Sony PlayStation Boss PS4
Image: Michael O'Donnell / Sony Interactive

Despite dominating the PlayStation 4 generation, Sony still hasn’t quite shaken off the shackles of the devastating PlayStation 3 era. Dare to enter any forum thread about the future of gaming, and you’ll find at least one post referring to the organisation’s “arrogance” or “hubris”. It seems that brand boss Jim Ryan’s been spending some of his time on ResetEra as well, because speaking with Wired, he’s revealed that he simply won’t allow complacency at the company.

“The track record of the incumbent platform winning the next time around is not a great one,” he admitted, referring to the fact successful consoles are often followed with flops. “So the major thrust of my executive energy is to avoid complacency.”

The thing is, for all the stick that Ryan receives online, Sony has been quietly cleaning up ahead of the next generation. Within the past year or so, it’s responded to dozens of lingering fan complaints, adding PlayStation Network name changes, enabling cross-play, and, more recently, reducing the price of PlayStation Now. The executive continued that, while he prefers to let his actions do the talking, he feels the firm needs to make a bit more noise about what it’s been up to.

“I typically prefer doing to talking,” he continued, “but I think we've been guilty of not talking enough about what we've done.” It’s a fair comment: Sony is still, at the time of writing, the only organisation to offer a cloud gaming solution – and yet its efforts in the space are often entirely ignored. The platform holder will hope that, with a new price point and some big blockbuster games available as part of it, its endeavours will no longer be overlooked.

[source wired.com]