Do you think SIE leadership are imcompetent?

[Johnic]

Incompetent is a bit of an exaggeration. An incompetent leadership doesn't break records.

But it's important to note that a lot of what is happening today is a setup from last gen. We've yet to see a PS under full Ryan leadership.

But I'll tell you this much. It's my least favorite leadership. They've made some major mistakes since the gen started.

- Wanted to kill the legacy titles by closing the PS3 store. In an industry where your biggest rival does bc well, it was a major blow.

- They were the ONLY company that charges $10 for upgrades. It got so bad that they tried going back on their word with Horizon, but with enough fan pressure they reverted their decision and Forbidden West got a free upgrade. It was the last one to get that. No other publisher, outside of Nintendo and their full price bs, are charging for upgrades. Capcom released 3 of these upgrades in a single day.

- No marketing whatsoever. They invest in individual game marketing with billboards and trains but have zero media presence. They let misinformation fester when a single, simple statement could dispel any doubts. Neither Ryan nor Hurst have charisma like previous PS heads.

- And last but certainly not the least, they're complacent. They're INCREDIBLY slow to answer any competitor moves. They've lost partners and whole publishers and did nothing to counter that and secure IPs. No, Sony can't do what Nintendo does and exist with just their 1st party IPs. PS requires a MUCH bigger budget to operate and wouldn't be able to sustain the current quality without 3rd party support.

 

[Jivesh1995]

More like complacent

 

[FatKaz]

- No marketing whatsoever. They invest in individual game marketing with billboards and trains but have zero media presence. They let misinformation fester when a single, simple statement could dispel any doubts. Neither Ryan nor Hurst have charisma like previous PS heads.

The only reason alot of you are hung up on sony not having any media presence is because you hang out too much on social media, and get frustrated with MS shills running rampant which does absltuley zero for the brand. No doubt sonys marketing could be improved and by media do you mean much wider then social? Because if so that is complete nonsense, they market where it matters e.g. champions league marketing.

Sonys job is not to dispel nonsense being spouted by shills, it's not sonys job to make folks feel better by fighting battles they want to get involved in with shills.

 

[Johnic]

The only reason alot of you are hung up on sony not having any media presence is because you hang out too much on social media, and get frustrated with MS shills running rampant which does absltuley zero for the brand. No doubt sonys marketing could be improved and by media do you mean much wider then social? Because if so that is complete nonsense, they market where it matters e.g. champions league marketing.

Sonys job is not to dispel nonsense being spouted by shills, it's not sonys job to make folks feel better by fighting battles they want to get involved in with shills.

It's not about that. I don't have Twitter and the only sites I visit are this one and occasionally reddit these days. But I do follow gaming news and I see no presence from Sony. They're not engaging with their core fanbase at all.

Sony's job isn't to reply to shill posts but it should be their job to at least take care of their reputation. Here's a perfect example of the sheer incompetence of their marketing department.

The CMOS battery issue was a big deal. It was on every gaming media site and was presented as a very bad thing. And it was. Sony was rightfully bashed. Fast forward a few weeks and they actually fixed that issue. That was a major thing. Guess what. No official statement, no media presence. They let their reputation go down and when they had a chance to repair some of it, they did nothing. That's PR 101. It was a free PR move and they didn't take it. Any company would use it to their advantage.

 

[FatKaz]

It's not about that. I don't have Twitter and the only sites I visit are this one and occasionally reddit these days. But I do follow gaming news and I see no presence from Sony. They're not engaging with their core fanbase at all.

What you want is sony to be in the constant news cycle like MS, doing useless shit around the clock that makes absoltuley no impact.

When sony has news to share it nearly always has massive impact.

While the showcase didn't land, when they announced that shit it spread like fire. Spiderman 2 is blowing up on youtube and the acessories are selling out like to the point where peope are scalping it. They know what works and no doubt there are areas they can do better,they don't need to follow failed strategies of other companes to make people feel better. Microsofts marketing department are full of clowns like aaron greenberg who can't do their job so they rely on shills in the media or randoms to do his job.

