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How former PlayStation boss views gaming’s tumultuous time | Shawn Layden interview

Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the gaming industry’s top leaders? Learn more about GamesBeat Summit sponsorship opportunities here. Shawn Layden used to run Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Worldwide Studios, a position that gave him unique insight into the whole industry...

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Layden: Absolutely. When your costs for a game exceed $200 million, exclusivity is your Achilles’ heel. It reduces your addressable market. Particularly when you’re in the world of live service gaming or free-to-play. Another platform is just another way of opening the funnel, getting more people in. In a free-to-play world, as we know, 95% percent of those people will never spend a nickel. The business is all about conversion. You have to improve your odds by cracking the funnel open. Helldivers 2 has shown that for PlayStation, coming out on PC at the same time. Again, you get that funnel wider. You get more people in.

For single-player games it’s not the same exigency. But if you’re spending $250 million, you want to be able to sell it to as many people as possible, even if it’s just 10% more. The global installed base for consoles–if you go back to the PS1 and everything else stacked up there, wherever in time you look at it, the cumulative consoles out there never gets over 250 million. It just doesn’t. The dollars have gone up over time. But I look at that and see that we’re just taking more money from the same people. That happened during the pandemic, which made a lot of companies overinvest. Look at our numbers going up! We have to chase that rocket!

Glad to see the former PS boss speak the truth about this.

Good to see Sony also came to this realization a while ago with the porting of their biggest PS franchises to PC.

Can't wait to get more big budget Sony games on PC

 

[TGO]

But with the exception of a few like Call of Duty, Exclusive sell more then multiplatforms games.
And exclusive that have gone Multiplatform has sold more or less the same with the previous exclusive platform selling 90% of the sales.

 

[FoxMcChief]

But with the exception of a few like Call of Duty, Exclusive sell more then multiplatforms games.
And exclusive that have gone Multiplatform has sold more or less the same with the previous exclusive platform selling 90% of the sales.

I don’t think so, especially when factoring in PC.

 

[nial]

Glad to see the former PS boss speak the truth about this.

He was not the former PS boss, amazing how people still believe this.

 

[fart town usa]

I love how people are trying to push this narrative like exclusives are a bad thing.

Give it a rest.

 

[Topher]

"Helldivers 2 has shown that for PlayStation, coming out on PC at the same time. Again, you get that funnel wider. You get more people in."

"For single-player games it’s not the same exigency. But if you’re spending $250 million, you want to be able to sell it to as many people as possible, even if it’s just 10% more."

Other quotes I think are of interest.....

"We’re not doing enough to get heretofore non-console people into console gaming. We’re not going to attract them by doing more of the shit we’re doing now. If 95% of the world doesn’t want to play Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Grand Theft Auto, is the industry just going to make more Call of Duty, Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto? That’s not going to get you anybody else."

"It’s crazy how you can lay off 900 people and have 300 open recs on your website. There’s a mismatch between what companies think they need and what they actually have. What did they say, 12,000 or 13,000 last year and we’re already up to 7,000 just in February of this year?"

"I don’t want to sound like a broken record, because I’ve been saying this for five years, but it’s the rising cost of development. That’s the existential threat. It’s not “live service gaming is tricky” or anything else. When we’re in the $250-300 million to make a game world…I’m giving a talk about this tomorrow at Stanford. Gaming is reaching its cathedral moment. There was a world hundreds of years ago where they built cathedrals, massive edifices to God, throughout Europe and around the world. Eventually, indentured labor only takes you so far. Then it stopped. It became prohibitively time-consuming and expensive. They were wonderful and beautiful. You can look at any of them across Europe and think, “That’s a marvel.” But we don’t make them anymore. We don’t make them because the math doesn’t work. If you have four walls and a roof, you can call it a church, and God will come visit. You don’t need the cathedral anymore."

"I’m afraid that we’ve bought into the triple-A, 80 hours of gameplay, 50 gigabytes of game, and if we can’t reach that then we can’t do anything. I’m hoping for a return of double-A gaming. I’m all for that."

 

[64bitmodels]

If you want exclusives you gotta make them cheaper or faster somehow. Stop this budget inflation, it isn't helping anyone here

 

[TGO]

I don’t think so, especially when factoring in PC.

