Sony's former boss just made a bold prediction: The cost of making PlayStation 5 games will soon be so high, that de-risking will be the solution, meaning: Less new IPs and more sequels.
Shawn Layden was the former PlayStation boss (how cool does that sound?) and left the company in October 2019. Now, in an interview with Bloomberg, the ex-PlayStation talked about the future of gaming.
If you're a fan of new IPs and original games, you're not gonna like what he had to say, but you already knew that, because you read the headline and can probably already see this next one:
Ex-Sony Chief: PS5 Will Have More Sequels
The reason for Shawn Layden's prediction is logical: PS5 games will cost $200 million to make. To give you a comparison, Fast & Furious 9 also cost $200 million. That's a lot of dough. Uncle Ben might not have put it this way, but with a lot of money comes a lot of responsibility. Here's how the ex-Sony Big Papa put it:
If we can’t stop the cost curve from going up, all we can do is try to de-risk it. That puts you in a place where you’re incentivized toward sequels.
Now, he, for one, is certain that we will not stop the cost curve from going up and that $200 million per game is only the beginning. The natural logic then is that companies and publishers will rely on chasing trends:
What happens there is you end up with three to four silos of games or game types that continue to exist, and variety is squeezed out.
So... Fortnite, FIFA, LoL and CoD? Or... Battle Royales, Sports Games, MOBAs and Shooters? Do I wanna live in that future? I guess as long as GTA 12, Elder Scrolls 14 and Dragon Age 8 are a part of it... it might just work for me. Or maybe we'll see franchises turn into gaming universes, like the MCU did to cinema: A Witcher spin-off here, a God of War spin-off there... it would certainly 'de-risk' the money investment for the publishers.
- Maybe the Sony State of Play will reveal some new IPs? Just... maybe? PlayStation Showcase Announced: How & When to Watch
If you're skeptical to what Big Daddy Layden laid out: Sony is already drumming up the sequel machine. Gran Turismo 7, Horizon Forbidden West, God Of War Ragnarok, The Last of Us multiplayer, Ratchet & Clank, Ghost of Tsushima Iki Island, Miles Morales... all of these are sequels, not original IPs. Of course, we also have a Battlefield 6, the Dead Space remake and the GTA remakes coming up. Finally, with Skyrim and GTA now re-releasing for the 83rd time and Elder Scrolls 6, Dragon Age 4, Mass Effect 4, Witcher 4, GTA 6 being the hottest single player items coming up next to franchises like CoD and FIFA that are re-released year after... it kind of seems like Layden isn't just predicting:
The future is now.
Original games are dead. Long live the sequel, all hail the remake, glory to the franchise.
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