Sony's job isn't to reply to shill posts but it should be their job to at least take care of their reputation. Here's a perfect example of the sheer incompetence of their marketing department.

The CMOS battery issue was a big deal. It was on every gaming media site and was presented as a very bad thing. And it was. Sony was rightfully bashed. Fast forward a few weeks and they actually fixed that issue. That was a major thing. Guess what. No official statement, no media presence. They let their reputation go down and when they had a chance to repair some of it, they did nothing. That's PR 101. It was a free PR move and they didn't take it. Any company would use it to their advantage.

Whilst the CMOS battery issue technically was a big deal it wasn't effecting any users, why would they put out a statement on an issue basically no one is facing?

They fixed it and that's all that needed to be done.

 

[Nhomnhom]

The fact that you didn't even include an option for people to tell they are doing great says everything.

Hulst sucks, reminds me of Phil Spencer when he had the same position at MS. Dude just coast on past success.

Jim Ryan is at best John Kodera 2.0, likely worse. He chose Hulst, Sony has had worse communication than ever, they went all in on GaaS and PC.

Sony just happened to already have a great hardware team and great studios. Insomniac was something that was already set up by the previous administration. Bluepoint and Housemarque, the only other decent acquisitions, were also just small long time partners.

Haven, Firewalk, Firesprite, Valkyre, Nixxes, were all on Jim/Hulst and so were closing down Japan Studio without acquiring any other Japanese studio to compensate. I think they also killed Media Molecule, it's just a matter of time now.

 

[Yurinka]

Another laughable spam thread of nonsensical and childish hate.

The facts say the total opposite: they are super successful and that every year they break gaming history records, the opposite of being incompetent.

This thread should be merged with the 200 other threads about the same topic.

 

[Darth Vader]

Jim Ryan has been with PlayStation since the ps1 days, stop acting like hisba new hire. His a businessman and his doing a good job.

A lot better than Phil spencer who has the backing of a 2 trillion dollar company.

Phil Spencer being awful doesn't mean Jim is less incompetent

I think people really don't understand how badly COVID affected development pipelines. Games that came out at the height of the pandemic and shortly after were almost done.

For utter mismanagement, see Xbox's 2022 output:
Nothing

Without their purchase of Zenimax, they wouldn't have anything this year, either.

The COVID excuse is always fun. How many games do they have announced for next year? Zero. Nada. Fuck all. Except live service shit, is what their studios are now stuck working on and people refuse to acknowledge that.

 

[Darth Vader]

Another laughable spam thread of nonsensical and childish hate.

The facts say the total opposite: they are super successful and that every year they break gaming history records, the opposite of being incompetent.

This thread should be merged with the 200 other threads about the same topic.

The facts are that they are releasing very little while losing key partnerships. I don't play records, I play games. You on the other hand seem to love playing records

 

[Yurinka]

How many games do they have announced for next year? Zero. Nada. Fuck all.

Lies, they have many exclusive games announced for this or next year. Or as TBA but that several of them will be released next year. Plus unannounced games that will be released next year.

The facts are that they are releasing very little while losing key partnerships. I don't play records, I play games. You on the other hand seem to love playing records

Lies, don't be a flatearther.

Very recently in the span of a around year released HFW, GT7, MLB, TLOUP1, GoWR or Horizon CoM, plus like half a dozen PC ports plus like a dozen emulated classics, released PSVR2 and the big PS+ overhaul. Plus they also had many great 3rd party games, both AAA and indie, released with different types of exclusivity deals. If you don't see a big output there you have serious issues accepting reality.

They also mentioned made a record investment in both 2nd and 3rd party deals for this generation, higher than they ever did before, to ensure that PS5 will have more exclusives than any other PS had before. The only partership they did lose was the CoD marketing and was because MS is buying them, not because of Sony's fault. And they have deals with a ton of people more, a record amount as I mentioned, so who cares if one of them drops.

