Ryan has been leading the PlayStation gaming business since February 2019 and has worked at Sony for 30 years in total (his career began a year before the first PlayStation console was released). The division is now led by Hiroki Totoki, Sony’s current CFO and COO, who has additionally and temporarily assumed the role of PlayStation chief executive since April 1 (while Sony is looking for a full-time replacement for Ryan).
Ryan’s resignation became known as early as the fall of 2023. He left Sony amid a major business restructuring and mass layoffs (900 people lost their jobs), that affected many projects — staffing “optimizations” in PlayStation’s internal studios were part of large-scale layoffs that began in the game division at the end of 2022 and intensified in early 2024. Earlier, the new interim boss of PlayStation, Hiroki Totoki, said that amid a 25% decline in quarterly profits of Sony’s gaming division noted certain problems with the allocation of development budgets in the context of discussing measures to increase profits.
By the way, this is the second significant resignation in the gaming industry in a fairly short period of time — at the end of 2023, Bobby Kotick resigned as CEO of Activision Blizzard. Opinions about Ryan vary in the industry, grandfather The top manager left behind a rather controversial legacy: on the one hand, many people note his contribution to maintaining Sony’s leadership in the market, on the other hand, he is equally criticized for his excessive emphasis on game services and the rise in prices for the PlayStation 5. Nevertheless, under Ryan’s leadership, the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation VR 2 were released, and PlayStation Studios included Bungie (Destiny 2), Insomniac Games (Marvel’s Spider-Man), Bluepoint Games (remake of Demon’s Souls), Housemarque (Returnal) and Nixxes Software (PC ports). So this is definitely the end of an old era and the beginning of a new page in the history of PlayStation.
Before leaving, the former Sony executive made several other interesting announcements — he named the main games of each PlayStation generation in an interview with to Variety magazine (PlayStation — Ridge Racer, PlayStation 2 — GTA 3, PlayStation 3 — Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, PlayStation 4 — Marvel’s Spider-Man, PlayStation 5 — God of War Ragnarok), he specified the circulation of the cult PS2 — he exceeded 160 million copies (Nintendo sold 139.36 million Switch consoles by the end of 2023, so the fight for the title of the best-selling console continues). Also, Ryan saidthat the PS5 is doing well and is on track to become the most successful console in Sony’s history — as of December 31, 2023, PS5 sales reached 55 million, while the company lowered its forecast for this year (from 25 to 21 million). Sony is currently preparing to release the PS5 Pro — mid-gen update is expected in the fall of 2024.
It is still unknown what direction Jim Ryan’s career will take after Sony and what he plans to do next. However, he has previously hinted that he is not going to retire yet. What do you think about Jim Ryan? Let us know in the comments!