When it came to raising the price of games from sixty to seventy dollars, the former head of PlayStation noted that the component model of AAA games is unsustainable. According to Shawn Layden, the gaming industry peaked in 2020, with costs doubling with each console generation.
Thus, over the 25-year career of the former high-ranking Sony employee, the cost of games increased tenfold, but the selling price of the games remained the same. His words about volatility are supported by information about the cost of current PlayStation games, which exceeding 200 million US dollars: The Last of Us Part 2 was supposed to cost $220 million, Horizon Forbidden West – 212 million, God of War Ragnarök – 200 million, and the Japanese company has already paid 300 million for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
Despite the large investment, Sony is not returning as much money and has low margin. It is clear that management does not like this and is preparing its studios for change. Hiroki Totoki, as Sony CFO and future head of PlayStation, is looking for more economical development procedures and at the same time wants to increase profits from releasing more PlayStation games on PC, even at the cost of doing so at the same time as the PS5 version. It’s not enough for Sony to simply release a paid expansion and then a full version for PC.
But experts don’t think releasing PS5 games on PC will solve anything. He sees this as a way smaller budgets for development and advertising. The second option is to sell games with a budget of about $200 million. priced from 80 to 100 dollars. But the question is how players will react to further price increases. Hiroki Totoki and the entire Sony management will have a difficult time in the coming years, and they must make a decision as soon as possible.
Sean Layden believes the rising cost of game development is the death knell for the video game industry. Today, companies typically spend up to 300 million on a single game. Therefore, we do not see such shifts; there is no point in risking such prices. Fortunately, many companies are aware of this and they move away from standard AAA games and focus on AA. Leyden hopes more companies will understand this.
Source :Indian TV
