Jim Ryan will be stepping down as the CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment in March next year, to be replaced by the current Sony Group Corporation President, COO and CFO, Hiroki Totoki. Totoki will also assume the role of Sony Interactive Entertainment chairman from next month.
Ryan has been working at Sony now for three decades, so it makes more than reasonable sense that he would choose to retire. Especially when the PlayStation 5 is doing so well.
However, Ryan has always had an issue with retro games and the preservation of gaming’s history. Something that he was quite vocal about when it came to the PlayStation family’s large software library.
In some ways, I understand that his job was to look forward and to push that mandate with new gaming hardware every 5-7 years. It’s just that Nintendo has always embraced it’s past while looking to the future. So I never really agreed on Ryan’s approach that it always had to be one way or the other.
As for Totoki, he’s very much a veteran of Sony as well. So I am curious as to how he will take on the role of CEO. His financial background may indicate a more disappointing “by the numbers” approach, but I am willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt here.
That’s the thing though, the PlayStation brand is one that is built upon creativity and engaging gamers across the world. Having a sensible corporate approach to that is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can’t be the focus here.
Keeping track of costs and spending is something the games industry needs more of, but the PlayStation brand is more than that. It’s a massive gaming platform, so its role is more of a support function for gaming as a whole.
After all, Sony gets a 30% cut of every game sold on the PlayStation platform, so it’s not like they are going to run out of funds to support and grow that further. Here’s hoping Totoki gets that.
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