The interviewer asked the president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment if the rising costs of production are making the games too expensive for the public and consequently dropping interest in their purchase near launch.
Here is Ryan's answer:
"We have demonstrated with PlayStation 4 that the triple A gaming market has never been stronger. I believe that technology is constantly evolving and the opportunity to have games for the masses, more and more realistic, the difference between the various forms of entertainment is thinning out and can only do good for the world of video games. The stories will improve, as will the involvement. I, therefore, see it differently: I believe that the products that we propose make us very proud and that the best is yet to come. "
"If you look at the latest price increases for consoles and video games, these are very low figures. There has never been a real increase in recent times. The trend started with the The debut of the new generation consoles by some publishers is due to the attempt to cover development costs more easily and cannot be considered unmotivated. If we were to base the cost of our products on the amount of hours of entertainment offered, you can see that the hour / dollar ratio is much lower than in other media. Even in Russia we do not propose a direct conversion of our prices and we adapt them to favor our community. "
From the words of the president of Sony we understand how the recent increase in the price of video games is fundamental to allow distributors to reach break even in an acceptable time, since production costs are now very high and without earnings equally high would be a big risk when each product comes out.
Did you know that in the same interview Jim Ryan talked about the possible arrival of an Xbox Game Pass-style service on PlayStation 5?