which makes the game even more profitable.
Don't see Jim Lying mention any of this.
And when Starfield releases on Game Pass, it will obliterate this nonsense from Jim Ryan that you can't be successful/make profit/ or be able to fund new game development because of a Rental option on day 1.
I'll be back here when that day will come.
Logical explanation.
They cost way more money, duh. GAAS for these would substantially lower the quality.
But Sony is making 9 more GAAS titles
Not that hard to understand what he means.. why go the extra mile
A gamepas game that gets 20 mill players day one, and soon gets replaced with other games.. or a game that people choose.. save up for/gift and PAY for.
Other than sales numbers, how would releasing games on day 1 on your own service hurt the quality of your own first party games?
He said it very clearly, the money they invest to make the games wouldn't be the same because the revenue would be lower so the quality would drop.
That's honestly surprising considering how much revenue SIE brings in every year. I guess it really is a matter of Microsoft just having substantially deeper pockets than Sony does.
I do wonder if Sony will have their GAAS titles included on their service day 1 though.
Sony make that revenue by selling the games, if they were given on the service they wouldn't make that revenue, that is his point =p
I would expect their GAAS titles to be there day one, at least those would come earlier than the rest.
In 2021, 32% of Sony's revenue came from Addon content, MTXs, DLCs, etc. The revenue coming from Full game sales was just 19%
Umm.. most of Sony's profits come from their Online network. All Jim is doing is trying to justify the quick gains. MS was the best publisher last year while heavily supporting GamePass, if anything MS improved its game quality not reduced it.
Halo Infinite and Forzá Horizon 5 say otherwise. Plus didn't MS get some award for having the highest overall. Score on all their new releases this year? All day 1. Not sure how Sony couldn't reinvest money from profits from a subscription service. Even steaming services are dominating the academy awards now. I call greed on Sony's part
Halo Infinite biggest focus is Multiplayer, so that alone already put it on a completely different ballpark from Sony putting their first party titles on the service.
And will we pretend that GP is the pocket that is paying for MS acquisition and investment? From all we know it isn't even breaking even yet.
Halo Infinite still delivered a fantastic SP campaign though with the only true complaint being lack of co op. And since the campaign was released as a 60 usd game while the MP is F2P even without gamepass...Halo Campaign can be viewed as its own project.
I have no complaints about the campaign, which was the main point since it's treated as it's own product. It was a great campaign that was a lot of fun to 100%
Plus you’re forgetting, since the MP is FTP, it isn’t a reason to get on Game Pass since all you have to do is download it. The campaign would’ve been the reason to get on Game Pass, and they nailed it.
That 3500 is steam only, doesn't cover X1 and Series X. It is low as hell on PC, but you cannot take steam alone at face value for the entire game duebto multiple playforms.
They are dropping the ball on multiplayer, which forge is a part of. Not denying that.
My point is that the Campaign, which by itself is a 60 dollar release, was a complete quality single player experience. The only thing it is missing is co op. I keep the multiplayer seperate because it is F2P, and therefore kind of its own entity.
Its a F2P Game. It costs Zero dollars to download and play the full experience.
You can play Halo multiplayer without paying ONE cent. Are you able to say the same about GT7 multiplayer, or any other multiplayer from Sony ?
Don, GP is profiting, MS wont announce it because corps don't like announcing profits via subscriptions. It will be a killjoy when they try to raise the price in the future. Some insider said that GP is doing good (Profit wise) and didn't give actual figures, said, you can do the maths yourself. Which is basically saying, GP is earning MS billions in revenue if you actually do the maths.
You also ignored Soonerman question of MS being the best publisher last year while supporting GP. When Jim says this affects quality, just look how well Xbox is doing.
Not really, from what I remember they said at most was that it was sustainable. And Sony gives you the number of PS+ subs plus how much they earn through it.
I guess MS also don't give number of sales of Xbox and SW because companies don't release those as well right?
Sustainable is a light way of saying they are profiting. They wouldn't be doing GP if it wasn't profitable.
Does MS announce their profits from Gold Live members? Can you find it for me.
Sure, I can totally see how that $70 price tag helped GT7 to be better than FH5.
Don, the investment into Sony games is up to Sony and not the service. Jim is basically saying, if we plan on putting these games on our service day one, than we will lower the budgets for those games because.. greed.
Sony can easily put their games on the service just like MS are doing and make the money back via subs which works out to be more profitable long term. Sony is far from a poor corporation and can sacrifice the short term game for the long term gain.
Remember this is coming from a guy who said no one wants to play retro games anymore.
Nope. Investment on gaming is from gaming budget, and the revenue it generates. The way you say seems like an admission that you know GP isn't profiting when you consider the cost to develop the games and purchase the content.
Sony is a multi billion dollar corp, which its gaming division since the PS4 has been making more money than Xbox and most other brands in the industry yet you believe Jim's excuse of quality falling off due to budget constraints? Give me a break.
The real reason behind Jim's excuses is "We will be making money but we just wont be making more money than we can" Sony want to sell their games at the full $70 prices. So they are offering older games on the service, allows Sony to charge their customers $70 and years later they will dump those games on the service where they already milked their audience that full price.
This is so foreseeable, i am surprised you don't see it. Sony's budgets isn't that much different to Xbox yet here we are, Xbox doing this perfectly fine, that fine that MS are allowing Xbox to buy juggernaut publishers.
I agree mostly with you for the top half. The bottom half is questionable. Xbox games sell well and its never not worked for them. The issue is people compare PS and Xbox numbers and forget the size of the console user base. The more customers at your door step the more sales are generated. Thats not entirely the softwares fault. Its obviously also a case by case as some games can hike up the mountain etc.
The reason MS are going this route is because they see an even better financial return than before, thats why they are the one of the richest brands in the world. They chase the best financial gains. Same with Apple.
Without Gamepass you don't believe Xbox 1st party releases would have improved? I see it as learning from previous games, 343 in particular and Microsoft pumping more money in Xbox.
I think if Sony did offer 1st party games day 1 on the service they would take a huge hit. Their games cost $100s of millions and probably don't believe it's worth it (right now at least). Although I do see your point, Xbox reported 25 million Gamepass subscribers so let's assume they all are on the lowest tier which is $10 per month.
So assuming subscriber numbers don't decrease, they should expect at least $3 billion in revenue in a year. Then taking into account 1st/2nd party game development costs, paying 3rd party developers and other costs, it could seem viable for Sony to do it but they don't have the deep pockets Microsoft does.
Problem is from what we know the 25M is the number of people that subbed to GP not it concurrent number os subs.
So what you want us to believe is that Ryan is lying and his company would actually make more money from following GP but they don't want to? Or are you saying that the developers and the company in general should take a revenue cut so you can get games for cheaper?
So why not do that then? Why would Ryan lie if at the end of the day they could offer a better service and not lose any money? It doesn't make sense.
TLDR: if they followed your proposition they would make less money and that could impact the quality of what they do, but you still think that would be the best option for them, to make less profit? Sound advice.
You make a title that sold at least on 40 average to 20, then you include the price of the basic tier on the added revenue.... you really beat the math bad to met your argument.
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