Doing some numbers, I think Helldivers 2 will become profitable before the end of the current FY. If it's the case and gets good enough reviews, I assume Arrowhead could be their next acquisition, for a very small price (a small portion of the SIE profits of this year, plus a few coins Jimbo may have in the pocket). It would be announced somewhere in Late March / April, a few days before showing their FY numbers. Similar case to Housemarque or Bluepoint.
What in person events has Sony gone to since Jim Ryan announced his retirement? I’m not aware of any.
Regarding gaming, I think it was TGS, around the same days he announced his retirement:
https://4c281b16296b2ab02a4e0b2e3f7...tion/common/en/tgs2023_exhibitors_list_en.pdf
As usual they had their own booth and as usual funded the TGS indie area. Their next one will be CES, Sony had presence there every year since over 40 years ago.
Fair point. None of us probably really guessed they'd go get the X-Men license, but some were having fun predicting they could, like
@Danja1187 . I think myself and others are just looking for more communication from likeable faces within enthusiasts spaces, and some of the vindication (ignoring the crimes committed to do so) in some of these leaks is possibly in part over
finally knowing more on post-2023 plans that aren't 3P deals or GaaS/live-service.
I predicted that as Wolverine sequels they'd move to X-Men, but I thought that before moving to X-Men they'd made more than one Wolverine game. ;P
However, I'm hoping nothing like this hack ever happens in the future, but Sony/SIE at least are more communicative. 2020 and 2021 were great in that respect, so it just feels very cold how they scaled back massively in 2022 and 2023.
Sony had a ton of important releases in 2022 and 2023 regarding games (both 3P with deal+1P), expansions/important DLCs, hardware, services and accesories plus acquisitions or deals with 3Ps. So they focused their marketing on them during 2022 or 2023.
They also shared stuff for 2024 or beyond as Helldivers 2, Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin, Concord, Marathon, Death Stranding 2,Fairgame$, Wolverine and mentioned additional projects without properly showing them as TLOU Online, London Studio's new IP, Bend's new IP, next GoW set in a new mythology, Insomniac working on a MP game, Bungie's other project other than Marathon, ND working on at least 2 SP games, Media Molecule working on a non-Dreams (can't remember if they said it weren't going to be LBP too) game, some China Hero Projects, etc.
Now that they released all that 2022 and 2023, they'll move their focus to market stuff to be released during 2024 & early 2025. 1P games, big and small 3P games with deals, hardware (PS5 Pro), accesories (if they still have more stuff), services (PS+ improved maybe adding some extra perks and expanding it at least its cloud gaming to mobile and tvs), plus some acquisition, joint venture, 3P deal or new studio they may have.
With Jim Ryan gone, all the plans for Mobile and GaaS were scrapped.
Nothing leads to think it's the case, and would be an awful idea to reject the business model that generates the majority of gaming revenue and has the majority of players, and the platform that has the majority of players and generates the majority of game revenue.
Specially when every year addons (DLC/IAP/passes) revenue keeps replacing game sales revenue both in overall gaming and in consoles, and when mobile gaming in addition to be the biggest platform has also been the fastest growing one for over a decade.
Independently who the new CEO is, Sony will continue betting on expanding on console, PC, mobile, GaaS and movie/tv show adaptations plus in their game sub & cloud gaming. They need extra revenue because AAA games are getting too expensive, so need to reduce their risk as much as possible with extra revenue sources.
Some of these initiatives and related partnerships are also to grow on some countries/regions that are the biggest or fastest growing in gaming in terms of revenue and or number of players, such as China, India or LATAM. Which SIE defined as strategic and a good opportunity to grow.
Did you know that Finish/German Mobile Game Studio Savage, was restructured in a different company? They were renamed into NeonKoi, were they also shifted focus on console games.
It wasn't restructured, they were just rebranded some time after being acquired by Sony.
I swear some of you love to fall into doom & gloom mood. It’s the total opposite since Jim Ryan left SIE.
