Jim Ryan

With the year almost behind us, it's hard not to look back at 2023 with conflicted feelings. It was a fantastic year for gamers at home with great tentpole releases from PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo, and some excellent indies, too. For years to come, we will all likely argue that 2023 was one of the best – if not the best – year for games. But it was also a terrible year for the people who make games, with more than 10,000 developers laid off, studios closed, and more. 

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

Another year is almost over, and as the last days of December wind down, we're taking a look back at what's been a monumental year for the video game, entertainment, and tech industries.

Sales of Sony's PlayStation 5 have crossed 50 million units, the Japanese electronics giant said, pointing to "strong momentum" this year for its flagship gaming console. The PS5 was launched in November 2020, with the world in the grip of the Covid pandemic, and its sales initially suffered because of widespread supply chain problems and a global chip shortage.

PS5's November 2023 was Sony's biggest November for PlayStation sales to date, Sony Interactive Entertainment's Head of Global Business has said.

PlayStation 5 has surpassed 50 million units sold through to consumers, manufacturer Sony Interactive Entertainment announced.

By Emma Roth, a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.

The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.

PS5 sales have surpassed 50 million units globally, Sony has today announced.

PlayStation 5 has now sold over 50m consoles worldwide since its launch in November 2020.

Sony announced Wednesday that it has sold 50 million units of its PlayStation 5 console since the system launched three years ago. That puts the PS5 on pace with the PlayStation 4, which also hit the 50 million sales mark in 2016, just three years after Sony’s last-gen console launched in 2013.

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has claimed that PlayStation 5 sales have surpassed 50 million units worldwide.

Playstation CEO Jim Ryan has recently sold a certain number of shares of his stock in the Sony.

PlayStation 5 has sold 50 million consoles worldwide, Sony has announced.

Following the devastating cyber security attack that targeted Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 developer Insomniac Games, leaked slides have revealed Sony’s internal concern at competitor Microsoft’s emerging strategy following its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

A ransomware group hacked Insomniac last week and threatened to sell the data it stole to the highest bidder if Sony didn't pay $2 million in Bitcoin. Seven days later, 1.3 million files are now public, totaling 1.67 terabytes, including the personal information of employees.

The Last of Us multiplayer game has been cancelled. In a blog post, developer Naughty Dog confirmed that the development on the promised online experience within the post-apocalyptic universe, which it was calling ‘The Last of Us Online,' has been stopped. The astonishing news comes just a month after game director Vinit Agarwal assured fans that the project was still happening despite the numerous reported setbacks, including the laying off of 25 employees. One can't simply release a live-service game into the wild and expect it to thrive. It desperately needs post-launch content for years to come, indirectly impacting a studio which is otherwise known for creating memorable single-player narratives.

PlayStation has made a one-of-a-kind PlayStation 1-style PlayStation 5, and unfortunately, you cannot buy it, but that won't stop us from dreaming of it.

Jim Ryan was gifted a one-of-a-kind PS5 from PlayStation as a parting present, and I can't help but want one.

Sony Interactive Entertainment celebrated its outgoing president and CEO Jim Ryan at a recent party.

Developers at Destiny 2 studio Bungie are said to be fearful of a «total Sony takeover» following missed revenue targets, layoffs, and product delays, a new IGN report claims. According to sources speaking to the outlet, higher-ups within the studio have hinted the shared power it enjoys with Sony following last year's acquisition may be taken away if financial targets continue to be missed.

With Game Pass being as central to Xbox’s strategy as it has become over the years, it goes without saying that Microsoft has pumped a massive amount of money into the service, especially given how many third party titles the service features in its catalog (many of which launch day and date). How much money exactly, though?

The PlayStation 6 console may be quite far from release, but it seems like Sony is working on a few things that will considerably change console gaming.