When port a game to another platform I expect it to sell equally to the other platforms, you guys might be impressed by 5% of what those games sell on Playstation because it still money in the bank, but it's pathetic and not worth the effort.
Especially when their focus has obviously been redirected to do it.

 

[Varteras]

 

[kiphalfton]

Has it been reported yet who is going to succeed Jim?

Hopefully someone Japanese.

 

[Guilty_AI]

If you want exclusives you gotta make them cheaper or faster somehow. Stop this budget inflation, it isn't helping anyone here

Yup, no one is gonna get a console for 1.5 exclusives every 2 years.

 

[Salty Popsicle]

Has it been reported yet who is going to succeed Jim?

Hopefully someone Japanese.

 

[Portugeezer]

Yeah yeah, wider net good. But, do exclusives (and accumulation of exclusives) sell consoles or not?

And if so, will having customers purchase a console for some exclusives (and possible other games in their ecosystem) offset the downside of being a loss leader or having exclusive games limited to a single platform.

I don't have the data to form an educated opinion.

 

[killatopak]

Nintendo seems to do fine. Too fine actually wtf.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

"Helldivers 2 has shown that for PlayStation, coming out on PC at the same time. Again, you get that funnel wider. You get more people in."

"For single-player games it’s not the same exigency. But if you’re spending $250 million, you want to be able to sell it to as many people as possible, even if it’s just 10% more."

Basically what him and the rest who spoke about it have repeatedly stated:

- GaaS/multiplayer PC day 1.

- Singleplayer after an X amount of time, when sales are slowing down so PC generates a little boost

 

[{insert code here}]

Prediction: After Halo/Gears/Fable/Forza make their way to PS5, you will see Spiderman, GOW, TLOU, and Horizon on GamePass (but ONLY GamePass). MS will cut Sony the check.

This gonna upset some of the Sony fans but...

 

[Kacho]

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Yeah yeah, wider net good. But, do exclusives (and accumulation of exclusives) sell consoles or not?

Obviously. Look at Sony before this gen, for example. Look at Nintendo. The PC port strategy makes the brand less valuable.

They must improve in cost control before talking about PC ports, a pretty desperate move.

 

[Kacho]

Nintendo seems to do fine. Too fine actually wtf.

Their game budgets aren’t out of control

 

[Sushi_Combo]

I love how people are trying to push this narrative like exclusives are a bad thing.

Give it a rest.

When they cost over 200 mil to make, it's a hard business decision to keep it on a singular platform.

 

[64bitmodels]

Yup, no one is gonna get a console for 1.5 exclusives every 2 years.

Not even suggesting the Nintendo approach since I don't think any Sony fan wants games with Nintendo tier graphics when they spent 500 bucks on their high tech gaming console.

but they should cut back on the scale a little bit, make games shorter, find some way to reduce those budgets

 

[saintjules]

Yeah yeah, wider net good. But, do exclusives (and accumulation of exclusives) sell consoles or not?

I think in times past, certainly. May not be the best example, but I'm going back to the Sega Genesis days. I had a SNES and wanted to play Sonic. And I thought to myself, "will I ever play a Sonic game on an SNES Console?". I couldn't, so I had to get a Genesis to play it.

In my family it was always one or the other for games. So I had to wait the following Christmas for the Genesis, just to play Sonic.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Not even suggesting the Nintendo approach since I don't think any Sony fan wants games with Nintendo tier graphics when they spent 500 bucks on their high tech gaming console.

but they should cut back on the scale a little bit, make games shorter, find some way to reduce those budgets

Don't think that would work either, I think this is a pit they can't get out from. Multiplatform releases and take shots at GAAS or pseudo-GAAS like Helldivers 2 seems like their best bet.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

easy. make the games not cost 200M+

 

[Killjoy-NL]

OP, you left out quite an important part that adds context to what he said, in particular to the singleplayer part:

"We’re not doing enough to get heretofore non-console people into console gaming. We’re not going to attract them by doing more of the shit we’re doing now. If 95% of the world doesn’t want to play Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Grand Theft Auto, is the industry just going to make more Call of Duty, Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto? That’s not going to get you anybody else."

