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Jim Ryan for TMTPOST: "we don't want games that are OK, we want the best."

Bartski

Bartski

Gold Member
A new interview with Jim Ryan went live yesterday on TMTPOST - Insider of China Tech and Business, in line with the PS5 entering the Chinese market. Good read.

en.tmtpost.com

Exclusive: Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Says Players Only Remember Best Games | TMTPOST

In an exclusive interview with TMTPOST, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO and President Jim Ryan revealed that the core of the PlayStation experience is emotion. “A best game can arouse certain emotions of the players, such as making the player feel excited, feel the adrenaline rush, or feel...
en.tmtpost.com en.tmtpost.com

TMTPOST: Many studios may spend a lot of time developing a game. As the company's leadership, how to keep your patience?
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Ryan: This is a very good question. I think this is similar to a previous question, that is, what is the importance of PlayStation Studios, especially their ability to develop games and demonstrate platform advantages. Therefore, people like me need to keep those two things in mind and realize that it is better to wait and have a great game than to rush and have a game that is okay or quite good. Players only remember best games rather than OK games. If it is a best game, players may want a sequel, and they will also want to buy a sequel, but no one really cares about a game that is only OK. Of course, due to financial and product portfolio considerations, we will also give pressure to studios to deliver a certain product within the expected time. But in general, we don't want products that are OK, we want the best.
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(...)
TMTPOST: The production of a game is very much like film production. Will you personally participate in the production process and give your opinion? Or is it someone else is responsible for this?
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Ryan: No, I don't do this, because my suggestions are not good. Even if I give them, I hope that the developers will ignore them. Of course I think you are right. We have to consider the budget and time cost. It is indeed very similar to making a movie. But I think if you have built a mature development team, you have to employ people without any doubt, you have to trust your team and support them. This is how we operate the PlayStation Studio. We give them freedom to express their creativity, and we believe that they will give us a corresponding return and deliver the best games.
Click to expand...
(...)
TMTPOST: As the CEO of an entertainment company, do you often play games?
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Ryan: Not as often as I would like to, but I do play as often as I can. I’m currently playing Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. As I said before, this game stimulated my specific emotions and made me happy. For me this is a best game. Usually, I prefer slower-paced games, usually single player mode that requires me to think carefully and deeply. These are the emotions encountered when playing games, and can also reach users who like Hollywood movies.
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(...)
TMTPOST: What was the best game you played last year?
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Ryan: I personally think it is Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, which is my favorite and most enjoyable game in the last year. Although it is not a slow-paced game, the joy of the game and the performance of the console really surprised me. I feel that if our team can launch a best game like this within half a year after the launch of PS5, what about three or four years later? I feel very excited when I think of this.
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KyoZz

KyoZz

Tag, you're it.
Of course he does.

Comedy Central GIF by The Jim Jefferies Show
 
Salty Popsicle

Salty Popsicle

Banned
When asked whether he was a gamer and what games he enjoyed most in the past year, all he could think to answer for both questions was Ratchet & Clank :messenger_tears_of_joy: This guy is a business suit through and through.

Also, that line about trying to "reach users who like Hollywood movies" doesn't sit right with me. Video games and movies are separate mediums and I don't want to be playing interactive movies with long cutscenes.
 
Ellery

Ellery

Member
Objectively correct.

The very best games are on Playstation. Nintendo and some third party publishers have amazing games too, but nobody else has nearly as many masterpieces per generation as Playstation does. The PS4 generation started with BLOODBORNE and finished with the all record smashing The Last of Us Part II. It doesn't get better than that and GOTYs confirm that.
 
thicc_girls_are_teh_best

thicc_girls_are_teh_best

Member
Ellery said:
The PS4 generation started with BLOODBORNE
Click to expand...

Uh, no it definitely didn't. It started with Knack and Killzone: Shadowfall, which were both mediocre. Then Infamous: Second Son which was better but not groundbreaking, and Driveclub which was a complete mess at launch. Bloodborne probably started what many consider a "golden era" for PS 1P exclusives but that was 2015, and they still released duds during the next few years (The Tomorrow Children, arguably Days Gone though that's now a bit of a cult favorite).

You're just writing sensationalist fanfiction, when we can look at the facts and see the release history. Yes they do have a metric ton of GOTY nominations but that really doesn't say everything considering some of the metrics those people use to select GOTY, aren't that far off from what are used to select a lot of the Best Picture nominees for the Oscars or especially Golden Globes (which recently got exposed for being pay-to-play, basically), i.e metrics that aren't always going to resonate with the larger market or be of value to a lot of them (and in some cases these days, leaning heavily on political rhetorics that could be considered at least questionable).

It's like a lot of the things which get tons of Best Picture nominations and wins; very respectable for parts of their creative vision but that doesn't really translate to always being the things that resonate the most with majority of gamers or offer the most entertainment value, so it's highly subjective in that sense.
 
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best

thicc_girls_are_teh_best

Member
Look I'm all for wanting to get the best stuff out there and I think no one does third-person single-player story-driven AAA action-adventure light-RPG/open world stuff better than some of Sony's studios at the present but....you can't objectively act like that is the "best" of what gaming has to offer, even if you are the best at that specific type of game. That's either arrogance or PR hype talking, or both.

