Recently, Shawn Layden, chairman of Sie Worldwide Studios from 2014 to 2019, shed more light on the reasons behind his departure from Sony.
During the last generation of consoles, PlayStation hosted many highly acclaimed blockbusters, both from existing franchises and new IPS.
At this point, many amazing exclusive single-player titles have been released on PS4, including God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, and Spider-Man.
He then left Sony in late 2019 and when the PS5 was announced in 2020, Sony’s strategy changed dramatically.
Sony has made a big turn towards the live service game
Jim Ryan, then CEO of PlayStation, and Herman Hulst, head of Sony Interactive Entertainment, both highlighted the importance of live service games, subscriptions and other similar services.
In an interview with the new podcast, Sean Layden, who worked at Sony for over 30 years, said the new strategy played a key role in his decision to leave the company.
“To be honest, the company had made strategic decisions about where it wanted to adopt the platform in the future, focusing on games, including services, live service gaming, subscription formulas and recurring revenue.
“I made something like the God of War and Spider-Man and the last of us, and the unknown (and) horizon with us. I had no vision or energy to try it.
As everyone knows, this live service strategy is not fruitful to say the least. Concord disappeared two weeks after the tragic launch, and the studio behind it was closed forever.
Many live service titles that have been developed over the years have also been cancelled. This includes multiplayer focused on The Last Of Us Online and multiplayer spin-offs of God of War. Even Destiny 2, now Sony’s property, has been stagnating lately.
However, it seems that Sony is giving up hope for a live service strategy as there are currently multiple live service projects under development, such as FairGame $ and Horizon Online.
In another recent interview, Yoshida’s Yoshida argued that the title of the live service was not forced by Sony to the game studio, but rather that it was mutually determined. Earlier this year, a Sony spokesman also said he would like to continue making games that are both single-player and multiplayer.