The end-game is getting people into the console-ecosystem.
This falls in line with what Yoshida said when he said "Playstation is still the core of our business".

This is where Xbox made the mistake of moving towards a sub-service future and one that Sony is moving away from.
It's killing their brand and Sony is aware of that.

That's why Layden stated, back in 2021, that he thinks it's unlikely Sony will bring singleplayer titles to PC day 1:

"Layden explained that the best way to get PC gamers involved with the PlayStation ecosystem was to offer them their top-selling games. He thinks it's unlikely, however, that Sony will ever bring its titles to PC at launch, suggesting that for a game like Horizon Zero Dawn, which came to PC more than three years after its PS4 release, had "no real retail activity" to drive PlayStation sales of the game."

Former PlayStation boss says bringing exclusives to PC was an easy choice

"There's no losing in this transaction."

www.gamesradar.com

It's all about expanding the console installbase and reeling in a portion of the PC demographic.

 

[Hoppa]

Without exclusives their hardware is obsolete, look at xbox. I can see instead of a PS6, PS7 etc, PS will end up just shipping a whole customisable gaming PC with a built in PS hub/launcher etc so you'd still have to pay for PS plus to buy + play current/future PS games and play them online. Then they'd just release upgrade components instead of whole new consoles

 

[Zones]

This guy has always been on this clueless crusade, back in the day he wanted Sony to instead of focusing mainly on doing large-scale AAA games such as GOW, SM, and TLOU, go back to the days of making single-player AA and indie-scale games just like, you know, Microsoft with Pentiment, Grounded, Hi-Fi Rush, etc.

Those Microsoft games are far from being low quality, and yet for Microsoft they have been completely ineffective in making Xbox more desirable, you want to know why?

Because people expect the biggest and greatest from the likes of Sony, MS, Rockstar, etc.

In a world with a million awesome indie games, why would I want just another indie-tier game from Sony's first-party in this day and age? It's not 2008 anymore and in the real world, nearly everyone wants Sony and MS to justify their relatively expensive hardware by making games that almost no other dev can compete in terms of resource, polish, and overall quality.

Nearly every single-player Sony first-party game has made a good amount of money (while also simultaneously helping PS become the platform of choice compared to Xbox) - how many third-party developers can you name with the same track record?

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Prediction: After Halo/Gears/Fable/Forza make their way to PS5, you will see Spiderman, GOW, TLOU, and Horizon on GamePass (but ONLY GamePass). MS will cut Sony the check.

This gonna upset some of the Sony fans but...

you actually believe that? cuz it doesn't past the sniffing test at all

 

[Krappadizzle]

As primarily a PC player all I have to say is:

 

[bitbydeath]

Helldivers 2 is selling well because it is cheap.
Yes, it also has great word of mouth but it’s the price that makes the purchase worth it.

Alternate take: All games should sell for less.

 

[kazuyamishima]

I dunno Shawny, the games below have made quite some money and more.

 

[RoboFu]

Does Sony still make computers? They use to make desktops at one point.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Not even suggesting the Nintendo approach since I don't think any Sony fan wants games with Nintendo tier graphics when they spent 500 bucks on their high tech gaming console.

but they should cut back on the scale a little bit, make games shorter, find some way to reduce those budgets

Robocop Rogue City is proof that you can supplement big releases with smaller budget games that are still fun and have high quality experiences.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I dunno Shawny, the games below have made quite some money and more.

If those numbers are correct, maybe marketing isn't so costly after all. You'd think a game like Spiderman would have tons of marketing, yet even for that IP it's only $18M.

Edit: I'm thinking those numbers are bogus. GOW 2018 only has about 10% more revenue than Ghost of T? And Ghosts has done more than Horizon ZD in only 2 years vs 5?

 

[Bond007]

The only reason supposedly exclusives are bad is because the market loser says so. Gotta let more people play is the spin.
Sony and Nintendo are doing just fine on that front.


The balance to PC is not making your home console irrelevant like Microsoft has done trying to chase the market leader.

