Dave Ranyard, studio head at Sony’s London studio, is leaving after seventeen years. The studio has been making games like The London Heist and other VR games which have been used as a tech demos at E3 and Gamescom to help show off the power and potential of PS VR. The studio also had a yet to be announced VR game in the works and PS VR is still rumored to be priced and released this year.
Ranyard is leaving for independent work in VR, so he isn’t leaving the industry. Still, it is a little telling that he’d leave right before PS VR is seemingly ready to finally show up. Maybe the investment in VR is so high, and his pedigree so impressive, he could write his own ticket someplace else. Either way this isn’t the best news for PS VR, losing someone who was spearheading new software on new hardware that might be pretty hard to sell.
Still hard to say if PS VR will succeed and if 2016 really is the year VR breaks loose. I’d wait until we get some more information like price and what games will work with VR.
