He also closed a load of studios, including the dismantlement of Japan Studio. But sure, let's talk about revisionism:
Studios acquired under his watch both overseeing SCE Europe and SIE
- Bluepoint games
- Firesprite and Fabrik
- Haven Studios
- Housemarque
- Insomniac (though the acquisition was more than likely underway before him)
- Neon Koi
- Valkyrie Entertainment
Studios closed under his watch both overseeing SCE Europe and SIE
- Bigbig studios
- Evolution Studios
- Guerrilla Cambridge
- Japan Studio
- Manchester Studio
- PixelOpus
- Studio Liverpool
Just by looking at the above, what can be said is that he closed studios that actually released games and bought either support studios, or studios that have released fuck all. Let's not even talk about failed projects like their partnership with Deviation.
But that's not all. Under his watch, PS Studios made a pivot to Live Service games, which has caused this generation to have FEWER PS Studios exclusives than last gen. Shall we begin?
The final point brings me to something that many of us
doomers spoke about: That a live service game takes massive amounts of resources, and that a studio would essentially have to dedicate all of its resources to that same game. Looking at the above, it's no wonder that Sony has had fuck all to show for a while, and I wouldn't be surprised if Guerrilla is turned into a live service studio as an example.
But lets talk about released games, those that people are praising him for! Let's remember,
doomers have said plenty of times that once the existing pipeline of games dried up they would have fuck all to show.
Every single game released by PS Studios since the PS5 released has been in development since before Jim Ryan became CEO. Worse, we're in 2024, getting close to 4 years from the console being released, and they have no PS Studios games being released this year (other than the ones they
publish). That is, other than live service.
I also find it incredibly amusing that Playstation's revenue and profits growth are attributed to him, when the brand had been growing pretty much non-stop since 2014.
Finally, let's just discuss briefly their failed PC port strategy that not only led to miserable sales, but is also leading to the devaluation of the Playstation brand. Playstation have released more PC ports this generation than actual first party games. Not only that, but their online strategy treats console players as second class citizens that have to pay for online, while people on PC get online for free (and can cheat on games as well, as demonstrated by Helldivers 2).
People can deny it, but the
Jim Ryan effect is so notorious that they
missed their sales forecast by 4 million consoles, or 16%!
Playstation literally caused Sony's profitability to fall due to their failed policies. This just goes to show that once any existing pipeline and ideas (the PS5 is not even his creation) ran out, shit started falling.
Yes, you can argue that Totoki is going to be worse, but the only reason the bean counter took over after Jim Ryan was "retired" is because his policies failed, and despite taking over a brand that was growing massively, he managed to fuck up their profit margins, miss sales targets, and fuck with the prestige and pipeline of their studios.
So far these pesky doomers have been right:
- Their pipeline is fucked and they have little to show due to that
- Their sales target is absurd and is going to fail
- Console sales will be affected by their PC port strategy
- Live service games require massive amounts of resources and can literally take over entire studios
He was a trash CEO! Always was trash and always will be! Obviously he's better than Phil Spencer....but since when is that prick the standard of a good CEO?!? Totoki being worse doesn't mean Jim was suddenly good 
Jim created that perception of PlayStation....