 

[Systemshock2023]

He is riding the ps4 coat-tails. I think his PC porting initiative is great in spirit (if a bit flawed in execution ) despite hearing a couple of warriors/fanboys whining here and there.

He screwed up the cloud gaming initiative. PS now never took off and should be an even better alternative to xcloud solely based on the massive back catalog of IP Sony built through the years.

Pushing for some MP Gaas makes sense but not at the expense of your tried and true SP studios.

Project Q is terrible. PSVR2 is a valiant effort but the market is not there yet.

 

[Yurinka]

He screwed up the cloud gaming initiative. PS now never took off and should be an even better alternative to xcloud solely based on the massive back catalog of IP Sony built through the years.

PSVR2 is a valiant effort but the market is not there yet.

After merging PS Now+PS Plus, so improving its offerings and catalog with newer and bigger games, they are getting record revenue from game subs (the cloud tier almost triplied its userbase in less than a year), even if they already were way higher than the MS ones before merging the services.

PSVR2 had a better launch window lineup and sales than PSVR1, still not mainstream at all but an improvement.

We know that they are working to bring their cloud gaming to mobile and that have many related mobile specific patents, and also know that soon you'll be able to stream (at least some) games that you bought digitally on PS (not the ones included in the sub).

Like VR, Cloud gaming is still a small, relatively nascent market with potential for the future. So they keep innovating there and building a tech, catalog, knowledge, working experience and userbase to keep them as the best positioned to continue being the AAA game subs market leader if somewhere in the future market conditions change and cloud gaming -or AAA VR- can go mainstream.

Pushing for some MP Gaas makes sense but not at the expense of your tried and true SP studios.

They aren't doing it at the expense of the SP studios/games. They will increase their investment on GaaS more, but they also will increase their investment on non-GaaS games, which will continue being the majority of their lineup.

They also heavily grew -and continue growing- all their SP studios, acquired more SP studios and acquired support and porting teams to support them.

 

[Bryank75]

they arent doing great but incompetent is too strong a word.
Positives:
-Able to stop gamepass momentum in its tracks mostly and turn the tables with PS+ rebranding, they did an excellent job at counterpunching
-Did what they could to slow down the ABK acquisition.
-Made some good acquisitions including Housemarque and Bluepoint, as well as Bungie. Other acquisitions are promising but jury's still out.
-Responded proactively to MS moves by securing 3rd party deals, although quality was somewhat lacking - overall MS 3rd party games weren't as strong as Sony's
-PSVR2
-Managed to produce and ship several GotY-caliber console games through the pandemic with minimal losses to quality control
Negatives:
-Disagreeable outlook on future investment splits regarding GAAS games vs single player games
-Very weak and inconsistent corporate messaging; several unforced errors by Jim regarding PR ($10 upgrades, cross-gen, etc) and an inability to correct the record in a timely manner
-Lack of communication with the fanbase regarding future first party game content
-Perceived lack of investment in featurre development for the ps5; no browser or folders or themes, lack of things like custom plates
-Qlite
-PCport initiative is out of touch with what the PC gaming ecosystem is li

Excellent summary, I feel very much like this...

It's not a disaster but their decisions and strategy have been a mixed bag that have me questioning them all the time.

A few small changes would make me much happier with them. Just stop PC ports and get Nixxes and others working on PS3 ports and upgrades, so it adds value to PS5 instead of reducing the uniqueness.

Better communication... as you say, someone like Gio Corsi or someone similar, maybe Adam Boyes would add a lot.

Better understanding of the fanbase.

Better showcases or a full PSX live event.

Importantly, and as you already said, the budgets for GAAS and single player games needs to be rebalanced. Single player games need to be a focus and GAAS needs to have a few high quality attempts in development but not an over-commitment. Which is what it looks like now.

 

[Bryank75]

The fact that you didn't even include an option for people to tell they are doing great says everything.

Hulst sucks, reminds me of Phil Spencer when he had the same position at MS. Dude just coast on past success.

