Shawn layden interview When your costs for a game exceed $200 million, exclusivity is your Achilles’ heel.

[Petekilla]

"Decimate the health of your platform for an extra 10% sales" that is literally cutting off the nose to spite the face

Making over a billion gross revenue on console isn't enough, but an extra 30m from PC is amazing and helped save the day WTF is wrong with these execs, this doesn't make any sense from any angle you look at it.

Idk why are ya’ll surprised. LMAO I’ve been telling ya’ll for months that Layden was the one who spearheaded PC ports. Ryan just picked up the pieces and went further with it. But this started under Layden, and he would have done the same thing Ryan did.

 

[Petekilla]

he never really in power to decide that, plus. he was gone before PC ports hit PC. so makes no sense that he started anything.

Wrong. He admitted in an interview that he was responsible. The first PC port happened in 2020. Layden left in 2019, these ports don’t happen overnight. These things are always planned ahead.

 

[John Elden Ring]

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!

Source

 

[panda-zebra]

Ehhh, opening up some funnels like PC can lead to a worthwhile torrent rushing in with the right titles, but others... a trickle of stale piss heading your way isn't worth fucking over yourself and one of your platform's USPs for.

 

[anonpuffs]

Source

That's just false though, xbox one/ps4/switch ended up around 300m

 

[Gediminas]

Wrong. He admitted in an interview that he was responsible. The first PC port happened in 2020. Layden left in 2019, these ports don’t happen overnight. These things are always planned ahead.

yet again, he had no power. Kodera/Yoshida had. later Jim/Hulst, especially when first port was Horizon Zero Dawn, which came from EU and he was US division chef. but Hulst came from the same studio as Horizon and he was in power of all studios. and all Ports came after Jimbo/Hulst leadership.

 

[JAHGamer]

That's just false though, xbox one/ps4/switch ended up around 300m

PS3/360/Wii was also 280m~

Maybe he means unique users, since many Xbox owners might also own ps or a switch and vice versa

 

[Gamernyc78]

All he saying is common sense shit "the more ppl that have your product, the more money you can make" I don't think anyone would disagree with a notion thts been proven and is just common sense.

 

[daniel5043]

yet again, he had no power. Kodera/Yoshida had. later Jim/Hulst, especially when first port was Horizon Zero Dawn, which came from EU and he was US division chef. but Hulst came from the same studio as Horizon and he was in power of all studios. and all Ports came after Jimbo/Hulst leadership.

He was the Head of first party for a while

 

[Gediminas]

He was the Head of first party for a while

No. Yoshida was head of that, from 2008 till 2019 then he was replaced by Hulst.

 

[Systemshock2023]

Very interesting interview. Echoes what I have been saying for a long time. Console gaming peaked in the 7th generation in terms of units and you can only make up nickel and dining existing users for a while. They have no choice but to reach more platforms if they want to show immediate growth to the shareholders.

 

[Gediminas]

AA are great, but AAA are best.

 

[Would_you_kindly]

Xbox is fucked

And i really wish sony stop being stupid by following xbox footsteps with the pc stuff

I think porting a few years later is fine , day & date is stupid though so hopefully they don't do that

 

[daniel5043]

Source

That reads like an interview for investors (Scum)

 

[daniel5043]

No. Yoshida was head of that, from 2008 till 2019 then he was replaced by Hulst.

Yoshida was to 2018 then layden took over for a year until 2019

 

[Gediminas]

Yoshida was to 2018 then layden took over for a year until 2019

On 7 November 2019, Sony announced that Yoshida had stepped down as President.

Stop making shit up.

 

[Plextorage]

Wow they all must get the same propaganda Memo to push. What a pure disappointment of a man.

When your game costs 200 million to make and you still make a shitload of money, you're doing it well.

Looks like MS got another astroturfer.

"Decimate the health of your platform for an extra 10% sales" that is literally cutting off the nose to spite the face

Making over a billion gross revenue on console isn't enough, but an extra 30m from PC is amazing and helped save the day WTF is wrong with these execs, this doesn't make any sense from any angle you look at it.

Idk why are ya’ll surprised. LMAO I’ve been telling ya’ll for months that Layden was the one who spearheaded PC ports. Ryan just picked up the pieces and went further with it. But this started under Layden, and he would have done the same thing Ryan did.

The very ironic is what Layden said now is what he said few year ago :

I think we've done a lot over the last three or four years to get us to a place right now where we're building fewer games per year than ever before, but we're spending more time, more energy, certainly more money, on making them.

Sony's Shawn Layden wants fewer, bigger PlayStation games

Video game makers are struggling to adapt to the internet era. With the PS5 on the horizon, Sony's video game boss has a plan.

www.cnet.com

 

[Yurinka]

Wow they all must get the same propaganda Memo to push. What a pure disappointment of a man.

@JAHGamer @Nhomnhom moved it for you guys it was out of place but thts where the convo started

Well, this is the reason of why -as he said before- he (well, they because Shuhei Yoshida and Andrew House where in charge of PS Studios and SIE) started to push the PC ports strategy.

And well, he's right. Without keeping their focus out of PS, Sony needs to expand to PC and in the future, when possible, mobile.

Because to have over two dozen AAA games that cost over 250-300M each needs a lot of revenue to paid them, more than the one they generate in a single console.

He was the Head of first party for a while

No, the head of PS Studios (back then Worldwide Studios) was Shuhei Yoshida. Yoshida was president of PS Studios from 2008 to November 2019.

Shawn was chairman of PS Studios from March 2018 to September 30, 2019.

 

[Dabaus]

This is why hes former and not current.

 

[Thunderstorm__]

Man the current narrative is just fucking pathetic and hilarious. They are pushing for the multiplatform endgoal so hard.