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[ArtHands]

Former PlayStation boss says "You're not going to see another PS1 to PS2 jump in performance," and believes we're nearing "a point where the console becomes irrelevant"

The upgrades are far more incremental these days

www.gamesradar.com

"I think we're at a point where the console becomes irrelevant in the next... if not the next generation then the next next generation definitely," Layden says in an interview with Eurogamer.


The difference between console generations is getting smaller. Visuals are now 4K instead of 1080p, frame rates are hitting 120 instead of 60, but it's hard to notice these improvements without top-range TVs and speakers. The best improvement I've noticed is loading times, but even they're nearly instant now for most games.

"We're at a point now where the innovation curve on the hardware is starting to plateau, or top out," Layden explains. "At the same time, the commoditization of the silicon means that when you open up an Xbox or PlayStation, it's really pretty much the same chipset. It's all built by AMD. Each company has its own OS and proprietary secret sauce, but in essence [it's the same]. I think we're pretty much close to [the] final spec for what a console could be."

"There comes a time when we all declare the war is over": Former PlayStation Studios boss Shawn Layden on the future of video game consoles

Eurogamer's week-long coverage of PlayStation's 30th anniversary continues today with the concluding half of our specia…

www.eurogamer.net

There's been discussion recently around how console generations aren't growing over time, either. Is it enough to keep selling to the same sized audience?

Layden: So yes, if you stack it up and look at all the things that were around during the PS1 era, whether it's Saturn and N64, or the PS2 and Xbox era, no generation seems to get over 250m units of hardware, aggregate. The one time it popped is when Wii Fit came out and a bunch of people thought they could lose weight by buying a Nintendo [Wii]. There's that momentary Christmas, 'oh, let's lose weight' thing which shot up the console number, but then it fell back down again.

You know the Sony fanbase gets really upset whenever a game comes out on PC, 18 months after the original release on PlayStation. I never understood that aggro but, you know, it's there. And if that's what they're going to say about a PC release, just imagine what the market would say about Xbox releases from PlayStation Studios.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Well it's a good thing he still has interviews in his life, because this man has not a single hobby other than yapping.

 

[Lunarorbit]

Yup. Totally right.... just don't let the 150 million switch 2's that are about to sell hit you on the ass on your way out Shawn

 

[Killjoy-NL]

That goes for hardware in general.

 

[DenchDeckard]

I believe he is right on this.

 

[DelireMan7]

I am so tired of future of gaming, or gaming in general, being reduced to GPU, power etc... Think less about ground breaking visuals and performance, and more about arts, story telling, interesting gameplay mechanics, art design etc...

 

[TheRedRiders]

Go back to bed Shawn.

 

[killatopak]

I see. We're in that console is dead cycle again.

 

[Sebastian1295]

Shawn layden is someone who is desperately trying to cling onto relevancy by consistently running his mouth and spouting nonsense 24/7. He's essentially david jaffe in that both of these guys once had a short peak of being relevant and then lost that, and now are trying to get back to being relevant by any means necessary even if it means embarrassing themselves consistently by having braindead takes.

 

[drganon]

We don't need to make a thread everytime he says something. But I guess Art will take any excuse he can to troll.

 

[kyussman]

Some might say Xbox have already reached that point,lol.

 

[midnightAI]

Shawn Layden is irrelevant

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I am so tired of future of gaming, or gaming in general, being reduced to GPU, power etc... Think less about ground breaking visuals and performance, and more about arts, story telling, interesting gameplay mechanics, art design etc...

I came here to say this. He's massively out of touch and out of the loop. It goes to show how limited a lot of the executives are/were.

Nintendo has made tremendous strides without focusing on GPU and instead focusing on more rewarding gameplay.

From a technological standpoint, I think advanced AI is going to change NPCs and that will require more advanced CPUs. When every NPC in a game can have their own rich history and engaging with each one is unique and rewarding, that is going to change gaming.

We're talking holodeck stuff on Star Trek where you could converse with an NPC as it largely writes itself based on some preset parameters.

VR is also going to continue to massive advance as is AI upscaling.