 

[IDKFA]

I want to see a real budget breakdown from one of these nine figure sum games. I refuse to believe that you can't make a AAA title for less than 100million.

 

[Kuwitzzer]

Such a weird discourse we are having at the moment. Sony is doing more than fine, same with Nintendo, and yet exclusives are bad just because the loser says so.

 

[kazuyamishima]

I'm thinking those numbers are bogus. GOW 2018 only has about 10% more revenue than Ghost of T? And Ghosts has done more than Horizon ZD in only 2 years vs 5?

Bigger discounts for GOW and HZD.

The directors cut of GoT released in 2021 at $70 for PS5 and $60 for PS4. Price hasn’t really dropped too much.

On top of that, unlike GOW and HZD, it was never bundled.

The numbers are not bogus.

 

[Sushi_Combo]

Does Sony still are computers? They use to make desktops at one point.

They sold off the Vaio brand a couple of years ago.

 

[Braag]

When port a game to another platform I expect it to sell equally to the other platforms, you guys might be impressed by 5% of what those games sell on Playstation because it still money in the bank, but it's pathetic and not worth the effort.
Especially when their focus has obviously been redirected to do it.

Have you put in your application to Sony as an advisor? Tell them porting 4 year old games to another platform which ends up selling only couple million copies is not worth the effort. Get back to us with their response, if you're able to record it, even better.

 

[GoldenEye98]

Nintendo seems to do fine. Too fine actually wtf.

Well when you make mobile games and sell at AAA prices yeah it works...

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

Yeah, he's 100% spot-on. Couldn't agree more on all points.

 

[ReBurn]

Bigger discounts for GOW and HZD.

The directors cut of GoT released in 2021 at $70 for PS5 and $60 for PS4. Price hasn’t really dropped too much.

On top of that, unlike GOW and HZD, it was never bundled.

The numbers are not bogus.

Bogus or not, Sony doesn't make enough money from those games to pay the bills. If it weren't for the 30% cut they get from third party sales they would be losing money at their current levels of spending. Expensive games need to do more than make back their development budget and marketing costs for them to be worth the investment these days.

 

[rkofan87]

i now know why i like this guy he knows his stuff.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

$250 million for a game seems excessive, especially when it's releasing to just one platform with a 50 mil install base. Knowing it's highly unlikely most games will ever break even close to 20% tie ratio, it's a gamble at best.

Nintendo's sort of immune to this problem *when they have a popular system that has explosive sales. DS, Wii, and now Switch. A dozen or so games sell so many copies at full-price it's just insane. Where like 20 million people all buy the same games 5-10 games. But Sony doesn't really have that, even with Last of Us.

 

[Kuwitzzer]

Bogus or not, Sony doesn't make enough money from those games to pay the bills. If it weren't for the 30% cut they get from third party sales they would be losing money at their current levels of spending. Expensive games need to do more than make back their development budget and marketing costs for them to be worth the investment these days.

But they do get a 30% cut from the third party, they are a fucking platform holder. What are these bullshit "if" scenarios people keep making. If Playstation is just a game publisher then they will also not be as big as they are now.

 

[Ghostage]

Nintendo seems to do fine. Too fine actually wtf.

Does any of their games cost more than $200 million?

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

Does any of their games cost more than $200 million?

We'd have no way of ever knowing that. Nintendo has never disclosed development costs of a single game in modern times, nor has any data suggesting it ever leaked.

But we know back in 2011, Iwata was opining about costs on certain titles reaching $50 million, which he made clear he thought was insane. But the issue is, your next installment in a popular game series has to be bigger & better, it can't stand still, or be smaller. And he knew that as well as anyone. ToTK scope & size was insane, and surely by far the most expensive game they've ever made, by a mile. At least that has released thus far. So the same issue will hit Nintendo eventually, especially if the install base of the next-gen Switch doesn't match 100-150 million units. Their margin will shrink as well, and the economic realities affecting Xbox & PS will hurt their profit.

 

[kiphalfton]

Being so focused on American audience is doing Sony no favors.

Jim's influence will not be missed.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Nintendo seems to do fine. Too fine actually wtf.

Nintendo can make numerous games with the budget of one Sony game.