Shawn Layden served as president of Sony Interactive Entertainment America from 2014 to 2019. Replaced by Jim Ryan at the time, Layden said in recent statements about how that decision was due to the fact that it was the right time to leave, a high point in his legacy. .
In the same chat with Bloomberg where he gave these statements, the executive stated how the current state of the video game industry is at a highly unsustainable point. According to Shawn Layden, high budgets in triple-A games make it impossible for companies to bet on anything other than well-known sequels or trendy genres..
The rumors of his retirement spoke about a confused restructuring and internal power struggle (which could be true within Sony). Despite this, Layden said that the launch of the PlayStation 5 was a good reason to leave the company after extreme exhaustion.
“With each generation of consoles, the budget goes up for each game. PlayStation 4 titles cost up to $ 100 million to produce, they can easily cost $ 200 million to make PlayStation 5 games. “
As a result of high budgets, companies have focused on existing franchises with an established fan base. This results in multiple sequels like Call of Duty. Additionally, they also focus on genres that make millions of dollars in profit, such as the ‘battle royale’ of PUBG O Fortnite. Which in turn leads to an oversaturation of the genre or series.
Layden’s bonding in games like Ghost of Tsushima it’s a strong reason why players expected more impressive titles from the CEO. So much so that, despite no longer working with Sony, they still make requests on their personal social networks.
