Former PlayStation Boss Riles Up Xbox Gamers With Xbox Game Pass Comments

By Tyler Fischer

Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden and his new comments about Xbox Game Pass and whether it's sustainable aren't sitting well with the Xbox community. During an interview with GamesIndustry, Layden questioned whether anyone in the industry will be able to recoup the investment of starting a subscription service, especially if they are also bankrolling $120 million games, which PlayStation was when under the leadership of Layden. While talking about this, Layden never brings up Xbox Game Pass by name, but as the leading subscription service in the industry, when you question the sustainability of subscription services in the game industry, you question Xbox Game Pass.

According to Layden, it's difficult to launch a $120 million game on a subscription service charging $10 a month. Of course, $120 million is only the start of costs. Marketing is often as much, if not double or more the cost of making the actual game. And of course, simply turning a profit isn't enough when you have investors, aka the profit margins need to be at least bigger than they would be if you were selling each and every game included the conventional way.

"It's very hard to launch a $120m game on a subscription service charging $9.99 a month," said Layden speaking about subscription services in gaming, including Xbox Game Pass. "You pencil it out, you're going to have to have 500 million subscribers before you start to recoup your investment. That's why right now you need to take a loss-leading position to try to grow that base. But still, if you have only 250 million consoles out there, you're not going to get to half a billion subscribers. So how do you circle that square? Nobody has figured that out yet."

As noted, many Xbox fans have taken umbrage with Layden's claim, though it's hard to refute what the former PlayStation executive is saying because Microsoft -- at best -- is hazy when it comes to disclosing the profit margins of Xbox Game Pass.

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Consumers Don't Need to Care

It remains to be seen whether or not Xbox Game Pass is sustainable and whether it can co-exist with massive AAA game development. Phil Spencer and co. sure seme to think so, while other industry veterans are less than convinced. As the cliche goes, only time will tell.

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