This is probably a factor, gang. It’s much more likely that something got lost in transcription than a grown man going on record pulling numbers from thin air or not being able to do math. Also, it doesn’t really matter what his opinion is because he doesn’t have any sway at MS or Sony.
MS seem dedicated to gaming and are making a long play. I think Game Pass as we know it is here to stay, and there’s no point in getting heated about its viability.
It isn’t conjecture. It is math. $5bil/500 is $10mil. That being monthly gets you to $120mil/yr. You have no info at all wrt what Layden’s arithmetic purportedly is. I bet he based it on 500 games in the hypothetical service since that is easy mental math. There is no evidence at all that his arithmetic was ‘wrong’. Just that his underlying assumptions are nutty (to put it mildly), which is where the discussion should head since that is much more fruitful than ppl doing drive bys about ‘lulz bad math’.
Believe it or not, there is something that potentially could be learned from Layden’s comments in that it is a window into the assumptions Sony felt plausible to make for their own hypothetical sub model. As @BRiT noted earlier, this seems suggestive that Sony is way behind MS philosophically here, to say nothing of full on planning or execution. Many seem to presume Sony can flip a switch and suddenly compete with Game Pass but it just is not so.
This isn’t really true though. It shows us a glimpse of what a Sony exec circa 2019 was thinking wrt their views on sub models from a PSX perspective. I think it is rather telling tbh. It shows that philosophically Sony is so far apart from MS here that nobody should imagine they will be positioned to fully compete with Game Pass anytime soon. I’m not even sure Game Pass itself will change Sony’s options either without xCloud powering its growth. I really think Sony is much more ‘cornered’ (in a sense) than they realize they are in terms of medium/longer term competition.
Ah fair enough, I saw lots of posts on other forums about how Layden was so important in the good old days, so I didn’t realize his departure was so recent. I thought he had left Sony in early to mid-PS4 era but I see now that he left in September of 2019, my mistake.
With that knowledge, yes, I think we can infer some of Sony’s perspective as you say.
It is conjecture because Layden did not say it.
You even say this yourself when you say “I bet he based it on 500 games”
Based on what he said his math is wrong because it makes no mathematical sence that 500million subs is required in order to recoup a $120 million investment, based on what he said and not what you “bet” he meant.
You are adding conjecture to make his math make sense, layden did not say its for 500 AAA games, you are saying that.
HE was successful at Sony. Theres tons of guys like him at Sony. That share the same views. But Jim Ryan is a bit more ruthless.
His comments are also possibly self serving in the sense that he seems to believe super high budget AAA games should just not really exist. He probably left Sony after losing that argument as Sony shifted focus towards AAA games more than even before and kinda left indies behind. Guessing he didn’t like that direction and left.
To be clear, the math isn’t conjecture. The guess is he was thinking of something on the scale of Game Pass (~500 games or so) as a basis for his guesstimate. That should have been clear as I noted that qualifier earlier in the thread very clearly (as you quoted). That is not an unreasonable scale to use in such a calculation and making that simple and reasonable guess leads you to his $120mil figure naturally in a way that makes sense (within the context of his other assumptions which are not sensical). In other words, what I am saying is the logic he is probably using is perfectly fine and self consistent, just based on dumb assumptions that make his conclusions untethered from reality.
Uhhh? I already said your maths is fine lol, but Im glad you’re aknoledging that laydens numbers do not make sence.
“That is not an unreasonable scale to use in such a calculation and making that simple and reasonable guess leads you to his $120mil figure naturally in a way that makes sense (within the context of his other assumptions which are not sensical).”
So you think your conjecture makes sense? I disagree, ive already explained why, but i will do so again for you.
For a start there is not enough devs to make 500 $120 million games per year and it is not needed. Most People dont have enough time to complete a AAA game everyday, and have over 100 they haven’t played. Also why would they want to break even on the service? They would be better off releasing 12 AAA games per year for a fraction of the cost.
It isn’t his math that is problematic (his math works just fine). The numbers come from math, so that isn’t the issue either. It’s his assumptions behind them. I said literally in my first reply in the thread…the one you freaked out on…that his underlying assumptions about a hypothetical sub service make no sense and even explained why to another poster:
He ignores retail sales (this is reasonable since it is unintuitive that games sell more if on GP for instance, yet it happens anyhow and we now understand the reason for that).
He ignores MTX’s/DLC (understandable since he is viewing it thru the lens of games Sony makes, but that is still a super narrow/myopic framing for a service with 500+ games hypothetically).
He assumes all games worth being on the service are $120mil budgeted titles, which is…frankly comically out of touch.
Wait, what are you talking about, his math is not correct because he thinks $5 billion/month is necessary in order to recoup a $120million investment.
So I suggest you just accept what you have been saying about laydens math being correct is not the case. Its ok we all make mistakes.
It is genuinely hard to imagine you are actually this dense in real life.
$5bil/500–>$120mil for a 1 year return checks out. I am not interested in teaching you basic arithmetic. Go learn that elsewhere please. Your continued hobbling back and forth just to keep a ‘debate’ going is silly. I explained the distinction enough times by now that only someone emotionally dedicated to ignoring it could remain so confused, so you have fun with that…
Me dense…no, you cant even stick to what the quote said.
Layden did not say 500 games.
We are talking about what layden said, we have gone over this already. We are talking about what Layden said, you cant alter what he said just so it suits your opinion lol.
Ok, that’s enough for now. Higher quality discourse moving forward please.