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Sony released its latest console, the PlayStation 5, globally on November 19, a week after the initial launch in select markets, including the United States and Japan. TASS spoke exclusively with Jim Ryan, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, about the difficulties of a global launch in 2020, the importance of exclusive titles and why the prices of games are sure to increase.
– How do you feel after a big tech launch in this crazy year?
– I guess my two main feelings are one of happiness because things seem to be going well, and the second of relief: we did it in this unusual, strange and frankly quite difficult year. Of all the things I’ve learned this year, one is that I wouldn’t plan on doing another big console launch in the midst of a global pandemic, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else. It has been difficult, it has been a challenge from the production side, not being able to bring anyone to the factories in Asia … Before starting production, we had to do all the camera build preparation remotely. I mean, imagine that for a precision device like the PlayStation 5.
– One week after launch in select markets, how are sales?
– Everything is sold. Absolutely everything is for sale. And everything will be sold in Russia, of that there is no doubt. I spent much of the last year trying to make sure that we can generate enough demand for the product. And now, in terms of my executive bandwidth, I spend a lot more time trying to increase supply to meet that demand.
– If it weren’t for COVID19, would the PS5 have been different?
– In terms of the product and its feature set, no, absolutely not. The way we brought it to market might have been a little different, but the actual product would have been the same. We could have had a few more to sell, but not many – the guys on the production / manufacturing side have worked miracles.
– How fast do you expect players to transition from PS4 to PS5?
– All history indicates that the initial cohort, from launch to Christmas, about three-quarters will be PS4 updates. And the remaining 25% will come to us from another console or will come from outside the console ecosystem. So the vast majority of those who buy a PS5 will have a PS4. … There are about 114 million PS4s in the world, the number of those that are transferred, if you take it into account, is small. But for us, the PS4 community will certainly remain incredibly important for 2020, 2021, and 2022. Because in those three years, that will be the largest PlayStation community.
– Is the console war with Microsoft still then?
– [Console wars] It is not a term that I use or like. For me, it’s great that there is competition. I think it makes us work harder. It prevents us from becoming complacent. It’s great that the consumer has a choice. I think that’s wonderful. We are happy and proud of what we have.
– How important are console exclusives for PlayStation in the next generation cycle?
– Great games are really important to PlayStation 5, and if those great games are exclusive to our platform, we think that is a point of difference in our favor, and we are very happy to be able to offer the PlayStation community games that only can find on a PlayStation. … The strength of the games our studios made in the PS4 cycle was a major factor in making PlayStation 4 so popular.
– So how did you feel about Microsoft’s offer to buy Zenimax / Besthesda? Is there a chance that PlayStation players won’t be able to play the next Elder Scrolls or Starfield game?
– That is a decision that is out of our hands, we will wait and see what happens. I hope to learn about that. We just take a different approach. Our emphasis has been to focus on really steady, slow but steady organic growth of our studios, selectively bolstered by acquisitions. We respect the steps taken by our competition, they seem logical and reasonable. But we’re just as happy and confident – we have a better launch lineup than we’ve had in any of our console releases.
– There have been opinions that AAAgames, which take years and millions of dollars to produce, are too expensive and are losing their appeal in commercial terms. What you think?
– We’ve shown with the PS4 that the AAA gaming market has never been stronger. I think as technology advances … the opportunity for those blockbuster games to get even more realistic, and to blur the lines between some of those forms of entertainment, could actually point to even better days for those great games. highly successful. The story will be better, the feeling of immersion will be greater. So, I go to the other side: I think that the best days for these types of games that we do and that we are proud of, those best days may be yet to come.
– What do you think about the increase in prices of console games, with some companies flirting with offering titles for $ 70 each?
– If you look at the history of price increases for console video games, it is relatively modest. There hasn’t been an increase for quite some time. And the trend we’ve seen in certain publishers to offset the significant increases [in the costs] making a game for PS5 and other next-gen consoles doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. If you look at our entertainment category in dollars or rubles per hour of entertainment, video games look very cheap. Even in Russia, we not only take the price of the US dollar and adjust it to the exchange rate, we try to do the right thing for the Russian gaming community.
– How will you respond to Microsoft’s Game Pass?
– Actually, there is news to come, but not today. We have PlayStation Now, which is our subscription service, and it is available in various markets.
– Why is PlayStation Now not available in Russia?
– You know better than I that Russia is a huge, huge country. With these services, it is very difficult to launch, where do you draw the line to launch? Do they launch only in Moscow or in Moscow and San Pedro? It is very difficult to serve some parts of the Russian PlayStation community, but not others. A cloud streaming service obviously requires the location of servers reasonably close to the player, it is logistically very challenging.
– When will developers start using the new generation of consoles to the fullest, developing games specifically for the next cycle, that may not be able to run on the PS4?
– History will tell you that it’s in the second or third year that the developers really hit their stride. Developers usually need a little time to get familiar [with the hardware]. But it’s probably 2022 that you see some wonderful things in the same way it was 2015-2016 for the older generation, when generation-defining games started coming out.
Interviewed by Dmitry Medvedenko, TASS Head of World Service
