Former PlayStation boss admits Sony's live service efforts were a contributing factor to him leaving

Shawn Layden: "I didn't have the vision or the energy to try to, you know, take it to this this new area of live-service gaming so..."

There were some very mixed opinions amongst fans about former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, with harsh criticism often heard of his explicit approach to so-called live service titles. These are rarely what gamers themselves want, and are often maliciously described as being as much online store as they are games.

Ryan's strategy took a toll on Sony's traditional single-player titles and has led to alarmingly empty first party release lists in recent years, while the live service ventures seem to be failing badly or being cancelled. One person who was not a fan of this is the former and vastly more popular PlayStation boss Shawn Layden (responsible for almost the entire PlayStation 4 era and the acquisition of Insomniac, among other things), who left Sony in 2019.

In an interview with the podcast Save State Plus, Layden now says that Sony's desire to focus more on live service was a contributing factor to his departure (transcribed by Kotaku):

"To be honest, you know, the company was making some strategic decisions about where they want to take the platform in the future with a heavy emphasis in games as a service, live-service gaming, subscription formulas, recurring revenue, whatnot, and that was kind of not my wheelhouse."

Layden went on to tell what kind of games he would have preferred to make, stating the following about leaving after 32 years with the company:

"I just make things like God of War and Spider-Man and Last of Us and Uncharted [and] Horizon. I didn't have the vision or the energy to try to, you know, take it to this this new area of live-service gaming so, all that considered, it seemed like a good time to step down after 32 years at Sony."

Today, Sony seems determined to scale back its live service efforts, and of the twelve games Jim Ryan confirmed were in the pipeline in 2022, almost all have been cancelled or have an uncertain future (the titles are listed on Resetera). However, changing a strategy takes time and in an era where it often requires about five years to make a big game, this will only become really noticeable around 2030.

How do you see Shawn Layden's strategy, versus the one Sony chose with Jim Ryan?

Shawn Layden to the left, Jim Ryan to the right.