Phil Spencer Thanks PlayStation Boss For His Contribution To The Video Game Industry

Good riddance I say i hope Sony go back to making aaa games and stop the gaas rubbish they are releasing in the future can't see anyone missing that bloke

He was a successful leader in his time as CEO but man I don't like him. The ABK deal was really what put me over the edge. I still can't believe he publicly said Sony would not be able to compete if they were to lose one single 3rd party franchise. The entire world knew they were never going to lose that franchise. What a statement to tell your fanbase and any potential customers that the whole business rides on a single 3rd party game that is lucky if it cracks 80 on metacritic. He made that statement after Xbox promised to keep it on their platform, after he wrote an internal email saying he didn't believe it would be exclusive. Not only was it a flat out lie, it made Playstation look really weak. I understand his desire to try something or to oppose the deal but that was like the worst thing he could have said.

I don't always agree with Phil Spencer but his greatest quality is that he is a gamer. I can follow him on Xbox and see that he is actively playing the latest titles (often with a higher playtime and achievement count than me). Hopefully the next leader at PS will be as passionate as Phil.

As a Playstation owner I am happy to see this guy leave. Not much greatness has come from Playstation this generation yet.

Very few new IPs and a bunch of sequels building upon existing game engines.

I knew this would happen the moment he failed on stoping the acquisition, he would never be on Phil Spencer's good side as the rest of the industry would need him to be especially now with Activision no longer on PlayStation's pockets.

I can't think of any of Jim's contributions that I would consider a good thing. Good riddance.

Why would they announce that this early? Shareholders?

Took the L in the ABK deal probably knowing his last days were ahead. Pulled out all the stops as i am sure he needed to try and do to please the upper management heads. I like the PS5 a lot, i liked the PS4 a lot. But man those controllers dating back all the way to PS1, are just hell on my hands and have odd design choices for my play style. Don’t like using them for long even tho i like the consoles and have owned them all.

Absolute Muppet. Hopefully they can find someone that understand games and gamers more. Too bad his successor won't be able to reverse the stream of GaaS that Jimbo let go for this generation.

I think it was clear, after the fight for AKB, he is over.
He was to sneaky...

You really shouldn’t have said anything Phil, this guy hasn’t contributed anything to the industry nor PlayStation in general except for raising prices in everything he stumbled across, consoles, games, services, accessories and pretty much everything you can think of.

Xbox PR boss: "Phil, can we release a comment from you on Jim's departure?"
Phil:"Thanks for coming?"
Xbox PR boss: "I think we need a bit more than that..."

He is leaving the PlayStation division in a very, very strong position. People might disagree with some of his decisions( I know I did when he rised game and console prices)but PlayStation sales prove he was very successful for Sony....spend that retirement money Jimbo😉.

@BeerIsAwesome AND oversaw an incredibly successful launch of a new system during a global pandemic and a closed down world! He lives in Europe so I'm guessing England and is basically too old to keep travelling back and forth to America. I don't blame him for that one bit. I don't like him but his reasons for retiring are sound and timing is perfect, PS6 plans will be ramping up now and he won't want to be the boss during that time and then leave.

I can’t trust a word Phil says. This is just another example

As a PS5 owner, I don't really care. And I wouldn't care if Phil left either actually, I'm feeling rather good about prospect of both of those.
Now, if Mark Cerny left I would be concerned..

Better optics to retire than to be forced out. Japanese companies do not want to be shamed publicly and and you could see Jim getting more and more panicked as the ABK process went forward.

As a fellow Newcastle United fan all I have to say is well played Jim. Agree or not with their current trajectory, you cant deny his sucess as a CEO.

Trolling at its finest 🤣 Phil has really got good at these tweets haha.

@Baler no he's a liar as well

@Moonglow Considering the sheer amount of success the PS5 has been and how much money he's made Sony i doubt he lost his job. The guy's nearly 60 and was travelling between NA, Japan and Europe every month so no wonder he retired.

@Dan1283 They won't be able to pivot and change course so quickly.

@theduckofdeath I know which is a shame live serivce or gaas as they are called hopefully all die out in the future I hope so

They probably made him step down after making them look like idiots in the courtrooms trying to stop the Microsoft/Activision merger. Sony doesn't have the time or money to be wasting on frivolous courtroom cases.

I think after Ryan made a number of totally disingenuous public statements regarding the ABK acquisition, and when his emails were released, which showed he, privately, had a completely different opinion of what would happen with Call of Duty than he was publicly saying, that his days were numbered.

