Shawn Layden, who used to be the head of PlayStation Studios, told VentureBeats that he considers exclusivity to be the “Achilles’ heel” of games.
He expressed this opinion when asked about Xbox’s intentions to release its games on PlayStation and other platforms and the need to develop the market. According to him, it is a disadvantage for companies to make games, the development cost of which currently reaches $200 million, exclusive to one platform.
“When your costs for a game exceed $200 million, exclusivity is your Achilles’ heel. It reduces your addressable market. Particularly when you’re in the world of live service gaming or free-to-play. Another platform is just another way of opening the funnel, getting more people in. In a free-to-play world, as we know, 95% percent of those people will never spend a nickel. The business is all about conversion. You have to improve your odds by cracking the funnel open,” Layden says.
He cited the example of Helldivers 2, which was simultaneously released on PlayStation and PC and gained a huge audience on both platforms. It even went so far that PC and PS5 players asked the developers to release the game on Xbox.
He clarified that the situation is a bit different for single-player games, but if the game cost $250 million to develop, even 10% of additional sales on other platforms will be important.
“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,” said Shawn.
To confirm his words, we can cite the example of Sea of Thieves, a former Microsoft exclusive, which is now the most popular game by pre-orders on PlayStation 5 in the United States.
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