The PlayStation 5 has appeared on the horizon, and the president of Sony is personally overseeing the games that he believes will either make or break the system. There have been rumors circulating about the PlayStation 5 and how fast it is for a year now, along with leaked designs and patent documents that hint at it being a powerful piece of hardware.
Sony officially announced the PlayStation 5 with a Holiday 2020 release window as part of a statement that revealed a lot of information about the hardware within the new console. It’s clear that Sony is preparing big things for the end of next year, but there is also a lot of turmoil behind the scenes, with several key figures like former SIE Chairman Shawn Layden losing their jobs, along with numerous employees receiving redundancies as part of a restructuring of the company.
A tumultuous new console generation is due to begin in 2020, and Sony Interactive Entertainment will be led into it by new CEO & President Jim Ryan, who was appointed earlier this year. Ryan spoke to GamesIndustry.biz about the future of the PlayStation brand and the company’s plans going into the upcoming PlayStation 5 console generation. Understandably, Ryan is very confident in PS5, and he says gamers can expect many more announcements to come in the new year. For now, Ryan assured Playstation players that he’s personally focused on the key games that he believes will ultimately “make or break Playstation 5.” On top of that, Ryan believes that PS5 can only deliver on its potential if it succeeds in finding a truly global customer base.
The first year of game releases can be crucial to a console’s chances of success on the market. The general audience now has more options than ever when it comes to playing games, with the mobile and PC gaming markets being the biggest threat to the traditional console gaming market. There is also the impending release of Google Stadia to consider. Google’s entry into the gaming market has the potential to change the face of the industry. As such, an expensive piece of hardware is looking less attractive to more players with each passing year, especially if it doesn’t have the killer apps and games at launch that justify a major console purchase. Nintendo made the smart move of holding back The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in order for the Nintendo Switch to have a must-have game at launch, which helped the system a great deal during its first year. Clearly, Ryan is working on a similar strategy for the launch of PS5.
Microsoft and Sony have had enough console releases at this point to know the strength of a strong launch line-up, and it seems that Ryan is well aware of what the PlayStation brand needs to do to grow in 2020. One of the biggest reasons the PlayStation 4 succeeded was due to its stellar line-up of exclusive titles, and the PlayStation 5 is going to have to follow suit with its own library of must-have games. The rumored backward compatibility for PlayStation 5 won’t amount to much without a steady influx of new titles. It remains to be seen what the “make or break” games for the PlayStation 5 will be, but Sony still has a year to show them off in preparation for the 2020 holiday season.