Plus, I think with the growing trend of Games as a Live Service failures, that Sony realised that they needed a different direction from the one that Ryan was steering them down. I would not at all be surprised if the majority, if not all, of these types of games that Sony are pursuing end up being cancelled in the very near future. These games are a liability, and I think Ryan is seen in the same way. It may also explain why he has been removed, and replaced, so suddenly...

I don't get all the Jim Ryan hate here. What has he done exactly? I hear that he raised prices on games and such, but the whole industry did, didn't they?

@Kaloudz What she said? I can't find the post!

@CorugatedZant

Let’s see:

• Lie to users (we believe in generations bs when all games were multi-gen)
• dismantled Japanese game studio development (if it’s not a big triple a, not worth financing in his vision)
• terrible handling of ABK acquisition (MS offered every ABK game going multiplat, Jim demanded all Zenimax games too, or he would block, at the end now he only gets Call of Duty)
• Games as a service strategy, they claim they won’t pull away from single player games but the only single player game in the horizon is Wolverine. As far as we know, that will be the only single player game first party game next year because everyone else is working on multiplayer games.

Many think I hate PlayStation, when the truth is I just hate what PlayStation has become under him. Bring Kaz back please!!!

Almost 4 years to the day that Shawn Layden's reign abruptly came to an end ... Two leaders out within the span of 4 years? Kinda spooky. But the ABK shenanigans really made the company look bad so I pretty much called this once all that went down.
I hope they get an actual gamer leading the charge instead of just a suit next time. I liked Shawn Layden.

@Kaloudz Hahaha, thank you my man, as always! That Lulu! 🤣.

@NeoRatt i own all 3 as well but the playstation is the newest and collects dust. I buy 3rd party games on xbox always because of smart delivery and quick resume. xbox has also had the more interesting library lately- hi fi rush, pentiment. Lower budget, interesting games

@J_Mo_Money it’s also kinda finny: most big games take almost 5 years to develop these days. Whatever wheels Jim set into motion won’t be seen for reals until next year. The year we don’t seem to be having any single player games announced for, unless Wolverine shows up.

Look I've got no love for Phil but that's hilarious considering the battle they've had. As a PlayStation primary user I say good riddance. Jim is bad for PlayStation and all he has done from what I can see is raise prices and deliver what I've felt to be a shadow of what made PlayStation great. Pursuing gaas? Let's just hope his successor sees sense and produces what PlayStation is known for, great single player games. Revive dormant IP's like Resistance and Killzone. Maybe put a ring on SE's finger since they're practically married. Don't go too heavy on chasing gaas.

Oh and if it's a Japanese leader and I hope it is move your HQ back to Tokyo immediately.

I still think Sony (and MS too) will move in the direction of GaaS more heavily over then next 5-10 years. For Sony and MS the main parent company CEO's make the descions on the corperate strategy of each division. I don't think Jim Ryan leaving will change much because it all about perception. A lot of the work he has done over the last 4 years will only really out over the next 4 years, as with previous CEO's like Shawn Layden and Andrew House. If the new CEO is deemed to be more fashionble in hardcore gaming circles then they could do the same things are Jim mostly and be lauded.

Jim Ryan and his anticonsumer policies can not leave soon enough.

@Fiendish-Beaver not sure, Sony spent 3.6 Billion to get Bungie to come in and teach their studios the GAAS ropes. They aren’t going to just cancel all that work and money. Before we say well it’s only 3.6 billion and not 69 billion. This is Sony that was a big purchase as they are sisters of the poor to Microsoft. Microsoft spends more on their Christmas holiday employee parties than Sony is worth. Joking but you get the idea. I think Sony will continue with gaas and some single player games. They have the brand name they will be fine. But MS has a solid lineup of games coming, so there is some good competition coming and us gamers will be winning for years to come.

Phil probably saying this on his head. " hell yeah Jim's out of commission ".

He will be remembered as the CEO who believe in generations, who lied to ABK deal and his investors, who tried to convinced his investors that 3.5b Bungie Deal was better than 69b ABK deal, Console prices hikes, Game prices hikes, PS+ prices hikes, Psn hacked, CEO of remasters/remakes, CEO of gaas focus, CEO of pc exclusives, Ceo who wanted to kill ABK deal , Ceo who traveled the hole world crying to regulators, Ceo who thinks Nintento is for kids, Sony stop sharing 1rst party game sales that didn't sell well, sony stops sharing psn numbers because they are down bad and many many more that made Sony brand name big damage. Anyone who would took his place after a successful ps4 era and a covid period with tremendous console demand because people stayed in house couldn't fail to deliver numbers and sales, not his doing.

