PlayStation Plans On Outsourcing And Co-Development To Combat Rising Costs

There are two ways PlayStation plans to keep game budgets from growing even bigger: outsourcing and utilizing co-development teams. Hermen Hulst, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s studio business group, addressed this issue during the company’s latest business update. He admitted “there has been pressure on the cost side” for PlayStation.

Spotted by KAMI on X (formerly known as Twitter), Hulst explained how PlayStation is combating rising costs now and going forward. “We also have a very tight development strategy,” Hulst said. “For every title, we have really rigorous review processes where we focus on the sustainability of our investments in these titles.

“We include areas such as looking what can be outsourced, for example, to avoid too high peak resource on development teams because costs can be sticky. We’re looking at co-development options in areas where the costs per resource is maybe somewhat lower than the average or on the American west coast.”

Last year, the budgets of The Last of Us Part II and Horizon Forbidden West were accidentally revealed, and they weren’t cheap. Each first-party PlayStation game cost over $200 million to make, which is higher than even some blockbuster Hollywood movies.

On top of budgets, Hulst also revealed why Sony doesn’t release most PS5 games on PC the same day and date. Basically, Sony’s live-service titles will come to PC at the same time, while single-player games won’t.

Later today, Sony will hold a PlayStation State of Play Showcase at 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET. Sony will focus on 14 games for PS5 and PSVR 2. In the meantime, tons of PS5-exclusive games are on sale for PlayStation’s Days of Play.