Jim Ryan is at best John Kodera 2.0, likely worse. He chose Hulst, Sony has had worse communication than ever, they went all in on GaaS and PC.

Sony just happened to already have a great hardware team and great studios. Insomniac was something that was already set up by the previous administration. Bluepoint and Housemarque, the only other decent acquisitions, were also just small long time partners.

Haven, Firewalk, Firesprite, Valkyre, Nixxes, were all on Jim/Hulst and so were closing down Japan Studio without acquiring any other Japanese studio to compensate. I think they also killed Media Molecule, it's just a matter of time now.

I'd have taken Japan Studio well before all of those studios put together......

Hulst hasn't tweeted or posted on social media since the Showcase. Where the fuck are these people? Too busy sailing on their yachts, it seems.

 

[Papacheeks]

First the GAAS shit

Now they could potentially losing out some important partners.

Meanwhile Sony just sit their idly and do nothing. Do you think SIE right now are competent enough, or we need to bring people like Andrew House, Kaz Hirai back?

You should do some research before making threads.

And I don't mean that in a bad way. I think you could have put more info in your thread to back up your point.


To your thread, Sony have a great relationship with Malaysian studios who now are the talk of up and coming sector for developers. Sony knew this way back in PS4 era when they started a outreach program.
MiHoYo has a good relationship with Sony. And Sony's outreach program for Chinese developers has bared some amazing fruit. Genshin Impact made more money in their quarter than Nintendo/Sony did most of the year in profits!

Sony being close with them, and also using Aniplex for anime's that MihoYo want to turn their properties into are being done through Sony's anime companies. On top of there being some talks of MiHoYo working with fate and grand order developers as producers.
Sony has been behind the scenes these last couple years making plays for long term as the industry for entertainment being something that has almost collapsed under streaming.
Sony being smarter did not put all their properties into their own money sink streaming service. Instead are just making shit tons of money pimping them out to competition for Billions.

What does this have to do with Playstation? Basically Sony has slowly become the anime company for Japan. So there for collaborations with companies like From Software, like MiHOYo, like Square Enix dont stop at Video games.
Sony is going to be fine.

Playstataion is going to be fine. And the leadership making these plays are all under Jim Ryan who has been with Sony for a long ass time. Dude knows how to make money.

Twisted Metal series is a hit, so that bolds well for the game in terms of popularity.

 

[Fenton]

Console is their priority, but Sony wants to make some revenue from other segments also. There is money that can be made from PC and mobile.

 

[Nhomnhom]

He is riding the ps4 coat-tails. I think his PC porting initiative is great in spirit (if a bit flawed in execution ) despite hearing a couple of warriors/fanboys whining here and there.

He screwed up the cloud gaming initiative. PS now never took off and should be an even better alternative to xcloud solely based on the massive back catalog of IP Sony built through the years.

Pushing for some MP Gaas makes sense but not at the expense of your tried and true SP studios.

Project Q is terrible. PSVR2 is a valiant effort but the market is not there yet.

Sony cloud play should've involved Google or Amazon but what we actually got was Sony CEO courting MS as if Sony was just a third party publisher that does not compete directly with MS.

Excellent summary, I feel very much like this...

It's not a disaster but their decisions and strategy have been a mixed bag that have me questioning them all the time.

A few small changes would make me much happier with them. Just stop PC ports and get Nixxes and others working on PS3 ports and upgrades, so it adds value to PS5 instead of reducing the uniqueness.

Better communication... as you say, someone like Gio Corsi or someone similar, maybe Adam Boyes would add a lot.

Better understanding of the fanbase.

Better showcases or a full PSX live event.

Importantly, and as you already said, the budgets for GAAS and single player games needs to be rebalanced. Single player games need to be a focus and GAAS needs to have a few high quality attempts in development but not an over-commitment. Which is what it looks like now.

GaaS investment shouldn't come at the cost of decreasing the growth in investment for traditional games.

The same goes for PC ports, there wasn't a sizeble increase in budget to account for the added responsibilities, what we got was ND wasting manpower porting and fixing their fucked up PC ports.