I don't think we've yet reached the point where graphical fidelity is even uniform across games in many AAA 4K games. Again, this is where AI art comes into play. You look at a lot of the NPCs in Hogwarts Legacy and they reutilize so many recognizable patterns in character design and all of them are lifeless.

We still have 2D NPCs. 3D NPCs will be as much of a game change as it was going from SNES to PS1 and PS1 to PS2 e.t.c.

One reason why people feel like gameplay mechanics haven't really changed is because we've reached the limitations of standardized controllers. The Dual Sense from a gameplay perspective is the same controller as the dual shock controller. From a gameplay perspective you could run Astro Bot on a PS1.

One thing I think we've lost since the previous generation is customized controllers. This is what made Guitar Hero and Rock Band such massive hits. It was unique gameplay loops that utilized custom controls. All of that was built around games like Parappa the Rappa but using instruments instead of gamepads. It's all about greater immersion.

The reason why we were all impressed with Metal Gear Solid 2 was because the idea of enemies finding their fallen comrades and being alerted by that was groundbreaking and even more groundbreaking was the ability to put them in lockers or throw them overboard in order to hide them. It's levels of immersion that impress us, not just the graphics. Being able to hold an enemy at gunpoint...

How we interact with NPCs and how the NPCs interact with us... that's going to evolve significantly over the next 10 years.

 

[Felessan]

The guy clearly bored on his consultancy job

 

[coachmcguirk91]

I am so tired of future of gaming, or gaming in general, being reduced to GPU, power etc... Think less about ground breaking visuals and performance, and more about arts, story telling, interesting gameplay mechanics, art design etc...

100% this. And we got like half the gaming industry using UE5, which has stunning graphics capabilities, but it is seemingly terribly unoptmized for practically every game using it. I have not seen one developer show what UE5 does from a gameplay perspective to make it worth it. If anything, developers will have to simplify gameplay mechanics and world building

 

[Pedro Motta]

Wasn't he last year giving interviews saying consoles will be here for a long time?

 

[Kenpachii]

Depends on when streaming takes over console gaming. I don't see it happening anytime soon yet.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

I believe he is right on this.

Yes, he definitely is. However, this doomer prediction has been made so many times over so many years, beginning with the invention of the console, that nobody takes it seriously anymore. Especially all the primarily on PS5 gaming fellow GAFers who clinge onto their favourite plastic box like their childhood ways of doing things will never ever change because obviously a business model from the late 70s is never going to be replaced by something else.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Yes, he definitely is. However, this doomer prediction has been made so many times over so many years, beginning with the invention of the console, that nobody takes it seriously anymore. Especially all the primarily on PS5 gaming fellow GAFers who clinge onto their favourite plastic box like their childhood ways of doing things will never ever change because obviously a business model from the late 70s is never going to be replaced by something else.

Yeah, MS is ahead of the curve with GP.

4D chess ftw.

 

[T-0800]

Some people need to understand that you can't grow yoy forever and it's ok if consoles tap out at 250 million or thereabout each generation. Nintendo and Sony are doing just fine.

Companies need to learn to not have teams of 1000 people making games with 300 million dollar budgets.

 

[DrFigs]

Yeah, MS is ahead of the curve with GP.

4D chess ftw.

First modern console to become irrelevant lol

 

[GymWolf]

Can this dude just shut the fuck up?

 

[midnightAI]

Yes, he definitely is. However, this doomer prediction has been made so many times over so many years, beginning with the invention of the console, that nobody takes it seriously anymore. Especially all the primarily on PS5 gaming fellow GAFers who clinge onto their favourite plastic box like their childhood ways of doing things will never ever change because obviously a business model from the late 70s is never going to be replaced by something else.

And Nintendo players hold onto their plastic box, and XBox players hang on to their plastic box (even though everything is an XBox.... apparently), and PC players hang on to their (mostly) metal boxes. Not really sure what your point is here, especially when Sony is the only one with a purely streaming console out of the big players (Portal that is)

But yeh, sure, just PS5 owners clinging to their plastic box.

 

[ManaByte]

 

[Donald mac Ronald]

You know people can be right about something's and wrong about others.

You know Einstein was right about physics but cheated on his wife all the time.

