Jim Ryan

Jim Ryan is a British business executive who led Sony's PlayStation business worldwide during the launch of the PlayStation 5. He joined Sony Computer Entertainment Europe in 1994 and spent three decades with the company, rising through its European sales and marketing organization to run that region before taking global control of the platform. In 2019 he was named President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, the top job across the entire PlayStation business.

His tenure covered the end of the PlayStation 4 generation and the whole of the PS5's arrival. He launched the PS5 in November 2020, in the middle of a global pandemic and severe supply shortages, and still moved the console by the tens of millions, roughly forty million units by the time he left. Under his leadership PlayStation leaned steadily toward digital distribution: the PS5 shipped at launch in two versions, one of which, the Digital Edition, had no disc drive at all, and the company's backward compatibility strategy kept the PS5 focused on PS4 titles while older libraries were offered through paid PlayStation Plus subscription tiers rather than universal native support.

He is also remembered for a 2017 interview with TIME in which, describing the Gran Turismo series across four console generations, he said the PS1 and PS2 versions "looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?" He later said he had not meant to be disrespectful to PlayStation's heritage, but the remark followed him as a shorthand for a forward-facing, digital-first worldview.

Ryan announced his retirement in 2023 and stepped down in March 2024 after thirty years with the company, with Hiroki Totoki serving as interim leader of the division.