Jim Ryan is Stepping Down as PlayStation CEO, to Retire in March 2024 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 October 2023 / 4,398 Views
PlayStation President and CEO Jim Ryan is stepping down and will retire in March 2024 after nearly 30 years working at PlayStation, announced Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) in a press release.
Sony COO and CFO Hiroki Totoki will take on the role of Charmain of PlayStation in October and on April 1, 2024 he will become the interim CEO of PlayStation.
Ryan joined Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (later renamed to Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe) in 1994 and has since held multiple senior positions including the President of SIEE, the head of Global Sales and Marketing at SIE and Deputy President of SIE since January 2018, before being promoted to SIE President and CEO.
"After 30 years, I have made the decision to retire from SIE in March 2024," said Ryan in a statement. "I’ve relished the opportunity to have a job I love in a very special company, working with great people and incredible partners. But I’ve found it increasingly difficult to reconcile living in Europe and working in North America.
"I will leave having been privileged to work on products that have touched millions of lives across the world; PlayStation will always be part of my life, and I feel more optimistic than ever about the future of SIE. I want to thank Yoshida-san for placing so much trust in me and being an incredibly sensitive and supportive leader."
Sony Group Corporation Chairman and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida added, "Jim Ryan has been an inspirational leader throughout his entire period with us, but never more so than in overseeing the launch of PlayStation 5 in the midst of the global COVID pandemic. That extraordinary achievement made by the entire SIE team has been steadily built on and PlayStation 5 is on track to become SIE’s most successful console yet. I’m immensely grateful to Jim for all his achievements.
"Respecting Jim’s decision to finish his long career at Sony leaves me with an important decision regarding his succession given the significance of the Game & Network Services business. We have discussed intensively and have determined the new management structure. We aim to achieve Sony Group’s further evolution and growth through bringing even greater success to the Game & Network Services Business."
Totoki stated, "I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Jim Ryan for his outstanding achievements and contributions over his 30-year career at Sony, including the great success of launching the PlayStation 5. The PlayStation business managed by SIE is an essential part of Sony Group’s entire business portfolio. I will work with Jim and the senior management team closely to ensure our continued success and further growth. I am also looking forward to creating the exciting future of PlayStation and the game industry together with everyone at SIE and its business partners."
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 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Good. Never liked this guy.
Pour the champagne.
WAHOO! LET'S PARTAY!
Good riddance
Bring back Shawn Layden please!
I must say I only view this as a good thing for PlayStation. He was leading them down a terrible path of live service game focus.
thank the lord! finally get this man and his GAAS plans out of here
The live service stuff isn't going away. They spent like $4 billion buying studios that want to work on live service titles.
They won't do away with GaaS entirely, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see the new head dial back the number of GaaS projects. Under Ryan, most of the 2nd half of this generation was shaping up to be GaaS multiplayer from Sony's first party with games like Concord (Firewall), Fairgame$ (Haven), Marathon and the new GaaS IP Matter said to be due out by 2025 (Bungie), and the long rumored but as yet unannounced standalone TLOU 2 MP game. Probably the only singleplayer 1st party games from Sony in the 2nd half of this gen are going to be Wolverine (Insomniac), something from Sucker Punch (Tsushima 2?), and something from Bluepoint.
I think it is safe to say that Ryan was pushing way too hard on GaaS focus for Sony. If Concord and Fairgame$ flop, which seem like definite possibilities given their poor reception on announce, Sony may want to refocus those 2 studios on singleplayer games. Bungie can more than carry the GaaS torch for Sony on their own between Marathon reboot as a MP game, the new IP Matter due out by 2025, and the very likely in development Destiny 3.
So Sony putting the same amount of money into traditional gaming for 2024 and forward means we will get a lot less games? That is kinda odd.
I think your average GaaS game is faster to make than the kind of large, high budget singleplayer games that Sony often specializes in. That is probably part of the reason why Ryan was pushing GaaS so hard, trying to speed up Sony's 1st party release schedule.
Yes, for sure Destiny have been a lot faster to develop than Astro playroom =p
I mean Bungie is one that takes a longer time to develop their games. But Fairgame$ for instance only began development in 2021 and has already been announced. Bluepoint and Sucker Punch started on their next games in late 2020, and Bend started on their next game in 2021, and none of those games have been announced yet.
I think your average GaaS game only takes about 3-4 years to develop, only the large scale MMO like ones such as Bungie's new IP Matter or Zenimax Online's new IP Project Kestrel take longer. Singleplayer games, especially those with the large AAA scale that Sony likes to make, are more like 5-6 years for sequels and 7-8 years for new IP's these days.
