The president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment also talked about the toxicity surrounding The Last of Us Part II.

The head of PlayStation was interviewed by GQ Magazine UK, where he first praised Ghost of Tsushima and its dev team, Sucker Punch: „Lately I find myself thrilled with the way Ghost Of Tsushima has outperformed everybody’s expectations. The team at Sucker Punch did InFAMOUS: Second Son at the start of the generation and then they kind of did a little bit of internal R&D with this concept of a West Coast US studio making a game about medieval Japan.

We were a little bit sceptical about it when there were Japanese developers who’ve done that in the past, but they hung on in there and the game has catapulted them into the top tier of our world-class studios. As a poster child for the organic growth in our studios throughout this generation it’s probably the best example we have,” Ryan said. He has a point: for example, Team Ninja and Nioh is another pair about medieval Japan (albeit a few hundred years later in history!). Ghost of Tsushima received seven The Game Awards nominations, and it sold over five million copies.

Ryan then talked about how Sony responded to the backlash regarding Naughty Dog’s game: „I met Neil [Druckmann] last year and congratulated him on his art and his storytelling. Neil’s a big boy, as am I, and I don’t think either of us would allow ourselves to be unduly bothered by that stuff. Neil knows he makes great art. He knows that he’s successfully broached topics that have never been addressed maturely in any video game ever before. I think that is an outstanding thing and I’m very proud that the PlayStation is the platform in which that happened. The rest of the toxicity you just take in your stride and just move on.”

Then, the head of PlayStation discussed how the studios focus on expanding diversity: „We’re working harder than we ever have to ensure that we have as diverse a working population as we possibly can and that we behave with the right respect towards each other. I think that’s permeated down to the studios and is resulting in a greater number of female protagonists, as well as [Marvel’s Spider-Man:] Miles Morales, but it’s not management by diktat. With Miles… that’s probably been about three years in the making.”

Organic growth seems to be a favourite term for Ryan.

Source: PSL, PSL

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