PlayStation chief Jim Ryan isn’t phased by Microsoft’s big-spending approach to expanding its first party roster.
The Xbox maker has made a splash in recent years with a number of high-profile, big-money acquisitions, the most recent of which saw it acquire Fallout and The Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda for $7.5 billion.
During a lengthy interview with GamesIndusty.biz, however, Ryan indicated that Sony isn’t necessarily looking to compete with Microsoft on those terms, and is instead satisfied with the “carefully planned organic growth” of its own first party studios.
“It’s probably not widely appreciated or understood, to what extent that we have grown our own game development capability organically over the course of this generation,” he commented.
“Obviously, it’s been helped by the acquisition of Insomniac, and it’s wonderful to have them as part of the family. I would just invite anybody to look at the launch window line-up of the PS4 generation, or PS3 generation, and compare it to what we are going to bring in the equivalent phase of PS5. There’s just no comparison.”
As Ryan quite rightly points out, Sony hasn’t been afraid to drop serious money in the past, with its acquisition of Marvel’s Spider-Man developer Insomniac having cost around $229 million.
That said, it’s clear the PlayStation boss believes Sony’s long-term approach to growth, which has seen it nurture studios like Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, Guerrilla Games, SIE Santa Monica Studios and more over years and decades, will continue to pay off.
“[Our software line-up] is the fruit of not massive spending sprees, but of very, very steadily, carefully planned organic growth. […] But it isn’t luck, because we’ve been working on this for years and years. Very quietly, in a very PlayStation way, we’ve been building something quite special with these studios. You can do it with frenzied acquisition, or measured acquisition, or you can do it organically.”
You can hear more from Ryan by checking out the full GamesIndustry.biz full interview.