Microsoft is keen on expanding its Game Pass subscription service by bringing it to more devices. Xbox CFO Tim Stuart revealed during a talk at the Wells Fargo TMT Summit that the company wants to bring first-party Xbox titles and Game Pass to “every screen that can play games,” including competing devices like PlayStation and Nintendo consoles.

Sony and Guild Wars publisher NCsoft have today announced a strategic partnership, which aims to «expand beyond console and broaden PlayStation's reach to a wider audience».

After rumors last year about NCSoft working on an MMO based on Guerrilla’s Horizon series, Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced a strategic global business partnership with the publisher. The partnership will see both companies collaborating in “various global business fields, including mobile” and fostering “strategic synergy.”

Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced that they’ve entered into a “strategic global business partnership” with Korean publishing giant NCSoft. For those unfamiliar with NCSoft, they’re mainly active in the mobile and MMORPG space, publishing franchises like Guild Wars, Lineage, and Throne and Liberty. Sony doesn’t specifically say what this partnership is for, but it seems like NCSoft’s mobile expertise is what Team PlayStation is most interested in. Here’s what Sony Interactive Entertainment boss Jim Ryan had to say about the new partnership…

Sony Interactive Entertainment and NCSoft have announced a new “strategic partnership” that will cover “various global business fields, including mobile”. 

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) and NCSoft have signed a strategic global business partnership.

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Sony Interactive Entertainment has signed a strategic global business partnership with Korean publisher and developer NCSOFT, the companies announced.

Sony has signed a “strategic global business partnership” with NCSoft, the South Korean company behind massively multiplayer online role-playing games such as Guild Wars and Lineage.

During today's Q2 2023 conference call with investors, Sony Vice President, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki (who's currently the interim CEO of SIE and looking for a permanent replacement for Jim Ryan) revealed that half of the twelve live service PlayStation games planned to launch by March 2026 have been delayed.

Sony is focusing on quality over quantity with its live-service gaming push.

Sony Vice President, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki will be Sony Interactive Entertainment's interim CEO for a maximum of one year, and his tenure will be aimed at finding a replacement for the former retired head Jim Ryan as quickly as possible.

Sony has halved the number of live service games it plans to release by March 2026 from 12 to six.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has agreed to acquire UK-based AI company iSize.

Xbox Series X/S has outsold PS5 in Japan for only the fourth time on a weekly basis since both consoles launched in November 2020.

Destiny 2 developer Bungie is laying off an unspecified number of people, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons confirmed Monday after employees began speaking up about the job cuts on social media.

Bungie has reportedly told staff it will be delaying next year's planned Destiny 2 expansion The Final Shape, as well as the studio's upcoming Marathon reimagining.

There’s a new rumor going around about what is going on behind the scenes at Sony.

Stop for a second and picture your favorite video game developer or publisher. It doesn’t matter their “scale” as long as they’re prominent. More than likely, you can name-drop at least one or two people who are the “faces” of that company. For example, Nintendo has Eiji Aonuma, Shigeru Miyamoto, Doug Bowser, etc. Microsoft has Phil Spencer, Sony has/had Jim Ryan, and on it goes. For Bethesda, they have/had many people who have helped define them over the years for one reason or another. Easily, the one that most people know is Todd Howard. He’s the guy who honestly makes the biggest announcements for the company and helps crank out their best games.

Sony has said it expects one of its best seasons ever for console sales this Christmas, as PlayStation 5 stock is now in «full supply» for the first time since the PS5 launched in November 2020.

Sony has officially confirmed the exit of longtime member of PlayStation management, Connie Booth.

«We have to look at our pricing and we have to adjust to market conditions.»

Former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden has said the industry needs to do a much better job at preserving games.

David Scott Jaffe has shared a shocking update on Connie Booth and the situation behind the scenes at PlayStation.

Sony has begun denoting which games are streamable with PlayStation Plus Premium, via a new logo on the console’s user interface.

PlayStation veteran Connie Booth has reportedly left Sony.

