Eh. Jim sucks, but at the end of the day, the public face of many companies only exist to justify the direction the board wants to take. They’re functionally a lightning rod for all criticism. Microsoft axed Mattrick, not because I think Xbox One was his idea, but because the optics of bringing in new blood just looks better. So they dropped someone who looks more corporate and brought in an “average Joe” gamer to implement parts of the original Xbox One plan in slow motion and repackaged it.
However, when a company branch is on top of the competition, the board tends to give more flexibility to the company face, but still need to implement their vision (which is where Ryan comes in). His tweaks around the edges weren’t great, but his departure in favor of a seasoned game studio head (Hulst) and financial expert (Nishino) really shows they want to be a Japanese company with appeal to the west and prioritize game quality, but with heavy financial regulations in place. Ultimately, I think the money people won out, but maybe it’s in response to the tariff stuff.
I think Sony affords their heads more agency than Microsoft so we can definitely say Jim screwed things up, but again, only to a certain extent.
