Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden has said that it’s becoming harder to make AAA exclusives due to ballooning costs, referring to recent PS5 game budgets and Microsoft’s multiplatform strategy. Layden told GamesBeat that when budgets cross figures like $200 million, “exclusivity is your Achilles’ heel.”
Sony needs to expand the audience for PS5 exclusives
Layden is of the view that exclusivity makes more sense in case of single-player games than multiplayer games. He pointed towards Helldivers 2 as an example of a game that benefitted from a multiplatform release. And although he isn’t opposed to single-player exclusives, Layden says that AAA exclusive budgets to the tune of $200 million+ will continue to make things harder for platform manufacturers.
“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,” Layden told GamesBeat. “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.”
Layden added that companies aren’t doing enough to attract more people to console gaming.