Connie Booth, current SVP of PlayStation's internal production team, is reportedly no longer working at Sony Interactive Entertainment. News of her departure was revealed by God of War designer David Jaffe, who claimed Booth's 27-year tenure at the developer was over. 

To meet its sky-high sales forecasts for the PlayStation 5 this year, Sony Group Corp. will look for help from a superhero.

Xbox's Activision Blizzard merger is finally done, but that doesn't mean that Phil Spencer is suddenly ready to reverse course and make Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive. Speaking on the Official Xbox Podcast, Spencer reiterated that the platform's goal is "100 percent parity" on content across all platforms.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 — out next Friday on PS5 — is easily one of our most anticipated titles of the year, building upon Insomniac Games' original blockbuster tale to weave a new line for our spandex-wearing web crawlers. Yep, true to the name, this time we get to play as both Peter Parker and Miles Morales, as they team up to neutralise various new threats to New York City, which include the monstrous symbiote Venom and the beast-like Kraven the Hunter. In addition to refining web-swinging and chained flowy combat — a selling point for 2018's Spider-Man — the sequel has nearly doubled the size of its open-world playground, albeit in ways that traversal never feels tedious.

We have a new rumor about the state of The Last Of Us multiplayer from a new source. The game is reportedly cancelled, but the devil is in the details.

PlayStation Plus' Premium subscribers will get access to cloud streaming by the end of October. 

Nearly three years after the initial launch of the PlayStation 5, Sony has revealed a slimmer redesign. Both the disc drive model and the digital model will be updated, but these two models aren't as different as they used to be: you will now be able to purchase a disc drive separately, allowing you to upgrade a digital model to a disc-compatible version. Both versions will be available this November, and will eventually replace the current model of PS5 altogether.

It would seem Microsoft’s long, uphill battle to acquire Activision Blizzard could be nearing its end. The Verge reports via an unnamed source that the deal could be closed by the end of next week, though they mentioned that is still tentative, as the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority could still threaten the successful closure of Microsoft’s long-sought deal.

Amazon have decided to have another sale, the autumn deals event, which will run over Tuesday October 10th and Wednesday, October 11th.  Think of it as second Amazon Prime day. Ahead of that they have already dropped some big discounts including a whopping £130 off off a PlayStation 5 and a copy of EA Sports FC 24, taking the price down to £409.99.  You can grab the deal here. 

Amazon have decided to have another sale, the autumn deals event, which will run over Tuesday October 10th and Wednesday, October 11th.  Think of it as second Amazon Prime day. Ahead of that they have already dropped some big discounts including a whopping £130 off off a PlayStation 5 and a copy of EA Sports FC 24, taking the price down to £409.99.  You can grab the deal here. 

Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition is reportedly the first two-disc PS5 game. As per an image posted by the ‘Does it play?' Twitter account, the base game, its Burning Shores expansion, and some digital goodies all total out to 121GB, and will be available on the two discs included in the physical edition. The game is slated to launch Friday, October 6, and with that, it has beaten the upcoming Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth to the punch, which was also planned for release on two discs. This move is a big win for console owners who value physical media — or rather, the ability to access games anywhere and anytime without restrictions such as a constant internet connection.

First we give our initial impressions of Forza Motorsport and Assassin's Creed Mirage now that the review embargoes on them have lifted, and then we spend the bulk of the episode giving our top-5 rankings of Xbox's internal game studios (including Bethesda/Zenimax) while also contemplating Phil Spencer's Xbox legacy to date as PlayStation boss Jim Ryan finalizes his ahead of his retirement.

Layoffs have reportedly hit the staff over at Naughty Dog. A new report from Kotaku alleges the Last of Us developer has cut at least 25 contractor jobs. 

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has released October’s first PlayStation Plus games.

Sony has announced another Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 PlayStation 5 console bundle.

Sony is reportedly «uncomfortable» about outgoing PlayStation boss Jim Ryan's pivot to games as a service.

