Ep 97. Platform or Publisher, "You Can't Do Both"
About this episode
Shawn Layden discusses the challenges Xbox faces in choosing between being a platform or a publisher and the impact of data-driven decision making in game development.
Former PlayStation leader Shawn Layden spent 32 years inside Sony, from writing founder Akio Morita's speeches at 29 to running Worldwide Studios. He explains why Xbox must choose between being a platform and being the biggest publisher in the world, and why data-driven greenlighting is producing games nobody remembers when we should be focused on building phenomenal characters, stories, and worlds. Shawn joined Sony in Tokyo in 1987 and spent 25 years with PlayStation, from the original console through the end of PS4. He served five years on Morita's personal staff, ran the London studio era that produced The Getaway, and was there for the acquisitions that brought Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog and others into Worldwide Studios. Today he advises startups and works with the nonprofit Girls Make Games. The conversation opens with the tension pulling Xbox apart: you can make the pie bigger for everyone, or you can take the biggest slice, and the two imperatives point in opposite directions. From there it moves into why triple-digit-million budgets have crushed risk tolerance, why finance's demand for comparables makes a rhythm action game with unicorns unfundable, and what Shawn…
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