From Shipping Nearly 42 Million PS5 Consoles to Bringing $27 Billion in Revenue: Jim Ryan Will Leave PlayStation With an Amazing Legacy to Carry Forward Into the Future

Following a tenure of over 28 years, Jim Ryan is going to leave Sony. He recently announced that he will retire from the role of PlayStation and Sony Interactive Entertainment’s CEO. While the news is surprising for many people, Jim believes it’s finally the best time to make the move. In fact, it may actually be the case indeed!

Jim Ryan initially took over the position of SIE’s CEO nearly five years ago. Since then, it’s been nothing short of a dream run for Sony and most importantly the PS5. It wouldn’t be an over exaggeration to say that Jim will leave a great legacy to carry forward for whoever becomes his permanent successor.

Tremendous PS5 sales, massive first-party blockbusters and huge profits

Jim became the President and CEO of SIE in February 2019 after John Kodera stepped down from the role. During his time at SIE, Mr. Ryan mostly oversaw the launch of the much-anticipated PS5 console in the year 2020. However, things were not going good for him and the company when the pandemic hit the world. It resulted in huge shortage of devices including game consoles. But the shipments of PS5 managed to rise and now, players can buy the console across the globe.

Taking a look at Jim Ryan’s track record as the CEO, there are quite a lot of achievements SIE managed to accomplish. For example, earlier this year, Sony announced that nearly 42 million PS5 units were sold as of July 16 2023.

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Meanwhile, here’s a list of all the valuable numbers attained by Sony under Jim Ryan’s leadership:

• Record-breaking revenue of almost $27 billion in Financial Year 2022
• New operating income of $3.091 billion as of 2020
• Sony acquired Destiny 2 developing studio Bungie for $3.6 billion, Nixxes, Haven, Housemarque, and Bluepoint among others
• PlayStation Plus service reached nearly 48 million subscribers globally as of March 2023
• First-party games like The Last of Us and God of War Ragnarok have sold 37 million and 11 million units as of December 2022 and January 2023 respectively.
• Expansion of PlayStation Productions to make live action adaptations based on successful PS exclusive IPs. The release of The Last of Us series from HBO in January 2023 turned out to be a record-breaking hit, amassing astonishing viewership figures.

There’s one objective, though, Jim Ryan won’t be able to accomplish now

Although Jim has enjoyed a successful tenure, he did end up facing a big disappointment on one specific front. It’s already known that he tried his best to block the $68.7 billion Microsoft-Activision deal ever since it was first announced. In fact, there was also a case that ran earlier this year between Microsoft and FTC. The judge gave the verdict in favor of the Xbox maker, leaving Jim Ryan highly upset.

In a surprising turn of events, however, he ended up making a 10-year deal with Microsoft in July 2023. It was done to have future Call of Duty games on PlayStation consoles. Apart from this situation, Ryan’s career as the CEO has earned Sony a dominating position in the market.

Following his departure in March 2024, it will be interesting to see who will succeed him. Will the next CEO manage to replicate the amazing records attained under Ryan’s leadership? Only time will tell.

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