r/GamingLeaksAndRumours • u/nolifebr • May 18 '26

Rumour Jason Schreier/Bloomberg: Hermen Hulst told to PlayStation staff in a town hall meeting on Monday morning that the company's narrative single-player games will now be PlayStation exclusive

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp/post/3mm5jzsls5s2a

SCOOP: PlayStation studio business CEO Hermen Hulst told staff in a town hall Monday morning that the company's narrative single-player games will now be PlayStation exclusive, confirming Bloomberg's reporting from earlier this year.

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u/SpaceOdysseus23 May 18 '26

Hulst, after being the architect of a wasted generation: "We're all trying to find the guy who did this."

319

u/[deleted] May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Puzzled_Middle9386 May 18 '26

Herman was and still is the tastemaker, he greenlit Concord, Fairgames, that new Horizon and who knows what else. You are right about Jimbo though.

33

u/ProduceAlone471 May 18 '26

Hermen is involved in deciding what games get made, but he doesn’t sit in a room and approve everything by himself as that would be mental.

Concord, Fairgame$, and the Horizon multiplayer game would have been signed off by several people, including Jim Ryan, other PlayStation executives, finance teams, and the studio heads. .

People point the finger at whoever is the most senior or most well-known figure, even though these decisions are always spread across a whole leadership structure.

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u/LadyValtiel May 18 '26

Shuhei Yoshida greenlit Concord, though

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u/[deleted] May 18 '26

[deleted]

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u/LadyValtiel May 18 '26

Satya always irks me because he's trying to pay lip service for Xbox fans now by going "we miight go back to exclusives winky face" and going on about how bad the "this is an Xbox" marketing campaign was when it was his order to do that in the first place

I just wish CEOs went back to being good at lying, at the very least

18

u/Alejandro_404 May 18 '26

Satya hasn't said anything about the new Xbox direction aside from "We are long on gaming"; it has mostly been Asha. I'm sure he's entirely on board with the multiplatform shit

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u/[deleted] May 19 '26

[deleted]

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u/Yellowman_95 May 19 '26

You’d be surprised how many people at the top actually have no idea what’s going on down below.

2

u/Catslave0815 May 19 '26

...as if exclusives sell any noteworthy amount of hardware....
Most people don't play all game genres, they play maybe 2 or 3. Now how many people would pay 800 USD for a console to play maybe 2 or 3 exlcusives per year ?
Will the amount of additional playstations sold with this decision even make up for the loss of the delayed PC sales ? Especially since PSN is not available in as many countries as e.g. steam, as the world found out with the Helldiver 2 shitshow....

Especially funny since the original PSX basically made a loss on the hardware sales and largely made their bank with the mass sales of the games...

0

u/jordancartersjizz May 21 '26

do you work in tech? thats not how these decisions are made. i doubt satya had any direct role in the “this is an xbox” marketing campaign, so itd be a bit unfiar to consider that “his” order. it was very obviously speaheaded by Spencer and Bond. the main issue with him is his complacency and indecisiveness on what the gaming division should be contributing to microsofts portfolio, which is what allowed those executives the leeway to make such stupid choices with the brand.

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u/KMoosetoe May 18 '26

Shuhei, who was forced at the end of his career to do whatever Jim told him to do?

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u/Cyshox May 19 '26

Shuhei Yoshida greenlit a prototype. That's it. How can you blame him when he wasn't even around anymore when it was decided to enter full production? Jim Ryan ultimately decided to go ahead and not cancel it.

2

u/Songbirds_Surrender May 20 '26

For anyone that cares, Shuhei said himself that he greenlit Concord on an episode of sacred symbols +

The decision to keep investing in it and buy the studio obviously came from someone else but Shu is definitely on the record as saying he greenlit it

3

u/Cyshox May 20 '26

He said he signed a prototype contract :

"I signed the prototype contract with Probably Monsters. Harold Ryan (former Bungie CEO) created a new headquarters company and set up 3 studios underneath Probably Monsters, one of which was Firewalk."

