Dave Ranyard, head of Sony’s London Studio, is leaving the company after 17 years. While studio heads come and go, Ranyard and his background in VR are particularly in demand right now. During his time at Sony, Ranyard has been responsible for

 PlayStation VR demos, including The London Heist and Streetluge. 

Ranyard has also worked on past tiles like The Gateway, Wonderbook, Eyetoy, and Singstar, which have all helped shape what we now know as PlayStation VR in some small way. So where is he headed now? To another VR studio. Details after the jump.

From Ranyard

 2016 is going to be the year of VR so it’s the perfect time for me to take this step into independent development. The emergence of a new medium like VR doesn’t come along very often and I really want to be a part of this new world. 

While alarming at first, it’s not unheard of for head of projects to leave right before a product is released. Ranyard has helped bring PS VR from an internal project to a full-fledged product that’s going to be launched in month’s time. At this point, PS VR is not only a fully baked product from Sony’s standpoint, but it’s also one that likely has its next few years planned as well.

For someone with the talents of Ranyard, this presents the perfect time to hand off this vision to somebody else and bring his skills to another company. In fact, it’s quite possible that Ranyard’s focus will be something other than video games which is what Sony is currently working on with PlayStation VR. While a loss for Sony, this shouldn’t be indicative of how things are progressing with PS VR internally or one that will jeopardize the future of it.

Simply put, with PS VR ready for launch, it’s good news for the future of VR to have someone like Ranyard head to another firm and take his expertise to create yet another viable VR studio. The more players in this medium, the brighter and more diverse of a future it will have.

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[Via IGN]