Sony Interactive Entertainment President Jim Ryan talked to GamesIndustry about his views on the PlayStation business and its future.
Ryan talked about the “Play at Home” initiative, mentioning that 60 million copies of games have been downloaded through it. He also explained that if lockdowns continue, PlayStation may have to do it again.
Later in the conversation, he mentioned that the pipeline of games coming to PS5 is “just fantastic” and “by far the strongest” PlayStation ever had for any of its consoles.
He then talked about the fact that gaming is spreading wider than ever.
“When you stand back, the thing that really excites me the most is that gaming is becoming more ubiquitous. And that ubiquity increases with every year and each generation of consoles. You can see it, gaming is approving to an older demographic, it’s appealing to a younger demographic, gender parity increases with every year that passes, depth of engagement increases, and geographically, there are people in markets without any gaming culture who are starting to be able to access gaming.
And I think that phenomenon is so exciting in terms of what it means for people who make games, in terms of a massive expanding audience. I stand back, and this may have quite some timespan attached to it, but I see no reason why gaming as ubiquitous as music, movies or TV shows. When you think about the implications of that for the people who make games and the people who play games, that’s potentially really amazing and really powerful.”
Ryan added that technological progress, particularly in high-end games, with the ability to portray character, emotion, and personality will make the experience more lifelike, richer, and more emotionally engaging, closing the gap with other forms of entertainment and accelerating the process of ubiquity.
He then concluded by talking about the future.
“I hope that PlayStation 5, and I really believe the PlayStation 5 will be Sony’s biggest and best and most loved PlayStation yet. I hope that will happen.
I would also like to see a world where the games that we make at PlayStation can be enjoyed by many tens of millions of people. Perhaps hundreds of millions of people. Right now success with the current console model, a really great PlayStation hit you’re talking ten or twenty million people being able to play that game.
We’re talking about games stacking up against music, we’re talking about games stacking up against movies. Music and movies, they can be enjoyed by almost limitless audiences. And I think some of the art that our studios are making is some of the finest entertainment that has been made anywhere in the world. And to kind-of gate the audience for the wonderful art, wonderful entertainment that our studios are making… to gate the audience for that at twenty or thirty million, frustrates me. I would love to see a world where hundreds of millions of people can enjoy those games.”
You can watch the full interview below.