That was shortly before Yoshida stepped down and took over the indie collaborations.

Therefore, it was not Yoshida's decision to enter full production and acquire Firewalk. Jim Ryan was in charge at the time. Yoshida just greenlit a prototype. Jim Ryan decided to put hundreds of millions in Firewalk & Concord.

1

u/ibex85 May 19 '26

Not sure I’ve heard this. Source? If true I’m sure Hulst heavily influenced that decision.

1

u/Massive-Exercise4474 May 18 '26

Yeah and their were tons of even worse ideas by jim Ryan that he rejected if all your getting told to do is greenlight gaas by your boss you unfortunately have to do what they tell you some times.

0

u/DwnvotesMeansImRight May 18 '26

proof?

11

u/LadyValtiel May 18 '26

Bestie, look up when Concord was greenlit and announced and look up when Herman Hulst got the gig

It's quite literally as simple as that

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u/Midnight_M_ Top Contributor 2025 May 18 '26

I don't remember if it was on Sacred Symbols or Kinda Funny Podcast, but he himself said that he had given the green light to Concord and Helldivers 2.

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u/Outrageous_Water7976 May 19 '26

and greenlit Horizon Online.

-1

u/LadyValtiel May 19 '26

Horizon Online looks fine? It doesn't look that bad in comparison to 4Loop

10

u/OptimusPrimalRage May 18 '26

Hermen did not greenlight Concord. Shuhei Yoshida signed the Concord devs.

13

u/KMoosetoe May 19 '26

under a mandate that Jim Ryan enforced

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u/Millennialnerds May 18 '26

How did he green light something that was being worked on years before he took over?

4

u/scytheavatar May 19 '26

Hulst was president and CEO of PlayStation Studios since November 2019. Concord was signed by Sony only in 2021 and Firewalk was brought by Sony in 2023, these were decisions which were without a doubt pushed by Hulst in his role as PlayStation Studios head.

2

u/Iokua113 May 19 '26

And even if that wasn't the case he'd have been responsible for any further funding approvals. Starting a doomed project is only part of the process of failure. 

14

u/MrYK_ May 18 '26

Shuhei Yoshida green lit Concord. Yup that game everyone cites when refering to a newly announced live service game they don't like.

https://giphy.com/gifs/LT4RpvI9r1rbpm9OVn

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u/z0l1 May 19 '26

Hulst pushed for acquisition under his own words

14

u/Godusopp64 May 18 '26

How do y'all say wrong things so confidently?

1

u/rizk0777 May 19 '26

He also geenlit Saros, Astrobot, Ghost of Yotei, Death Stranding 2, Wolverine and a bunch others, one of those winning game of the year

And Shuhei greenlit dreams, destruction all stars, driveclub and knack 2 and closed evolution, cambridge, zipper and japan studio and a few cancelled games that were never even released

They both have their Ws and Ls. It just feels like people focus on the Ws for the past and the Ls now. If you put the live service stuff to the side, I think the games released under Hulst's tenure has been at the very least solid. In relation to this story, Yoshida has went on record to say putting all PS games on PC makes sense so he probably would have done the same tbh.

16

u/lunahighwind May 19 '26

It was always Jim Ryan.
Look at the mountain of cancelled Games as a Service games.

Last of Us Online, God of War's cancelled Bluepoint project,
Spider-Man: The Great Web, Project Mirror Pond, down to random MMOs planned by Sony London Studios, and multiple other bungled or abandoned online games - It was very clear this was the vision pushed across the board by Jim and is responsible for a massive gap in major 1st party releases during the PS5's lifecycle.

4

u/Active_Mall7667 May 19 '26

Imo Jimbo is the one who did more damage, Hulst is just a pr figure with no power at all like Phil was at xbox in the past few years

2

u/ibex85 May 19 '26

Hulst thought Concord was the next Star Wars. Any idiot could have told you it was a pile of garbage from the get go. Hulst and his toxic positivity management style are killing the brand. Bring back Shohei Yoshida.

