Former PlayStation boss and indie advocate Shuhei Yoshida believes the rise and potential dominance of subscription services like Xbox Game Pass could become “dangerous” for developers eager to push the envelope.
Speaking to Game Developer at Gamescom LATAM, the industry veteran explained subscription services are “great” if you’re allowed inside the walled garden. The concern, he suggests, is that as they inevitably expand on a bedrock of first-party titles it will become harder for third-party studios and indies to cross that divide.
“If the only way for people to play games is through subscriptions that’s really dangerous, because what [type] of games can be created will be dictated by the owner of the subscription services,” he says.
“That’s really, really risky because there always must always be fresh new ideas tried by small developers that create the next wave of development. But if the big companies dictate what games can be created, I don’t think that will advance the industry.”
Yoshida believes Sony delivered a “healthier” subscription model
Discussing Xbox Game Pass and how Microsoft has evolved the platform by adding more first-party titles while also regaining on its initial pledge to bring every single Xbox Game Studio project to the service on day one, Yoshida said the company might have bitten off more than it could chew.
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While acknowledging his own bias as a former PlayStation exec, Yoshida suggested Sony’s take on the subscription model through PlayStation Plus—which has seen the company make major first-party titles available to subscribers, but only after a traditional premium release—was perhaps “healthier.”
“I believe the way Sony approached [subscriptions] is healthier. You know, not to overpromise and to allow people to spend money to buy the new games,” he added. “After a couple of years there won’t be many people willing to buy those games at that initial price, so they’ll be added to the subscription service and there’ll be more people to try [those products] in time for the next game in the franchise to come out.”
Although he feels Microsoft might have made an initial misstep with that ‘day one’ pledge, Yoshida said the company has excelled in other areas. He described Microsoft’s approach to backwards compatibility—which saw the company make it possible for Xbox Series X | S owners to play thousands of original Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One titles—as “smart and very well planned.”
“They must have put a lot of engineering effort in to achieve what they have done,” he continued.
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Microsoft wasn’t the only company to receive plaudits during our chat. Yoshida also took time to praise Nintendo for slapping two controllers on the Switch and Switch 2 to enable multiplayer functionality straight out of the box. “[That’s] so smart,” he said. “It’s in their DNA to cater to the needs of family and friends.”
You can hear more from Yoshida, such as how he believes “stupid money” crippled the industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, by clicking here.