 

[DinoD]

 

[ManaByte]

I still believe the next Sony and MS "consoles" won't be consoles. They'll be SteamDeck/Switch style handhelds. Sony will make the Pro the standard home console to play games on the TV while the "PS6" is a Switch style handheld that plays PS4/PS5 games natively as well as the base PS5.

They're both chasing Nintendo with how Nintendo dominates Japan with the Switch.

 

[midnightAI]

I still believe the next Sony and MS "consoles" won't be consoles. They'll be SteamDeck/Switch style handhelds. Sony will make the Pro the standard home console to play games on the TV while the "PS6" is a Switch style handheld that plays PS4/PS5 games natively as well as the base PS5.

They're both chasing Nintendo with how Nintendo dominates Japan with the Switch.

Why would they do that?

Why try and beat Nintendo when they arent seen as direct competition? (people buy Switch's alongside main consoles in my experience)

Steam Deck is completely irrelevant (has it even hit 10 million yet? heck, has it even hit 5 million yet?)

Why would Sony (at least) change that? they have their space in the console home market and are in a very good place, pointless jeopardising that to try and compete with Nintendo who have their own following and likely wont change brands anyway.

Microsoft I can see making a steam deck like PC handheld as PC is their business anyway seeing as they make Windows. So I can see MS moving away from traditional closed wall consoles and going all in on PC handheld and/or PC home console but at this point they have nothing to lose doing that anyway as Sony has pretty much sewn up the traditional home console market.

(I personally think the next consoles from both MS and Sony will both just be traditional home consoles, the only one that may change from that is MS simply due to this gen not working out very well for them, but they can see the Steam Deck and other handheld PC sales and they arent exactly setting the world on fire)

 

[Gojiira]

Yeah, MS is ahead of the curve with GP.

4D chess ftw.

Lmao no not really, GP has meant their profits were non existent, they only stayed in business because Daddy Microsoft bailed them out AGAIN and let them buy Acti-Blizz…There is no 4D chess move here, Xbox has made bad decision after bad decision, GP being one of them.

 

[GHound]

We better pay attention to him, guys. Shawn Layden knows a lot about being made irrelevant.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Lmao no not really, GP has meant their profits were non existent, they only stayed in business because Daddy Microsoft bailed them out AGAIN and let them buy Acti-Blizz…There is no 4D chess move here, Xbox has made bad decision after bad decision, GP being one of them.

I know, I was being sarcastic.

 

[AlphaDump]

Shawn Layden was hands down the worst Sony representative on stage. He was always stiff in his delivery and fumbled his words. He works for tencent now, fuck him and his takes.

 

[saintjules]

Why do we take an interview and spread it across multiple threads ArtHands ?

News - [Eurogamer] The big PlayStation 30th anniversary interview with Shawn Layden: "It was a fight to get the Sony name on the machine"

The big PlayStation 30th anniversary interview with Shawn Layden: "It was a fight to get the Sony name on the machine - they didn't want to be associated with it"...

www.neogaf.com

Sony was “lucky to survive” the PS3 era, says ex PlayStation boss Shawn Layden - “PS3 was Sony’s Icarus moment. We flew too close to the sun,”

In an interview with Eurogamer, Layden described the PS3 generation as Sony’s “Icarus moment.” With the success of PS1 and PS2, its third iteration had to be even better. This led to the company using proprietary tech, most notably the Cell processor. While PlayStation’s first party titles...

www.neogaf.com

 

[King Dazzar]

People have been saying for years that there's little gain to be had graphically. And they're always wrong.

 

[Astray]

Why do we take an interview and spread it across multiple threads ArtHands ?

