- Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden says developers need to lead the way with innovation to justify the rising cost of consoles
- He says the studios are “limiting our reach just because of the games we’re building now”
- While Grand Theft Auto 6 will be a hit, Layden says “there’s a lot of people in the world who really don’t care” about it
Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden believes studios need to start investing in unique games that attract a wider audience to justify the rising cost of consoles.
The price of hardware has been increasing over the past few years. We can blame it on rising production costs, shortages fueled by AI data centers eating up all the components, or inflation. Whatever the reason, the current landscape is a mess and the next generation is bound to be expensive.
While Sony and Microsoft are raising the price of current generation systems, despite the PS5 and Xbox Series X and Series S being six years old, analysts are suggesting that the PS6 and next Xbox could cost as much as $1000. That doesn’t sound out of the realm of possibility when you consider 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 mean better ray tracing and higher frame rates. With PlayStation’s plan to end physical disc production in 2028, analysts predict that it may unfortunately also become an all-digital console.
But would this justify a $1000 price tag? According to Layden, who talked about the changing industry in an interview with Kotaku, it doesn’t, and Sony will have to lead with software innovation to attract gamers instead.
“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 how the PS6 will compare to the PS5, as he hasn’t worked at Sony since 2019, but if there’s a chance that the tech gap between the two consoles is too narrow, software is where things need to change.
“I think we’re already kind of limiting our reach just because of the games we’re building now. I mean, variety and reach seems to be narrowing,” Layden said. “Most games fall into a standard set of buckets.”
He pointed to 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 not a lot of armor and dragons.”
Layden then picked up GTA 6and while he acknowledged that the game will be a huge hit, some players don’t care.
“So, you see those categories and get around it, of course, Grand Theft Auto is going to be like an asteroid piercing the atmosphere and hitting the gaming universe with great force and power,” he said. “But there are a lot of people in the world who really don’t care Grand Theft Autothe non-gaming community.”
He continued, explaining: “We talk about how big we are, $220 billion, $250 billion industry, but our social impact is the reverse. Everyone has a favorite song. It’s probably the least revenue-generating entertainment category, music, compared to games and movies and TV. But yet it has the broadest impact. And then games, it’s huge on the revenue side of things, but it’s a very select group.
“We’re getting more money from the same people all the time and not necessarily bringing new people into the experience. And if these 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 Turismo,’ making more of the same games obviously won’t appeal to these people either.”
While Layden believes visibility is one facet of the problem, the main issue is creativity, and if developers “close the ranks” and continue to make shooters by appealing to what the “base user” wants, things will be fine, “but we’re not going to get bigger. We’re not going to bring more people into the tent. And that’s probably bad.”
He added: “We need to bring more games to more people, which means you have to actually have more people making games and different places and different experiences. I want to find out what games from Uruguay look like and what kind of game designers we have in Bulgaria.”
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