Shawn Layden, former boss of SIE Worldwide Studios, expects the games PlayStation 5 achieve a unit development budget exceeding $ 200 million. This is not the first time that our man has made resonate this kind of music.
Who doubted it? In spite of an increasingly assertive presence of the independent scene on consoles, the new machines that are the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series must offer experiences capable of justifying their costly investment. Or what we call “triple A”.
These titles, whatever their background, call for an extraordinary visual quality. Hence the increasingly substantial budgets allocated to their development.
Shawn Layden had previously spoken of the risk of increasingly expensive games to make
Today a member of the advisory board of Streamline Media Group, a game services company, Shawn Layden was, until not too long ago, the head of SIE Worldwide Studios. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, this former gamer from the house of PlayStation did not appear very enthusiastic about the future of video games.
Shawn Layden said the cost of developing video games “Seems to double on each platform”, noting that the big budget titles on PlayStation 4 had all asked for a minimum of $ 100 million to be developed.
“If we can’t stop the cost curve from rising, all we can do is try to make it less risky. It puts you in a situation where you are prompted to follow through. ” Our man expects these risk-taking to be minimal, thus sensing that the PS5 titles will cost $ 200 million in development, and that this figure will only go up by increasing exponentially.
A little over a year ago, the same Shawn Layden issued a similar alert, arguing in passing for shorter games that are therefore cheaper to develop:
“I don’t think that on the next generation you can take those numbers and double them and think you can grow. I think the industry as a whole needs to take the time to be like, ‘Okay, what are we building? What are the public’s expectations? What is the best way to convey our story and say what we need to say? ‘”
Incredible that our friend has not already gone to Nintendo.
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I am a technology author with 8 years of experience in journalism. My writing covers the latest technology advancements and trends, drawing on my expertise in news journalism and social media platforms. I have contributed to major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Reuters.
