PlayStation’s CEO won’t say if God of War Ragnarok is coming to PS4

Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan has refused to comment on whether God of War Ragnarok will be released for PS4 as well as PS5.

The company revealed that God of War Ragnarök will be released for PS5 in 2021 via a brief teaser shown during a next-gen software showcase in mid-September.

Asked whether the game will be released for PS4 too, Ryan told The Telegraph: “Sorry. I’ve got nothing to say about that today.”

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In September Sony confirmed that several games previously thought to be PS5 exclusives would also be released for PS4, including next-gen launch titles Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales and Sackboy A Big Adventure, and Horizon Forbidden West, which is scheduled for release in the second half of next year.

Recently a PS5 advertising spot confirmed that Gran Turismo 7 and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart are due to arrive in the first half of 2021.

Insomniac Games has reiterated that Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart will be released exclusively for PS5, but it remains to be seen if Sony’s other major releases could also find a home on PS4.

Further reading

1

God of War Ragnarök is coming to PS5 in 2021, Sony confirms

Announcement closes the latest PS5 showcase

The Telegraph suggested some fans have expressed disappointment with Sony’s strategy of developing PS5 games that also being built for the less powerful PS4, and asked Ryan how long Sony might continue making cross-gen titles.

“The first thing to say is that our PS5 experiences or versions of these games are built from the ground up to take advantage of the PS5 feature set. So I think offering a PS5 version of these games for the PS5 community and then a PS4 version of these games to the PS4 community, I don’t see what’s wrong with that,” Ryan said.

“We’ve got a community of PS4 gamers 100 million-strong. It would be wrong to walk away from those people too early. And they’ve been engaged with their PS4s this year under lockdown to a greater extent than at any point over the course of the cycle. They’re using their PlayStations. They’re happy with their PlayStations. Why would we stop giving them games?”

Continuing to cater to PS4’s massive install base means Sony is unlikely to start unlocking PS5’s true potential for several years, a key PlayStation executive recently suggested.

In an interview with AV Watch, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s head of platform planning, Hideaki Nishino, discussed the balancing act involved in developing next-gen experiences without leaving behind over 110 million PS4 players.

Ryan previously told GamesIndustry.biz that the platform holder’s ambition is to transition players from PS4 to PS5 “at a scale and pace that we’ve never delivered on before”.

Nishino said he expects this transition may take three years and that during this period, Sony would like as many games as possible to be playable on both platforms, blurring the line between generations.

In the same Telegraph interview, Ryan defended Sony’s decision to increase software prices to $70 for selected first-party PS5 games and claimed the company hasn’t received feedback suggesting consumers are concerned about the amount of storage space offered by PS5.

Further reading

1

Sony thinks cross-gen games will be ‘important’ for the next 3 years as players transition to PS5

Continued support for PS4 users means PS5's potential is unlikely to be unlocked for several years