Jim Ryan on Delays: Better to Wait for a Great Game Than Release a Rushed Product

It’s not uncommon to see video games getting delayed past their originally planned launch dates or windows (in fact, it’s all too common), but often, publishers are reluctant to delay some of their bigger tentpole games. Of course, of late, we’ve seen on more than one occasion that Sony isn’t averse to delaying even its bigger products, with the likes of God of War: Ragnarok and Gran Turismo 7 both getting pushed back into 2022.

Speaking in a recent interview TMT Post, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan was questioned about how Sony as a company approaches this issue. Ryan’s response was one that’s very much in line by a now-legendary Shigeru Miyamoto quote, essentially saying that Sony prefers to allow games more development time if needed so that they can be the best possible versions of themselves, because that kind of a product would be much more valuable than a rushed product that’s “only okay.”

“It is better to wait and have a great game than to rush and have a game that is okay or quite good,” Ryan said. “Players only remember best games rather than okay games. If it is a best game, players may want a sequel, and they will also want to buy a sequel, but no one really cares about a game that is only okay. Of course, due to financial and product portfolio considerations, we will also give pressure to studios to deliver a certain product within the expected time. But in general, we don’t want products that are okay, we want the best.”

We have, of course, seen that publishers seem more willing to delay their bigger games nowadays than they perhaps once used to be, though of course, delaying a game is by no means guaranteed to lead to a better product- take the likes of Anthem or Cyberpunk 2077, for instance, both of which were delayed several times. It’s always fascinating to see how developers and publishers balance those two aspects.