News - [Eurogamer] The big PlayStation 30th anniversary interview with Shawn Layden: "It was a fight to get the Sony name on the machine"

The big PlayStation 30th anniversary interview with Shawn Layden: "It was a fight to get the Sony name on the machine - they didn't want to be associated with it"...

www.neogaf.com

Sony was “lucky to survive” the PS3 era, says ex PlayStation boss Shawn Layden - “PS3 was Sony’s Icarus moment. We flew too close to the sun,”

In an interview with Eurogamer, Layden described the PS3 generation as Sony’s “Icarus moment.” With the success of PS1 and PS2, its third iteration had to be even better. This led to the company using proprietary tech, most notably the Cell processor. While PlayStation’s first party titles...

www.neogaf.com

The funniest part is if OP actually read the interview, he'd see that Shawn is essentially throwing insane shade on Xbox:

Layden: [Laughs] Thanks to your dad. So, one of the first jobs I had when I joined Sony in 1987 was in the PR department in Tokyo, and one of the first things I had to write was a corporate statement about why Sony was going to start building VHS recorders and how we weren't abandoning Betamax. We were just 'expanding our offerings to our consumers to fit their lifestyle needs'. But that's what happened. And my whole life has now gone full circle, because when you have competing formats, competing platforms, competing technologies, there comes a time when we all declare the war is over.

This is why, after the VHS vs Betamax fight, you saw industry consortiums come together for things like compact discs and then DVDs. 'This is the technology we're going to land on. These are the specs around that tech that we're going to agree to.' You might compete on price points and its aesthetics - do you want it in wood or black or orange? - but the real competition will be on its content. And content should be the competition for publishers, not which hardware you get behind. I think we're at a point where the console becomes irrelevant in the next... if not the next generation then the next next generation definitely.

Ask yourself: Who's the Betamax of this situation that needs to give it up already?

The interviewer still didn't get it and asked a follow-up question that essentially boils down to "should VHS makers support Betamax too?", look what Shawn answered him with:

If console hardware becomes somewhat irrelevant, does competing on content see Sony putting PlayStation games on Xbox, as Microsoft has done on PlayStation?

Layden: I don't know what the business imperative would be to do that.

Playstation has been the leader for almost every generation it's been in. You talk about Xbox 360 being a huge competitor with PS3 and, for a while... they got out the gate sooner, they grew a large market. But in the end PlayStation fought to a tie in America and the UK. With Xbox 360 we look at a global footprint and PlayStation is far and away the global leader, because it is the leading platform in 170 countries around the world. Microsoft never had that kind of global reach, so they could never build a global market to the scale that PlayStation does.

So the question you're asking is: should PlayStation, with that huge market lead and the momentum, apparently, going forward, should they build versions of their games to run on a competing platform of much smaller size and scale? As the saying goes, I don't know if the juice is worth the squeeze. How many additional sales would they get versus the brand impact, all the aggro? You know the Sony fanbase gets really upset whenever a game comes out on PC, 18 months after the original release on PlayStation. I never understood that aggro but, you know, it's there. And if that's what they're going to say about a PC release, just imagine what the market would say about Xbox releases from PlayStation Studios.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

I am so tired of future of gaming, or gaming in general, being reduced to GPU, power etc... Think less about ground breaking visuals and performance, and more about arts, story telling, interesting gameplay mechanics, art design etc...

One of these has a much better ROI than the other. Not every game will be Mario 64, and you need A LOT of them to stay top of mind with the customers;

 

[RCU005]

What he says is NOT true, and I've argued it many times!

There are many things that need improvements in games!

First of all, every game this gen doesn't have good physics! They left the physics in the PS3/360 generation. Almost every game looks like a beautiful diorama. Games like The Last of Us Part 2, Horizon Forbidden West, Uncharted 4 have beautiful graphics, but go inside a house, and the curtains, for example, don't move. Everything is static! They also removed a lot or all destructive environments in almost every game! GTA 4 or Killzone 2 were 2 great examples of amazing physics in games.

Animations are also something that need to improve. Enemy AI, World Design, Gameplay.

I really hate that everyone is focusing on 4K/60fps when gaming is MUCH more than that. In fact, if you manage to connect your PS5 to a CRT TV, the game won't change! It would look bad maybe, but what matters in each gen is what the game is made of, not what where you watch the game. (Which is also important, but for a generation improvement, the technology inside the game is more important than the technology from TVs. Otherwise, we would still be in N64 but at 12K/240fps).

I feel like there is a conspiracy against moving forward in gaming. Mark Cerny talked about how SDD would change the way a game would be designed, yet not a single game has released that it's not just a PS4 with better graphics, and it's just used for "faster loading times".