You are just making assumptions. A game being GAAS or SP doesn't determine it will be fast or slow to make. Faction 2 have been in development for over 4 years as well from all we know.
There is some truth to what Shikamaru is saying. But we can't really compare individual games.
But the key thing is that there's less need for a GAAS to be feature complete. They can spend more time post launch updating things; which isn't the norm in the single player space.
True that GAAS will see evolution during its lifetime. Still it will keep those devs occupied after release for much more time than a regular game, also you can't launch the game barebones as that would make it DOA.
It's part that, and part that the industry as a whole has a lot of live service successes.
Epic Games is pretty much built on Fortnite. Square Enix is pushed along by Final Fantasy XIV. MiHoYo has an absolutely absurd profit margin in large part because of Genshin Impact. Take Two has GTA Online.
Despite vocal skepticism and notable failures, a lot (most?) of the biggest games in the world are based on the live service model.
I would say you're missing quite a lot.
A lot of the big studios have multiple sets of directors.
Santa Monica announced that Cory Barlog wasn't on God of War Ragnarok, and that he has been working on his own game.
Guerrilla Games has 3 separate teams (multiplayer, single player, an engine team).
Naughty Dog has 3 sets of directors. The TLOU 2 MP isn't a rumor, ND shared a concept art. But they also have at least one other single player game, possibly two.
Smaller games: Firesprite is working on a horror game, Team Asobi is working on an Astro game, Bluepoint as you mentioned, Housemarque as well.
Man this guy. It was only a matter of time. Im sure his "difficult to reconcile living in Europe and working in North America" is his main reason for leaving :-D :-D what a shitty excuse. Well it looks like sony plans on branding out into Game & Network Services business. What does that mean GaaS?. If thats the case maybe Ryan should of stayed...
"Well it looks like sony plans on branding out into Game & Network Services business."
That's just what they call the segment that Sony Interactive Entertainment operates in.
From the statements the company and Jim have released this sounds like a mutually amicable retirement rather than anything serious.
I think his tenure will ultimately be remembered positively. Maybe not the best PlayStation boss ever, but he kept the ship steady and wasn’t really responsible for any truest terrible decisions that will do lasting damage.
Some gotta support and defend their lord and savior to the ends of the earth xD from a business perspective, the guy did what he was supposed to do and no one can argue with that. His legacy though will be everything that releases within the next few years.
Not sure how anyone can defend sony's recent release schedule. 3 games released in the last 12 months. 1 cross gen, 1 vr exclusive and 1 yearly sports game released on everything. Compared to sony's ps3 and ps4 output that is pitiful. On ps4 we were getting big AAA new ips almost every year now we haven't had a new ip in since returnal I think which was not exactly a AAA release.
Definitely can't defend that. Jim was a corporate numbers suit, and as far as Sony is concerned, Jim brought in the revenue during his tenure. How he brought in that revenue, I doubt they care much.
Curious to see who is going to take over and what direction he will direct Playstation into. I think there is a good chance Herman Hust will be it.
They need Kaz back
Put crazy Ken back as well =p and double Kazunori PD team.
His lying and crying could only go so far.
And people are happy? Lol. Why, not enough sony exclusives come out? Not enough variety?
Yes, yes and yes
Come on Sarah Bond to replace him!
She doesnt even work at Sony so i dont get this?.
Oh. Unless this is a sarcastic post about how Sony guys used to be like Replace Phil with Sarah, but instead its their guy getting replaced?. Otherwise im not sure what you mean?.
Have Sony poach Sarah to replace Ryan lol
I doubt that would happen though. She's clearly being groomed to be Phil's eventual replacement.
Now that would be some mind boggling stuff lol Honestly wouldnt blame them if they tried to she is great.
Yeah I was more half kidding,. It certainly wouldn't hurt to see if you could poach her, especially if she is worried Matt Booty may be next in line at Xbox.
Plot twist. Reggie takes over PlayStation!
HYPE!
Don’t believe the retire BS, Jim Ryan was forced out by Sony. He was a constant lying disgrace which massively damaged Ryan & Sony reputation. That a clown like Ryan was in charge of Sony in the 1st place is ridiculous.
Good riddance too. Someone like Layden & who is a gamer needs to be the head of Sony.
Considering how integral Ryan was with establishing the PS brand in EU, I don't think it's surprising that he was able to get the CEO position.
His own policies and leadership style will be remembered infamously among those who followed this post of the industry. But PS is currently as strong as it's ever been. So it hasn't been all doom and gloom under him
But I look forward to someone better hopefully taking over.
The vast majority of people don't care about Jim Ryan's "lying".
He is making record profits for the division and is at retirement age. You don't want to believe just because you don't like him.
