Ex-PlayStation Boss Criticizes Exclusivity

Former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden has addressed his grievances about exclusivity on the PS5 and shared why it doesn’t sit right with the modern-day game industry, where budgets are ballooning and layoffs are rampant.

Banking on exclusivity is a key part of PlayStation’s strategy for outperforming its rivals, Xbox and Nintendo. Across the current console generation, it has leveraged PlayStation exclusives, such as God of War: Ragnarok and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, to reap notable commercial success. However, not everyone who has worked for the console giant seems to be in favor of keeping games restricted to one platform.

In an interview with VentureBeat, Shawn Layden, the ex-chief at Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, suggested exclusivity is more of a problem than a perk. He said, “When your costs for a game exceed $200 million, exclusivity is your Achilles’ heel.” Layden highlighted how exclusivity works against free-to-play and live-service games by limiting the audience, which limits the revenue. Further, he underlined the success of PlayStation’s newest live-service game, Helldivers 2, which came out on PS5 and PC simultaneously.

While Layden admitted that exclusivity hurts single-player games on a comparatively smaller scale, he justified his stance for more multi-platform launches in this category by bringing the budget into perspective. He said, “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 big draw for PlayStation in 2023 was Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, built on a budget of over $300 million. A year before, God of War: Ragnarok, landed after around $200 million was spent on its development. Clearly, the budget of tentpole AAA games is consistently increasing, making it even harder to generate a profit. Consequentially, releasing games exclusively on a single platform becomes a risky move. In the worst-case