People are in denial that Sony sacrificed their pipeline of traditional games for GaaS and PC ports.

 

[Eternal_Wings]

You all know the answer, Jim Ryan is one of the worst CEOs ever. This obsession some people have with Jim Ryan is absolutely creepy. What does have Jim Ryan accomplished? For example see Japan/Asia this are deals which have been made by other competent people like Shuhei Yoshida, Christan Svensson and Keiichiro Urata. Jim Ryan does only care about one thing: Call of Duty and Heavy Hitter franchises. Do you really think Jim Ryan would care about charming Indie game like Stray, Cult of the Lambs or Japanese games like Octopath Traveler II? Nah keep it real, he only cares about profits. That’s why Japan Studio was closed. Something like Rise of Ronin or Lost Soul Aside would never have seen the light if not Shuhei have been there. He cried constantly for two years about COD. All big game announcements were kept at low flame even the PlayStation Showcase was intended to be low profile, for the sake of Activision Blizzard deal to fail. Same goes for Hermen Hulst, he only acquires useless studios which have their focus on GaaS. Haven is trash. Wasting resources for PC porting, for an ungrateful audience which even don’t buy these games. At best they buy them for peanuts from illegal key retailers or even pirate them. Wouldn’t have been Bungie’s revenue then Sony projected results would have been way worse for PC segment. Stop admiring Jim Ryan and Hermen Hulst. The sooner they get both sacked the better. Jim Ryan and Hermen Hulst can go to hell.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

The only reason alot of you are hung up on sony not having any media presence is because you hang out too much on social media, and get frustrated with MS shills running rampant which does absltuley zero for the brand. No doubt sonys marketing could be improved and by media do you mean much wider then social? Because if so that is complete nonsense, they market where it matters e.g. champions league marketing.

Sonys job is not to dispel nonsense being spouted by shills, it's not sonys job to make folks feel better by fighting battles they want to get involved in with shills.

I mean, we're enthusiasts. Of course we're online, and discuss a lot about gaming. So seeing that Microsoft controls so much of the narrative online would be noticeable and has become problematic. The thing is, it wasn't always this way; Sony DID have a direct line of communicating with the fans, with friendly, likeable faces and doing events for the fans (PlayStation Experience).

They stopped all of this some years ago and basically let Microsoft run rampant in the online enthusiasts and social media space as a result. It's how people like Phil Spencer have been able to build a false identity as the pro-consumer, totally-a-gamer "cool underdog CEO fighting to save his brand from industry injustices" of a persona virtually unchallenged among a lot of enthusiasts spaces and most of Western games media & content creators. Microsoft have co-opted a lot of these and it's led to generally worst discourse online among hobbyists.

That's a cultural aspect of gaming there; saying it doesn't matter is something I would disagree with. Does it matter as much as having strong traditional marketing? No, and Microsoft sucks ass with traditional marketing. But strong presence in online enthusiasts gaming media spaces does still matter; enthusiasts lap this stuff up and remember, it's enthusiasts who generally set the tone a lot of the larger casual and mainstream market may follow.

So if MS's mostly unchallenged presence in online enthusiasts areas with messaging and narrative control persists, and combined with actual things they're doing in the background like acquiring these publishers, that WILL influence a lot of enthusiasts to support more of the software as the generation goes on, and influence them to potentially switch to Xbox for the next generation. It's a long-term game Microsoft is playing for, here.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

the narrative that the success of the PS5 is basically on rails and that the leadership is doing nothing is the most laughable thing i keep hearing on here.

We’ve already seen major consoles manufacturers like Nintendo go from major success to major duds time after time, sony themselves went from selling 160m consoles to 90m and the psp to vita.

Nothing sells itself, the people at sie are busting ass competing against a strong nintendo and an empowered 2 trillion dollar microsoft this generation and they are sitll kicking their asses in GOTY caliber games and sales.

The only place where Sony is lacking is giving a good foresight/roadmap into the future of their catalogue, and more controller/plates.