People continue with the doom & gloom mood, even if all data we have is super positive with many records being broken, and leads to be optimistic regaring SIE. Because they are not only performing super well, but during the Jimbo era they have been growing in many directions and investing in many areas, so in the next few years we'll start seeing the results of teams like Guerrilla, ND or SSM being expanded to be working on multiple games at the same time, plus acquisitions like Bungie, Housemaarque, Bluepoint or Firesprite as we saw with his first acquisition, Insomniac.
It’s highly likely the next CEO will be a Japanese person and it’s rumoured that region-based decisions will return.
Nobody rumored and won't happed because never changed. The SIE subsidiaries for America, Europe or Japan always took region specific decisions regarding deals with retailers and local PR & marketing, but since always have been regional subsidiaries always followed the strategy from global SIE HQ and Sony HQ.
But certain areas like 2nd party publishing, marketing and PR weren't properly coordinated with the other regional teams and they changed it to put therm as parts of a global team for each division that shared their different knowledge, data, resources and expertise helping themselves each other, avoiding doing redundant work and following a global and coordinated vision and messaging.
As a result they are now way more productive, effective and successful. XDEV is working in more projects than ever and their marketing and PR is achieving better sales, revenue and profit for their games, console, accesories, services and SIE as a whole.
Regarding 1st party internally development, the regional areas had nothing to do here because they always have been under PS Studios/Worldwide Studios since Sony WWS was created for this.
SIE Korea is the newest example for covering this speculation, it’s 100% independent from SIE and has its own leadership.
In addition to have regional divisions/subsidiaries, SIE -or these regional divisions/subsidiaries- also have many country specific subsidiaries who are in charge of that local physical sales, PR and marketing for that country or language.
Like any other subsidiary, they follow the orders and strategy set by who owns and funds them, in this case SIE. They aren't independent at all. In this case, what this country specific decides if they amount of consoles or physical games that SIE has available for that country are sent to this or that local retailer, or if they sent the SIE's PR HQ press releases to this or that local media or influencer or if they have to tweak it for that country. Of if the ads sent by the SIE's global marketing team are placed in this or that other local place and are localized in this or that way, using the budget assigned by SIE's HQ.
The deals with Korean game companies have been made by SIE HQ (and PS Studios if apply) following the SIE worldwide strategy. Jim Ryan is the one who signs these deals with 3rd parties.
https://sonyinteractive.com/en/press-releases/2023/ncsoft-strategic-partnership/
Something SIE Korea should do is to update their website to include PS5 or PSVR2:
https://www.siek.co.kr/
Means SIE Japan and SIE Europe could become independent too again, hence why the return of region-based decisions.
This was in the past the best model of how Sony did business in different markets. There is even more evidence: Since the announcement of Jim Ryan retiring, they attended several physical events again. When Jim Ryan become CEO they suddenly withdrew from all kinds of physical events during his leadership. Next year they will make a comeback on Tokyo Games Show, Taipei Gameshow, Gamescom and eventually PS Exp. With a different CEO there will come a new direction of business. Jimbo‘s era is over.
They never have been independent, they always have been SIE subsidiaries and as such always followed the SIE global strategy.
During 2020 and 2021 Sony and the whole gaming industry did stop attending presentially events because there was a global pandemic, not because Jim Ryan was CEO of PS.
Sony / SIE always attended TGS and CES, this never changed during the Jim Ryan era. Btw, Jim Ryan continues there until March.
Regarding E3 the ESA (which includes many publishers, not only Sony) decided to kill it because over time publishers gradually moved their marketing to a more effective and productive online marketing approach regarding game announcements and promotion. Plus the physical sales keep decresasing being replaced by digital game sales and hardware sales being made online and by a few retailer chains or stores instead of many small local retailers. They already have these partners signed, so don't need an event like E3 to go there to sign and meet them and nowadays they have internet.
So maybe the publishers decided that unlike in the 80s or 90s it didn't make sense anymore to spend millions per year to make the E3 and have their booth there.
FF7 Remake was exclusive until it went to PC after 2 years, Forspoken, Valkyrie Elysium, FF16, etc. And FF7 Rebirth is PS5 only next year. So spending billions just to get stuff they're already getting isn't really worth it.
