I think its great to have customisable options to suit a wider variety of peoples preferences. Personally I don't really want Haptic feedback in menus, but maybe another finds it incredibly useful for whatever reason. I don't like Adaptive Triggers in general either as I don't want to be fighting the tension over hours of gaming which I find gets tiring and/or distracting and absolutely hate Gyro so I appreciate the 'options' to turn these off. Even the option to turn down the intensity of the Haptic Feedback gives users the option to tailor it to their own preference.
I don't mind the beep, but I also like the option to turn it off or reduce its volume. I much prefer having 'options', even if I myself will opt to turn features off as my 'preference', I appreciate the fact that people are different and being able to tweak things to suit their needs, situation, preference etc is more important than the features themselves in my mind.
A pessimist is just an optimist with experience!
Why can't life be like gaming? Why can't I restart from an earlier checkpoint??
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@JohnnyShoulder Same here, and I can't understand why people would say it's so loud it alerts the whole neighborhood. Sorry to use you as the example, @Th3solution.
It's fine that they give the option for people. That's a lot better than when they forced the activity cards onto everybody, taking away the game art as the background for games on the Home screen, and not giving people the option to change back. Unless I have gotten lucky, it seems to finally be reverted back in one of the last updates as Horizon Forbidden West no longer has stupid screenshots that were clearly made for the smaller cards and not as a background.
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@CaptD yeah I’d be happy with Shuhei for sure… or anyone that would be gamer-centric. Jim’s obviously been effective as far as the balance sheets go but there’s no denying that PlayStation (as a brand at least) has seemed a little sterile these past few years.
@colonelkilgore Definitely, some terrible price gouging at the expense of the brands reputation. You have N Dog floundering, scrapping years of work (apparently) all because of another studio saying "yeah it doesn't gouge enough". Seriously though I thought Druckmann only listened to himself.
Plus the Last of Us 1 cash grab (imo) and even if you ignore that aspect, the fact that it is £50 on steam (where Valhe take a massive cut) and £70 on PSN should tell you all you need to know.
I can see Herman going next, or certainly being put in a different role. All this GaaS stuff will be a big failure, I reckon Fairgame$ will never see the light of day.
All my opinion and I could be wrong but when you have to say to yourself "thank God for Insomniac" then you know not all is as it should be.
@CaptD yeah I highly doubt PlayStation will manage to find a ‘Fortnite’ during this GaaS push… and after a few years will hopefully return their focus to single-player blockbuster fare.
I do think the timing of Ryan’s retirement is a little odd. The overreactive fanbase (me included) tend to read too much into these things, but this seems a pivotal time for PlayStation with a pending ABK acquisition he’s been fighting, a new direction for the company with GaaS, and a series of unpopular decisions (PS+ price increase, underwhelming Showcase, closing down first party studios, etc, etc). So the skeptic in me wonders if he’s stepping down due to internal pressure from the Sony board or something.
On the other hand, PlayStation has never felt stronger. PS5 are selling at breakneck speeds, profitability sounds like it’s very high, and the competition is showing signs of desperation whilst trying to keep up. Perhaps now is as good a time as any to ride off into the sunset.
I suspect it’s a combination of both — I think everyone wants to retire or leave on their own terms. No one wants to be fired or asked to resign. If he leaves now before the ABK merger and the deluge of failing live service games occur, then he’ll be going out on top. He’s surely reading the tea leaves and knows that if he waits a year or two, it’s a crapshoot as to what the state of the brand will be.
Which, to be clear, I think the PlayStation brand will be fine in a year or two. Are most of the live service games going to fail? Yes, probably. Is Xbox going to gobble up a large chunk of market share when Acti-Bliz joins the party? Yes, almost certainly. But I think PlayStation will still thrive. I don’t agree with a lot of Ryan’s decisions, but I think he still leaves the company with a bright enough future that he can be happy with it.
Also, he’s not unilaterally making all this company’s strategic decisions. There’s a team involved, so we might not notice much change.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution Those are my exact thoughts, leave at the peak before the deluge of inevitable failures occur.
I had to laugh last night as I watching the PSVR without Parole podcast and one of the hosts said "how old is Jim, perhaps it is time to retire anyway" and one of the mods commented "he is 76".
I'm sitting here thinking I'm sure he is mid 50s or something, he certainly doesn't look 70 odd, anyway the hosts ran with it for quite a long time before various comments about him being 56 popped up.
@Th3solution Your comment is the first I've seen that's actually thought out. Everyone I've seen is just bashing on Jim for no reason. People just think he's the dictator of Playstation and what he says goes. I know people are upset about the PS Plus price increases, but all subscriptions are increasing right now.. It's called inflation.
I'm probably one of the few people who are looking forward to the live service games. In my opinion they are several years behind. Whether people like it or not live service is the future.. The profit margins of these single player narrative games are getting smaller and smaller. For Playstation to continue to thrive they need at least one of these live service games to be a hit or there could be serious changes at the company.
