- Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden says developers need to be innovative to justify rising console costs
- He says studios are “limiting our reach simply because of the games we’re currently building.”
- While Grand Theft Auto 6 will be a success, says Layden ‘there are a lot of people in the world who really don’t care’
Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden believes studios need to start investing in unique games that appeal to a wider audience to justify the rising cost of consoles.
The price of equipment has increased in recent years. We can blame rising manufacturing costs, shortages caused by AI data centers consuming all the components, or inflation. For whatever reason, the current landscape is a mess and the next generation is bound to be expensive.
As Sony and Microsoft raise the price of current-generation systems, despite the PS5, Xbox Series This doesn’t seem impossible considering that Valve just launched the Steam Machine, a console-PC hybrid, for the same price.
From what little we know about the PS6, we can expect technical improvements over the PS5, which could result in better ray tracing and higher frame rates. With PlayStation planning to end physical disc production in 2028, analysts predict it could also be an all-digital console, unfortunately.
But would that justify a $1,000 price tag? According to Layden, who spoke about the industry’s evolution in an interview with Kotaku, that’s not the case, and Sony will instead need to take the lead in software innovation to attract gamers.
“I mean, really, how much more ray tracing can you put in there?” he said. “And will my eyes actually see 120 frames per second?”
Layden can’t say what the PS6 will look like compared to the PS5 since he hasn’t worked at Sony since 2019, but if there’s a chance the technical gap between the two consoles is too narrow, it’s in the software that things need to change.
“I think we’re already kind of limiting our scope just because of the games we’re building right now. I mean, the variety and range seems to be narrowing,” Layden said. “Most games fall into a standard set of categories.”
He pointed out the genres of games we’ve seen over the years, including zombie apocalypse and space marine games, action titles with “guys with really long swords and little armor and dragons.”
Layden then mentioned GTA6and even though he acknowledges that the game is going to be a huge success, some players don’t care.
“So you see these categories and, of course, Grand Theft Auto is going to be like an asteroid piercing the atmosphere and hitting the game universe with great force and power,” he said. “But there are a lot of people in the world who really don’t care about Grand Theft Autothe non-gaming community.”
He went on to explain: “We talk about our size, a $220 billion or $250 billion industry, but our social impact is the opposite. Everyone has a favorite song. It’s probably the least revenue-generating category of entertainment, music, compared to gaming, film and television.
“We’re always getting more money from the same people and we’re not necessarily bringing new people into the experience. And if those people who aren’t in the gaming experience have already said ‘we don’t care about Call of Dutywe don’t care Grand Theft Autowe don’t care Gran Turism“, making more of these same games obviously isn’t going to please these people either.”
Although Layden thinks discoverability is one facet of the problem, the main problem is creativity, and if developers “close ranks” and continue to make shooters appealing to what the “core user” wants, things will be fine, “but we won’t get bigger.” We won’t attract any more people to the tent. And that’s probably bad.
He added: “We need to have more games for more people, which means actually having more people making games and in different places and different experiences. I want to find out what Uruguayan games are like and what kind of game designers we have in Bulgaria.”
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