@S-Bacc that is true, I would assume mostly because Mark wanted to keep his freedom to explore other things if he chose to do so. Very common with engineers and creatives, does not mean they don't have loyalty to their primary client (eg. Masahiro Sakurai and Nintendo)
But I understand your comment 👍

@Arxagelos Whilst I think it sucks that prices have gone up on PS5 consoles, PS5 games and PS Plus I love how people seem to conveniently ignore the fact that the price of the Series X console, Game Pass Ultimate and Series X games have also gone up. Starfield released at £70 ( the same price as PS5 games) and the Series X is £480 (same price as PS5 although PS5's are currently £400)

That shows what an absolute legend Phil Spencer is to be able to do that but I don’t think Jim Ryan would have done the same for him if it was the other way round.

@PJ301178 for 2+ years in the generation you couldn't find a ps5 lower than 600€-700€ and with forcing bundles 1rst party games, after that when shortages seems to be fixed Sony raised the price from August 2022 to ps5 from 499€ to 549€. MS raised the price of Series X after 3 years in the generation and raiced gamepass price only 2.5% and Sony +30%, yet on playstation you paid for next gen update path +10€ and your cloud saves are behind a paywall, full price remasters and many more anti consumer tactics jimbo and his team has been milking the fanbase, not the same.

You maybe right about GaaS, @HonestHick, and you are definitely right about it being a great time to be a gamer. Bit sad to read today that Gears 6 may not be out until 2026. I'll be 60 in December, and who knows how I'll be in 3 years time. Will I still be able to do a solo Insane run...? Or will the arthritis have taken proper hold by then... 😂

@Fiendish-Beaver well just know this. I will say a prayer that you are well and here with us enjoying what you like to do and feeling your best. Wouldn’t be the same without you on here chatting and sharing with us. I just think Sony has made their bed with trying to see what the return is on a few of these gaas titles. Obviously if done right they are money makers like no other. But I don’t see Sony stopping titles like the Last of Us or God of War anytime soon. The PS4 didn’t have much variety. They are trying to mix it up some on PS5 and i think thats a great thing. I just wish they would use concave sticks on the dual sense so my thumbs didn’t slip off. But I digress. As for Gears 6, i was concerned that the coalition would want maximum time with Unreal 5 and try and make it really something special to send off the Series consoles with. I sure hope 2024 they give us an ultimate collection of 1-3 or at the very least give us ultimate part 2 and touch up part 1 some to get the online back and going. Gears fan’s need something to look forward to before Gears 6.

Dude sucks. I knew phil would take the high road even though deep down he probably hates him. Bet Jimmy has never turned on a playstation in his life. Guy is so out of touch.

That's kind of you, @HonestHick. Thank you.

As for the thumbsticks, you do know you can get some rubber grips for them, don't you? I have them myself for exactly the same reason. In fact, I have the, on my Xbox controller too as I wore them so smooth, they became slippery too... 😂

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07ZGD8GR1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

These are the ones I use.

I fully agree that it's okay for Sony to diversify. I'm all for it. Not every game needs to be for every gamer after all. It was just that they said that they had 10 GaaS titles in development, and other than Wolverine and Spiderman, I'm not aware of any other single player games that they currently have in development. And it is for their single player games that I have a PlayStation, so that's always going to be where my personal interest lays. I am happy if they are able to make just as many solo games in a generation as they usually do. I just worry that they have pulled teams off those projects to work on the GaaS titles. Hopefully I'm wrong though. I usually am... 😉

@Fiendish-Beaver well i got bad news for you. You are actually right HAHA , they certainly pulled some talent off single player teams to assist the GAAS titles. They would have to. 10 games is a lot of content to create. I too have a PS4 and PS5 for a few single player titles i like. I still think we will see some single player titles from them in the next 1-3 years. But it will likely be safe stuff like spider-man and last of us 3 and god of war dlc. But that begs the question, do those franchise’s start to feel stale or can they innovate them? Rumors are they have a Sci title in the works, so hopefully that is more single player and not gaas. As for the thumbs sticks i have tried a few on the dual shock 4 and they are just ok. I don’t love them. I feel the grip and the concave sticks on Xbox are superior to the ones on the DualShock and dual sense. I said it on here before, Xbox made so many mistakes with the Xbox one that had Sony had the controller i preferred. I might not be here talking about my collection on Xbox. It would have ended at the 360. But controllers and games are truly all i care about. The color of the box and the company name on it matter not much to me. Now my haters on here or Push might tell you different. The industry changes a lot every 4-5 years, we are in yet another big change heading into the next generation I believe. The console/Cloud hybrid leak of MS shows that.