And sorry everyone, but he didn't close down any studios that mattered. If anyone actually cared about Japan Studio their games would have sold more.
@Th3solution You make some great points, though I would argue that the timing for Jim leaving might be the perfect time when you think we're nearing halfway through the PS5 cycle. Leaving not long into the pandemic wouldn't be ideal plus the whole expansion and acquisition of their 1st party studios.
Whereas now things are settled a lot more, most of their studios are set on their projects now, PSVR2 is out and the revamp of PS Plus.
That would leave his successor to carry on the work without needing to make big course corrections (barring some disaster) they then can oversee the launch of PS5 Pro to get experience of launching new hardware when the time comes for PS6.
@CaptD@YoureTooSlowBro@AdamNovice@Kidfried Appreciate all your insight as well. I think there’s indeed a point to be made that this mid console generation window is a good time to shift leadership. And it’s true that his role as a scapegoat will probably benefit the company, and the next PS boss can come in and be the redemptive hero.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Everyone I've seen is just bashing on Jim for no reason.
Well that's because there was so much bad news about PlayStation during the years 2020-2021 after he took the reins that people don't really have the time to write down all of it, lol. Here's a selection:
Shutting down Studio Japan and changing the focus of PlayStation from offering varied and creative experiences to narrative-driven titles and live service games across its studios:
Stating that Sony believes in generations (meaning they would focus on PS5-only titles) but still announcing cross-gen games for both PS4 and PS5 when they said they wouldn't after Microsoft announced they would release cross-gen games:
Of course, much has changed since then and you can argue against some of these points. But the point is that shortly after Jim Ryan took over the reins, there was always bad news coming from Sony for a long period. Always. It's just not possible to see Jim Ryan in a positive light when there was so much negative news coming from Sony while he was in charge.
In short, Jim Ryan has been nothing but a disaster for PlayStation. People keep stating that he ensured the success of the PS5. I don't agree with that when you consider that it was Shawn Layden who oversaw the majority of the project at the time while Jim Ryan took over at the tail-end of the project.
Speaking of Shawn Layden, this is something I came across while reading about him a while ago:
"Sony announced on September 30, 2019 that Layden was stepping down from CEO of SIE Worldwide Studios. Journalists at the time believed this may have been due to a result of an internal power struggle with SIE President Jim Ryan over the further restructuring and globalization of SIE. However, in September 2021, Layden stated he retired due to exhaustion, believing the launch of the PlayStation 5 was a "good time to put the pin in my legacy."
It honestly wouldn't surprise me if Jim Ryan was the cause of Shawn Layden leaving the company. Another bigwig also left the company at the time: Andrew House. I also recall Shuhei Yoshida being "demoted". These were all key people who contributed a lot to PlayStation over the years. You can tell how much PlayStation has changed since their departure/demotion and with Jim Ryan taking over.
So to hear that he's leaving the company is absolutely fantastic news! I love my PS5 but I haven't been as fond of PlayStation as a brand as I used to back during the PS4 days due to Jim Ryan's influence. Hopefully that will change now with his coming replacement.
@LtSarge I agree. As someone who has been a Playstation gamer since the first, even with the PS3 launch debacle, 3rd Party Ports and the PSN outage during that era, I never felt as disillusioned with Sony as I do now.
As you point out, the PS5 was well into development when Ryan took over and no doubt, so were the majority of 'new' 1st party games - like Spider-Man, H:FW, GT7 and even GoW:R were probably all greenlit and started before Jim Ryan took over. The charging of 'upgrades' and price increase specific to PS5 versions is just ridiculous - but then they couldn't 'sell' ports/remasters of Uncharted, Last of Us etc to bulk out their 'own' first party content.
The decisions and comments from Jim have really left me feeling like Sony is not a brand I want to be associated with, that I am nothing but a Revenue Cow to be milked. I know they must have games in development that I may want to play, but right now, once SM2 releases, the only Game I know of that I 'may' want to play is Wolverine - but as we haven't really seen that yet, I don't know if it will appeal, certainly not enough to justify spending £70 when I could wait a year or so and buy in a sale or even play on PC for a lot less.
Each to their own of course, but I was seriously considering my future on Playstation and felt like Sony were actively pushing me away under Jim. The grass isn't always greener on the other side, but the news of Jim's departure does give me 'hope' that Sony can win back my trust and belief in their future.
A pessimist is just an optimist with experience!
Why can't life be like gaming? Why can't I restart from an earlier checkpoint??
Feel free to add me but please send a message so I know where you know me from...
@Kidfried I doubt that - I bet both were in 'development' before Jim Ryan took over - especially GT7. We expected GoW:R in 2021 as they stated when it was 'first' revealed and GT7 was no doubt in to development as well - both built for PS4 and 'enhanced' for PS5. Both Studios were rumoured to be working on these games when Jim Ryan took over...
If not, what were they working on for that time before Jim Ryan took over?
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