Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan has revealed that although the company is pleased with the PlayStation 5‘s launch in these challenging times, Sony wouldn’t pull something like this again and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else either.
In an interview with TASS Russian News Agency, Ryan said that Sony had to face a number of bumps in the road, especially on the production side.
I guess my two principle feelings are one of happiness as things appear to be going well, and secondly of relief – we did it in this unusual, strange, and frankly, rather difficult year. Of all the things that I’ve learned this year, one is that I wouldn’t plan on doing another big console launch in the midst of a global pandemic, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody else. It’s been difficult, it’s been challenging from the production side, not being able to get anybody into the factories in Asia.
Ryan added that all the stock Sony manufactured has been sold out. “Absolutely everything is sold,” he continued. “I’ve spent much of the last year trying to be sure that we can generate enough demand for the product. And now in terms of my executive bandwidth, I’m spending a lot more time on trying to increase supply to meet that demand.”
When asked if the PS5 would have turned out different if it wasn’t for Covid-19, Ryan said “absolutely not” in terms of the actual console. However, Sony’s marketing strategies would have certainly been different. Interestingly, Ryan suggested that Covid-19 didn’t affect supply either. “We might have had a few more to sell, but not very many: the guys on the production/manufacturing side have worked miracles,” he concluded.
[Source: TASS]