I believe developers have become "lazy" when it comes to innovation. They used to think of new ways to play, to tell stories, to interact with players. This generations has only been about making just games with the same standard recipe.

 

[RCU005]

One of these has a much better ROI than the other. Not every game will be Mario 64, and you need A LOT of them to stay top of mind with the customers;

Games don't need to be extremely expensive. The gaming industry is crazy going into that direction. They are trying to make every game huge, when it fact people want something NEW. I am 100% sure that if someone release a NEW thing, It won't matter if it's a short game. Even if it's something that feels FRESH but not entirely new (as in not a new IP).

The keyword is INNOVATION, but the industry is adamant in killing it.

Look at Nintendo, they manage to sell millions of their games. To me, the most surprising is Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U. It sold about 8 million copies on a console that sold 13 million total.

Why is it that Nintendo sells so many copies, but still not spending huge budgets? That's something that need to be studied by PlayStation and Xbox.

 

[RoboFu]

Gaming needs a major hardware shift for consoles not to disappear in 20 years

 

[Killjoy-NL]

What he says is NOT true, and I've argued it many times!

There are many things that need improvements in games!

First of all, every game this gen doesn't have good physics! They left the physics in the PS3/360 generation. Almost every game looks like a beautiful diorama. Games like The Last of Us Part 2, Horizon Forbidden West, Uncharted 4 have beautiful graphics, but go inside a house, and the curtains, for example, don't move. Everything is static! They also removed a lot or all destructive environments in almost every game! GTA 4 or Killzone 2 were 2 great examples of amazing physics in games.

Animations are also something that need to improve. Enemy AI, World Design, Gameplay.

I really hate that everyone is focusing on 4K/60fps when gaming is MUCH more than that. In fact, if you manage to connect your PS5 to a CRT TV, the game won't change! It would look bad maybe, but what matters in each gen is what the game is made of, not what where you watch the game. (Which is also important, but for a generation improvement, the technology inside the game is more important than the technology from TVs. Otherwise, we would still be in N64 but at 12K/240fps).

I feel like there is a conspiracy against moving forward in gaming. Mark Cerny talked about how SDD would change the way a game would be designed, yet not a single game has released that it's not just a PS4 with better graphics, and it's just used for "faster loading times".

I believe developers have become "lazy" when it comes to innovation. They used to think of new ways to play, to tell stories, to interact with players. This generations has only been about making just games with the same standard recipe.

Iirc Cerny also said that the end-user might not really notice the progression the SSD and I/O system might bring as much as devs will, as it's mostly related to development itself.

 

[Portugeezer]

My man essentially gave himself twenty years to be correct

Hip Hop Gamer had better predictions.

 

[DelireMan7]

One of these has a much better ROI than the other. Not every game will be Mario 64, and you need A LOT of them to stay top of mind with the customers;

I hate Mario (just ignore this comment, I just wanted to say it).

I agree, they can't do only innovative games and need "cookie cutter mainstream game" for sure.
But I have the feeling that the industry is mainly focusing on the latter rather than the former.

 

[onQ123]

This guy haven't shut up in the past few months lol

 

[Northeastmonk]

He talks more about PlayStation than Hermen Hulst does.

What’s strange is you’d think that would mean something more than it apparently does. He’s been with Sony since the late 80’s. He obviously has some insight. Maybe the job at the top of the industry isn’t all that great.

 

[winjer]

Another stupid article about how consoles or PC are going to die.
Modern gaming journalism is a joke.

 

[OverHeat]

He is 100% right…NOT

 

[Little Chicken]

...a world without PlayStation hardware...

 

[OverHeat]

...a world without PlayStation hardware...

Fanboys would finally stop I’m in!

 

[StereoVsn]

You know people can be right about something's and wrong about others.

You know Einstein was right about physics but cheated on his wife all the time.

He just considered cheating in Relative terms…. Ok, I will see myself out. Try the veal.

 

[DaleinCalgary]

When we hit 120 fps and 4k standard then we shall talk.

Then UE6 will hit and we are back to 30fps