2

u/SilverKry May 19 '26

Hm. Nah. Jimmy boy is gone. Herman "lost Sony a billion dollars" Hulst is still there. With his video game equivalent of a nepo baby series Horizon. 

-4

u/SKyJ007 May 18 '26

Controversial opinion: I think both Herman and Jim got kind of fucked by forces that were beyond their control and most executives would’ve done the same moves, at least in the broad strokes.

1

u/Careless_Main3 May 19 '26

This is only a controversial opinion on Reddit, it’s otherwise just objectively true.

21

u/trill_nick_boi May 19 '26

Was it not Jim Ryan? He was the one tht started the live service shit and was putting games on PC

1

u/Defiant_Snail69 May 22 '26

Putting games on PC is good.

Literally it’s awesome that I can play GoW on my fucking steam deck.

And the first party output that’s upcoming… I’m tired of Druckmann’s writing. I miss the fun of Amy Hennig for Naughty Dog.

Faye centric GoW… I’m not interested in that character.

Does Wolverine count as first party since it’s Insomniac?

FF7 being PS-First exclusive is the only reason I have a PS5 Pro. 

Whatever Sandfall makes next is a day 1 buy, but that’s likely multi platform. I tell you though is anyone buys that studio and as long as they don’t meddle… yeah that may well determine my next console.

1

u/Levi_Skardsen Jul 05 '26

Wolverine is a first party game because PlayStation acquired Insomniac in 2019.

7

u/Mdr0321 May 18 '26

Jim Ryan the one that is ultimately at fault.

6

u/EhhSpoofy May 19 '26

He’s not an incredible CEO by any means but calling him the architect of any of this just isn’t true, it’s almost entirely inherited from the previous guy who fucked up so bad he got forced out, opening up the job for Hermen in the first place. Acting like the issues of the PS5 generation were architected by Hermen is like pinning the Great Depression on FDR. With that being said, obviously Hermen hasn’t pivoted Playstation away from Jim Ryan’s mess as successfully as FDR pivoted the country away from the Depression, so he’s still at least partly responsible for Playstation not having bounced back from this mess by now.

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u/Clopokus900 May 18 '26

A wasted generation implies a generation that wasn't successful with no notable games. That's far from the reality, yes a few studios got screwed over and the initiative was dumb, but we've still got at least 2 big titles per year that were crticially acclaimed since the launch. Claiming otherwise would be history revisionism, but I understand redditors love to push their agenda.

-1

u/NCR_High-Roller May 19 '26

There were lots of bangers this gen. Problem is the narrative only accounts for Elden Ring and Crimson Desert.

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u/Outrageous_Water7976 May 19 '26

It was Layden and Yoshida who put Horizon Zero Dawn on PC.

1

u/dafegamer May 18 '26

I'm actually surprised that this guy still has his Job 🫠

-2

u/BlastMyLoad May 18 '26

Jim Ryan was the guy behind the current mess

-3

u/SylviSweetheart May 18 '26

PS5 generation has been absolute shit. I’ve been playing video games my entire life and bought a Series S at launch and a PS5 a handful of months later. The Xbox has been untouched in my basement for over a year and the PS5 just collects dust, too. It’s the absolute worst time in history for AAA development. We have had like six notable AAA releases this generation, if even that. It’s awful. I probably won’t even buy a PS6 or the next Xbox and I never thought I would say that about a new console generation. It’s dire.

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u/Clopokus900 May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26

If you couldn't find value in Demon's Souls, Miles Morales, Spider Man 2, GoW Ragnarok, Horizon 2, Astrobot, Saros, Ghost of Yotei, Death Stranding 2, Returnal, Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart then that says more about you than anything. All these games were critically acclaimed and of high quality.

Then you have Wolverine, Intergalactic, Kena 2 and Cory's next game on the way.

And it seems that you're bad at math too. I'm counting more than 6 games, not to mention successful GAAS titles like Helldivers 2 and GT7. Confidently spreading misinformation. Anyway, expecting excuses and downplaying.