Jim Ryan

Business in Japan is all about relationships, and some of the PlayStation executives who have worked closest with Kojima over the last few decades are no longer at the company.

Now, that is actually really interesting because one of the notes are that Kojima said specifically he presented this to Jim Ryan when Jim Ryan was still there.

They shook hands, and to him, it was a done deal.

They were still going to make this game.

It's crazy.

We couldn't understand it, Kojima said, adding that he wished he would have just been told earlier in the project.

Jim Ryan had already retired, but I thought this was a project that Sony Interactive Entertainment and I had agreed to team up on and make together.

This is the biggest selling title I could possibly create, he said, waving his hands in the air.

If you look at the version of Sony that we had towards the end of the 2010s, it was a completely different executive structure.

It was apparently an Andrew House deal to get Hideo Kojima across in the first place, all of which predates the Jim Ryan era.

And as Shryer mentions, a whole bunch of different executives who were, you know, in favor of the way Kojima makes games, or were at least part of that older regime, are just no longer there anymore.

So instead, you have this version that is...

We're not going to come to you, which is another reason why Kojima and Kojima Productions and Fizint just don't belong.

In the end, the thing that this cements for me is that we are dealing with a different Sony.

There's been a feeling around that company for the last two to three years, and we've had the horrible era of Jim Ryan greenlighting 12 different live service games, the vast, vast majority of which have now been cancelled, but you've seen projects like The Last of Us Factions, the weird God of War multiplayer game that was cancelled, it was being worked on by Bluepoint, all sorts of different things that we're trying to bring additional revenue streams in because they don't necessarily just want to focus on single-player blockbuster games anymore, nor do they want to find a different way around advertising them or getting the optics more strong to make sure that individual single player bets can pay off.

The Jim Ryan approach to that in terms of, you know, dealing with inflation and dealing with the future of the industry was to make 12 separate bets on 12 different life service projects.

And yeah.

So let's not forget live service was mostly Jim Ryan.

Yeah, but Herman could have

switched it.

Because that's what got them here in the first place.

Because when their prior leader, Jim Ryan, he was really wanting and pushing live service games.

Concord.

That sucked.

Yeah.

Why aren't you down there yet, Jim? Hurry up.

[laughs]

Yeah, yeah.

... back to Japan.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, the, the, the whole Hermen Hulst, Hiroki Totoki thing has always been, you know, when they're, like, co-CEO for a bit and it was always a bit weird around after Jim Ryan left and, yeah, I don't know.

So Sony's a very interesting business at the moment.

He says this in, in, in, in, in all caps, "Recap on Sony's downfall.

Sony PlayStation's terrible leadership under Totoki, Jim Ryan, Hermen Hulst, and Nishino have run the company's reputation into the ground and lost all goodwill from its players.

It looks like I'll keep updating this list often." And this is what he has.

Canceled Kojima's, uh, Physint abruptly.

You don't see anything until the disaster known of Concord in 2025, and this year's Saros, 2026.

That is a really bad streak.

And we know that's all due to Jim Ryan and their aspirations for being the king of gas games, right? Look, Sony is spiraling out of control.

And normally, how you can fix that is presenting something that would reignite your fan base to be excited about what Sony is doing.

Holst right now.

Yeah, right now, Holst, but this entire mess that they are in, this directionless future, all started with Jim Ryan already, right? Who put the focus on games as a service.

And again, we said this about Xbox, and I've said it for PlayStation for a while, but this started a while back.

Like you said, yes, Jim Ryan, but ultimately what we know of was...

After Sean Layden left, Jim Ryan was thrust into it.

But Jim Ryan was never a gamer.

Not like Sean Layden.

No.