For the last two weeks, it feels like at least 40-50% of the news I’ve heard about is about people in the games industry either being laid off or leaving their companies for whatever reason. On the retirement or job-shifting side, we’ve got Jim Ryan of PlayStation, Donald Mustard of Epic, Glen Schofield of Striking Distance, and Hideki Kamiya of Platinum Games. On the layoff side, we’ve seen the “restructuring” of Embracer Group, the losses at Crystal Dynamics and, most recently, the massive layoffs at Epic Games.

PlayStation Portal, Sony's dedicated Remote Play handheld device for PS5, is launching globally on 15th November 2023, and pre-orders are now live across various retailers.

The surprising revelation that Jim Ryan will retire as Sony Interactive Entertainment’s President and CEO at the end of March 2024 has been, perhaps predictably, met with glee from most corners of the wider video game world. In addition to courting controversy on a number of occasions, the British executive’s tenure has largely been marred by a change in corporate goals: an emphasis on games as a service which has yet to really bear fruit, a lack of engagement with enthusiasts, and a blank slate of upcoming first-party releases.

With Sony announcing that PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan will be retiring in April of next year, this kind of message from Phil Spencer was inevitable. The Xbox boss has taken to Twitter in order to praise 63-year-old Ryan's impact on the industry, as you'd expect.

After almost 30 years at Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), not to mention being president and CEO since 2019, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan has announced his retirement. He will hand over the reins of corporate power to Sony Group Corporation president and COO Hiroki Totoki on 1st April 2024, who will take on the role of Interim CEO of SIE until a suitable successor can be found. In addition, Totoki will become chairman of SIE as soon as next month, ahead of Ryan's departure.

Not to be outdone, Ubisoft is apparently getting in on the animated arms race currently underway on streaming service Netflix, and in a rather surprising way. Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix is an imaginative take on the larger Ubiverse, and it's headed for Netflix alongside the just-announced Devil May Cry and Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft animated outings. Unlike the others, this one has a date, so expect things to get increasingly bizarre from 19th October.

The PS5 is on track to become Sony's "most successful console yet."

This week on the Eurogamer Newscast, we bid farewell to PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, who has announced his departure from the company after almost three decades of service.

Jim Ryan, President of Sony Interactive Entertainment, has announced that he will retire in March 2024, bringing to a close an almost thirty year career with the PlayStation business, in which he has held a variety of senior positions at the company.

Sony Interactive President Jim Ryan—the man who's led Sony's PlayStation division since 2019, is stepping down from his role as president and retiring from the company.

The latest episode of VGC’s new weekly show, VGC: A Video Game Podcast, is now available on all major audio platforms.

Jim Ryan, PlayStation head and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, is leaving the company after an almost 30-year stint. In a press release, Sony confirmed that he will be retiring in March 2024, with COO Hiroki Totoki being appointed as the interim CEO of the company from April 1, 2024. Ryan merely served four years as CEO, having replaced John Kodera in 2019, and most notably oversaw the launch of the PS5, which has sold over 40 million units worldwide, as of July. It's unclear who will eventually be taking over as the new CEO, but for the time being, Totoki will assume the role of SIE chairman in October.

Jim Ryan, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) CEO, console dad, and crash zoom victim, is stepping down from his position at the top of the PlayStation tree after nearly 30 years at the company. Ryan will retire in March next year, at which point Sony's current COO and CFO Hiroki Totoki will assume the role of interim CEO while SIE hunts for a new, more permanent overlord.

Jim Ryan's retirement from PlayStation was not entirely unexpected.

Jim Ryan, President and CEO at Sony Interactive Entertainment (PlayStation), will retire in March 2024 after 30 years of working within the company. Sony has decided to place President, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki as the new Chairman of SIE (PlayStation) starting next month to help Jim Ryan with the transition. Totoki will also assume the role of interim CEO at SIE starting on April 1st, 2024, while Sony seeks a successor to Ryan.