For myself, that specific type of genre template isn't at the top of my stack, so chances are no game fitting it would ever be considered by me as "the best", even if it's the best at what it's specifically doing. By the same measure, who exactly gets to dictate what's an "okay" game? Are we going by MC scores? Because some people now consider anything under an 80 "okay" or even bad. What about a game with excellent game mechanics and physics but a ho-hum story? How about a game with a brilliant narrative tale but cookie-cutter game mechanics and gameplay loop holding it together?

Focus on excelling in your particular slice of game design all you want but don't puff your chest out acting like that's objectively above everything else when many other games aren't even interested in aiming for that flavor. And no, going by GOTY nominations doesn't say too much either considering how at least some of that is patterned off how these nominations work for the film industry (where it's not even so much about actual quality but rather how much you can incentivize voters with sway and access perks to go your way, or use your network connections or popularity to do similar).
 
MiguelItUp

MiguelItUp

Member
I mean, this reads very much like I've read it all before, just swap the name and a few words. Not sure why people are praising this so much. Any and everyone in a similar position SHOULD want those things, I guess if anything it's nice confirmation to see Jim Ryan does too.

Definitely looking forward to the future for them, and I hope to be blown away. My PS5 is hungry.
 
Aion002

Aion002

Member
Men_in_Boxes said:
N64 vs PS1 suggested that might not always be true. You could argue the best N64 games were a cut above the best PS1 games and that gen didn't turn out well for Nintendo. Both quantity and quality have historically been import, imo.
Click to expand...
No you can't... If you honestly believe that Metal Gear Solid, FFVII/VIII/IX, Chrono Cross, Parasite Eve, Xenogears, Parasite Eve, Resident Evil 3, Dino Crisis and many other games were inferior to what the N64 had... Well, you are just wrong and stupid.

I am not saying that you can't like the N64 games more.. Tastes are subjective, stupidity is not.

*Not calling you stupid, just stating a fact.
 
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CrimsonSquall

CrimsonSquall

Member
thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
Uh, no it definitely didn't. It started with Knack and Killzone: Shadowfall, which were both mediocre. Then Infamous: Second Son which was better but not groundbreaking, and Driveclub which was a complete mess at launch. Bloodborne probably started what many consider a "golden era" for PS 1P exclusives but that was 2015, and they still released duds during the next few years (The Tomorrow Children, arguably Days Gone though that's now a bit of a cult favorite).

You're just writing sensationalist fanfiction, when we can look at the facts and see the release history. Yes they do have a metric ton of GOTY nominations but that really doesn't say everything considering some of the metrics those people use to select GOTY, aren't that far off from what are used to select a lot of the Best Picture nominees for the Oscars or especially Golden Globes (which recently got exposed for being pay-to-play, basically), i.e metrics that aren't always going to resonate with the larger market or be of value to a lot of them (and in some cases these days, leaning heavily on political rhetorics that could be considered at least questionable).

It's like a lot of the things which get tons of Best Picture nominations and wins; very respectable for parts of their creative vision but that doesn't really translate to always being the things that resonate the most with majority of gamers or offer the most entertainment value, so it's highly subjective in that sense.
Click to expand...
Okay then why dont you just go by Metacritic and call it a day
 
S

Shelookdlvl18

Banned
Salty Popsicle said:
When asked whether he was a gamer and what games he enjoyed most in the past year, all he could think to answer for both questions was Ratchet & Clank :messenger_tears_of_joy: This guy is a business suit through and through.

Also, that line about trying to "reach users who like Hollywood movies" doesn't sit right with me. Video games and movies are separate mediums and I don't want to be playing interactive movies with long cutscenes.
Click to expand...
Was gonna post the exact same thing.

What game are playing? Uhhhh R&C.
What was your favorite game last year? Uhhh R&C?

Cringe.
 
cireza

cireza

Member
But I think if you have built a mature development team, you have to employ people without any doubt, you have to trust your team and support them. This is how we operate the PlayStation Studio. We give them freedom to express their creativity, and we believe that they will give us a corresponding return and deliver the best games.
Click to expand...
That's awesome. This is exactly what they did with Japan Studio.
 
sainraja

sainraja

Member
thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
Uh, no it definitely didn't. It started with Knack and Killzone: Shadowfall, which were both mediocre. Then Infamous: Second Son which was better but not groundbreaking, and Driveclub which was a complete mess at launch. Bloodborne probably started what many consider a "golden era" for PS 1P exclusives but that was 2015, and they still released duds during the next few years (The Tomorrow Children, arguably Days Gone though that's now a bit of a cult favorite).

You're just writing sensationalist fanfiction, when we can look at the facts and see the release history. Yes they do have a metric ton of GOTY nominations but that really doesn't say everything considering some of the metrics those people use to select GOTY, aren't that far off from what are used to select a lot of the Best Picture nominees for the Oscars or especially Golden Globes (which recently got exposed for being pay-to-play, basically), i.e metrics that aren't always going to resonate with the larger market or be of value to a lot of them (and in some cases these days, leaning heavily on political rhetorics that could be considered at least questionable).

It's like a lot of the things which get tons of Best Picture nominations and wins; very respectable for parts of their creative vision but that doesn't really translate to always being the things that resonate the most with majority of gamers or offer the most entertainment value, so it's highly subjective in that sense.
Click to expand...

Reaction Surprised GIF


Eek, it must be really hard for you to pick up a PlayStation controller to play games on it.
 
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