PS5’s True “Generation-Defining” Games Won’t Come Until 2022 Says Jim Ryan

The PlayStation 5 has officially launched in all regions of the world, but it may be a while before truly transformational next-gen experiences arrive. Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan famously stated that the company “believes in generations,” but a number of PS5 blockbusters including Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Horizon Forbidden West, and possibly God of War Ragnarok, are crossgen titles, and other Sony execs have hinted PS4 support will continue for at least another three years. Jim Ryan reiterated this idea in a new interview with the Russian News Agency TASS…

There are around 114 million PS4s in the world, the number of those who transfer [to PS5 initially], if you keep that in mind, is a small number. But for us, the PS4 community is going to remain incredibly important certainly for 2020, 2021 and 2022. Because in those three years, that will be the larger PlayStation community.

So, if crossgen is going to be a reality of life for some time to come, when are those real next-gen PS5 experiences going to arrive? Stuff that wouldn’t even be imaginable on PS4? According to Ryan, they aren’t coming this year or even next year – 2022 is when the PS5’s power will be truly tapped.

History will tell you that it’s in the second or third year that the developers really hit their stride. Developers typically need a little bit of time to familiarize themselves [with the hardware]. But it’s probably 2022 that you’re going to see some wonderful things in the same way that it was 2015 [or] 2016 for the previous generation. When the generation defining-games started to be published.

Again, this doesn’t mean there won’t be PS5 exclusives before then – we already have two big ones in Demon’s Souls and the upcoming Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. But it seems the real mind-blowing stuff with the fidelity of that amazing Unreal Engine 5 PS5 demo, is still some ways away.

The PlayStation 5 is available now worldwide. What do you think about Ryan’s comments? Are a couple years too long to wait for those generation-defining games? Or are you cool with this transitional period?