Ex-PlayStation Exec Still Not Convinced By ‘Dangerous’ Xbox Game Pass Model

Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden has talked a lot about Xbox in recent years – sometimes in a positive way, and sometimes in a not-so positive way. Everyone’s curious for his opinion on the brand, it seems quite mixed overall.

Here are a couple of stories related to Shawn that we’ve covered in the past:

Those are both pretty positive, but one thing that he’s clearly not keen on is the Xbox Game Pass model, and specifically the idea of putting games into subscription services on “day one”.

Layden talked about this with GamesIndustry.biz this week, telling the outlet that it’s “bad for the business” when developers debut their games on a service, suggesting they basically become “wave slave[s]” in the process.

“I’m not a big supporter of the ‘Netflix of gaming’ idea. I think it is a danger.”

In the interview, Layden explains that “virtually no one buys music anymore” thanks to services like Spotify, and musicians have an “adjacent market” in terms of touring – something that video games obviously can’t fall back on.

“In the popular mind, music costs nothing. Music should be free. Spotify, what is that? It’s 15 bucks a month or something, but virtually no one buys music anymore.”

He then brings up the question of whether Xbox Game Pass is “profitable” or not, suggesting that it’s not even a very relevant question anyway. Instead, he thinks the question of whether it’s “healthy for the developer” is more important.

“There’s a lot of debates going on. Is Game Pass profitable? Is Game Pass not profitable? What does that mean? That’s really not the right question to ask anyway.”

“You can do all kinds of financial jiggery-pokery for any sort of corporate service to make it look profitable if you wanted to. You take enough costs out and say that’s off the balance sheet and, oh look, it’s profitable now. The real issue for me on things like Game Pass is, is it healthy for the developer?”

He does acknowledge that some indie developers may benefit from Game Pass due to the need for discovery above all else, but otherwise suggests the model isn’t creating value or much inspiration for the teams who buy into it.

“They’re not creating value, putting it in the marketplace, hoping it explodes, and profit sharing, and overages, and all that nice stuff. It’s just, ‘You pay me X dollars an hour, I built you a game, here, go put it on your servers’.”

“I don’t think it’s really inspiring for game developers.”

Of course, there are many schools of thought when it comes to Game Pass and whether it’s a positive or negative thing for the industry, and the reality is probably somewhere in the middle – it’s good in some ways, and not so much in others.

As consumers though, we have to admit we’re absolutely loving it, and Xbox Game Pass is having one of its best years ever in 2025, making it a more enticing prospect now than at any point in its eight-year history.

But what about you? What are your thoughts on the Xbox Game Pass model? Tell us in the comments below.