PlayStation's Jim Ryan: Our games could suffer if they went straight into PS Plus
Christopher Dring
Head of Games B2B
Tuesday 29th March 2022
Whenever a new platform or service gets announced, the focus is inevitably on what's missing rather than what's there.
Sony's new PS Plus subscription offerings boast online multiplayer access, hundreds of PS4 and PS5 games, streaming, retro titles and game trials. But what it doesn't include, unlike its main competitor, are new first-party games that launch in the service at the same time as they come out at retail.
"We feel like we are in a good virtuous cycle with the studios," explains PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan, "where the investment delivers success, which enables yet more investment, which delivers yet more success. We like that cycle and we think our gamers like that cycle."
He continues: "[In terms of] putting our own games into this service, or any of our services, upon their release... as you well know, this is not a road that we've gone down in the past. And it's not a road that we're going to go down with this new service. We feel if we were to do that with the games that we make at PlayStation Studios, that virtuous cycle will be broken. The level of investment that we need to make in our studios would not be possible, and we think the knock-on effect on the quality of the games that we make would not be something that gamers want."
PlayStaton CEO Jim Ryan
Ryan's view on this isn't unique to Sony. Most AAA publishers are reluctant to put their most recent games into subscription services. The counter argument is that by putting your latest titles into PS Plus or Xbox Game Pass, you're potentially widening your audience. Overnight, your new release could have tens of millions of players, and if your game has other forms of monetisation in it, then the
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