The good news is that the PS5 and the XSX aren't too far away from each other in terms of hardware power and architecture. Further, developing on XSX also mostly works out of the box with DirectX, which means it is easy to also get the game running on PC. It's relatively easy to build a game out of a generic system and task our engine programmers with getting that generic system working on each of our target platforms.

The difficulty in multiplatform development comes from trying to get the same generic system to run on drastically different hardware power profiles or architectural differences (commonly known as the Nintendo problem). If we have a game that assumes the player's hardware have at least 16GB of RAM and an 8-core 3.5GHz CPU and we suddenly have to fit that game into 4GB of RAM and a 1GHz 4-core CPU, we've got to make a lot of drastic changes in order to get the game running at all. I'm fond of saying that porting PS/Xbox games to Nintendo hardware is trying to get an entire Honda Accord to fit inside a Mini-Cooper.

The general rule when estimating the cost of making a change is how early during the process the change is made. The earlier in the process the change is made, the cheaper the cost of the change. Making a change to a movie before it's cast and shot is much easier and cheaper than making a change after the filming is complete. Making the decision for a project to go multiplatform from the jump means that the entire project will be built with maintaining multiplatform stability as a major goal. This means that further decisions will be made with that goal in mind - the team might spend those resources elsewhere instead of optimizing for certain platform-specific hardware features.

As for why Square-Enix decided to go platform exclusive with FF16 and the FF7 Remakes, it is likely that Sony offered them a seemingly-better deal. Most third party publishers get a standard deal with the platform - the platform takes a 30% cut of all of the game's revenue, the game must pass certification, the platform gets some kind of exclusive content for that version of the game, and so on. If the platform wants to get an exclusive, they offer a better deal than that - maybe Sony agrees to pay for some of the marketing of the game, maybe Sony takes a smaller cut of the revenue, maybe Sony waives the certification costs on the publisher's next five Playstation games, and so on and so forth. These concessions and incentives are certainly worth considering. Sometimes they work out well for the third party, like Insomniac's Spider-Man games. Sometimes they don't.

[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]

Got a burning question you want answered?

• Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter
• Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr
• Frequent Questions: The FAQ

From an individual worker's perspective, I think that most of the people who were let go (~70-75% or so) will find new jobs in the industry within the next year or so. There are definitely studios that are still hiring if my inbox is to be believed. I still get plenty of cold call recruiter emails from both independent and well-known AAA studios, so I think there are still openings for people. I think some folks (~20%) will churn out of the game industry and quit for greener pastures. This is also normal, lots of people realize there just isn't a professional career for them in game dev and either go hobbyist or find something adjacent that pays a lot better.

Thinking about things from a corporate perspective, I think that we'll see things continue to grow, but much more slowly than before. The big game publishers (EA, Microsoft, Sony, Square-Enix, Nintendo, Take Two, etc.) are still larger today than they were was in 2020 even after factoring in all of the layoffs from 2023 and 2024 (so far). I don't think that the industry will get smaller - there's more to the game industry than AAA games after all. I think that there's going to be a bunch of indie studios get founded in the wake of the layoffs. I think AAA games will grow more slowly for a while as the big companies circle the wagons and focus on the safer bets.

[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]

Got a burning question you want answered?

• Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter
• Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr
• Frequent Questions: The FAQ

Chances are good that they had considered it at some point and decided against it. It's important to remember that there's both a money and a timing issue at work here. It's no coincidence that it's been almost 3 months exactly since the last round of Microsoft gaming layoffs. The accounting numbers don't look so good this quarter and Microsoft must keep its shareholders happy, so they are looking to save money in some way, but they need to change those money numbers within a specific time frame in order for it to count.

Any number of possible results could have happened, but the general decision making criteria is to choose the solution that results in the most money saved within the time frame to help make the numbers look better. Perhaps they tried, but couldn't find a buyer that was willing to commit. Maybe the prospective buyers didn't offer enough. Maybe they found a buyer, but that buyer couldn't get the money together fast enough and bailed. Maybe the studio leadership didn't want the studio to be sold. Studio founder Shinji Mikami left Tango Gameworks about a year ago after shipping Hi Fi Rush; there may have been difficulty finding studio leadership to take over.

Ultimately, this is all just speculation. Only those within the affected parties are truly privy to the details and it is unlikely anyone with real knowledge is going to spill the beans on this. I feel a great deal of sympathy for those affected and hope they are able to find something new soon.

[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]

Got a burning question you want answered?

• Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter
• Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr
• Frequent Questions: The FAQ

For those who haven't been following this story, Helldivers 2 multiplayer originally required a linked PSN account in order to play. The PSN back end was not ready, so the developers turned off the requirement. Recently it came back on and several players were upset because their games stopped working. There was a review bomb and a lot of angry feedback, especially because PSN accounts are not available without a Playstation console in several geographic areas. [Sony posted yesterday] to say that they would no longer be requiring a linked PSN account for Helldivers 2 Multiplayer.

The situation is strange to me because there doesn't seem to be a lot of reason for any real controversy. Sony is making all PC games that they publish on Steam require PSN accounts. That in itself isn't that big a deal - lots of publishers require similar things. EA requires Origin accounts, Ubisoft has their UPlay ecosystem, Activision has Battle.net, Microsoft has XBox Live, and so on and so forth. Helldivers was always supposed to launch with this requirement but they ran into major technical issues at launch and had to disable the requirement (temporarily). I know that Ghost of Tsushima will also require a PSN account for multiplayer.

The second thing with PSN accounts not being allowed in various countries is an issue within Sony itself and has nothing to do with Helldivers. The Helldivers team did what they were contractually obligated to do - require a PSN account to play. Sony's internal PSN team is responsible for which countries are and aren't on the whitelist for account creation via PC. Most game sales are in North America, Western Europe, and Japan/South Korea. There just aren't quite as many players in Uzbekistan or Ukraine. When your customer count in those countries is in the dozens, it really doesn't rank very high on the priority list.

Early on, I think it should have been communicated to players that they would (eventually) need a PSN account to play multiplayer and possibly some other "here's something for your trouble" bonus in game to help provide some value to the player. Now that it's blown up so large, the decision to step it back is probably the right one. I think that, for Ghost of Tsushima PC, the PSN linking should be a requirement for the game from the jump so that people know exactly what they are getting.

[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]

Got a burning question you want answered?

• Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter
• Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr
• Frequent Questions: The FAQ